Viewing entries tagged
culture
The Devil’s Road has been selected as a Finalist in the fifth season of jellyFEST Film Festival
Once a year, the jellyFEST celebrates original storytellers and audiences. Their biannual program includes live action, animation and documentary short and feature films showcasing emerging new voices and fresh perspectives.
Learn more at https://www.thejellyfest.com/
The Devil's Road Wins Honorable Mention in the Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival
AIMAFF has a monthly format to showcase and award more films in a shorter amount of time, leading to immediate award and selection notifications. Each month different creators submit their films. At the end of the year, the 12 monthly winners compete for the annual award of BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR.
The Devil’s Road is pleased to announce its being named an Official Selection of India’s Kalakari Film Festival, one of India’s premiere film festivals!
Kalakari is an exclusive film festival of India for upcoming artists and thinkers, with the most prestigious awards given for animation, visual effects, and photography across the Indian sub-continent and beyond. The event has grown significantly since its founding and has become a springboard for showcasing talent from across the globe.
Kalakari is affiliated with NGO Helping Hands, and our film submission also helped supply five food packages to poor families in India.
More details on the 2021 festival are forthcoming.
Learn more about the Kalakari Film Festival here.
Learn more about the festival here: https://www.glendaleinternationalfilmfestival.com/
Guest blog by Associate Producer Bri Bruce
Awake before the others, Papa and I decided to go for a drive to see the area. We headed north toward La Pastora, through a sparsely built area, then drove out to a beach where several cars (including a school bus that had been converted to an RV) were parked in the sand. There were several surfers in the water beyond the rocky beach and we stood watching them for a while, noting they were wearing wetsuits in the much cooler water. We returned south, heading for Pescadero, and wound through the hills and dirt roads there, stopping at another beach, this time deserted. ATV tracks scarred the beach, not a person in sight. The beach was not conducive to swimming—or surfing—as the step beach caused the waves to double over and break right on the shore.
Continuing south again, we came to Cerritos, taking a dirt road from Mex19 to the ocean. Between the two large hotels on the stretch of beach, we found a smaller road that dead-ended into a series of tents and umbrellas. There were vendors selling hats and jewelry, tourists lounging about in beach chairs. Several stands of surfboards were propped up, with signs reading “Rentals” and “Lessons.” After doing a quick scan of the boards, and talking to a few of the people offering rentals, I found a stand to come back to tomorrow.
After a late breakfast back at the complex, JT and Papa left to film on the bikes, so Heidi, Jade, and I walked around Todos Santos’s historic district to visit a few museums and galleries. We stopped for some fresh fruit with chili and lime at the mission before heading back to plan the rest of the trip’s filming.
Guest blog by Associate Producer Bri Bruce
Rose before the sun, an orange glow from the east across the gulf. The shorebreak echoed like thunder through the night, booming and reverberating against the stucco walls of the nearby houses. I took a short walk to the steps above the beach just as the sun was rising, creating a bright, eye-tearing glare off the water. There were already two surfers out at the rocky point, and I watched as they caught wave after wave, unencumbered. Their strokes were steady as they paddled back out to the lineup, then fluidly slid into the curling mouths of aqua waves rolling toward the shore. I was nearly giddy with excitement.
Sunrise on the East Cape.
Steer skull on the entryway.
On the walk back to the condo and while looking at the neighboring houses, I thought how strange it was (and what a feat of engineering, really) that these communities pop up all over Baja seemingly out of nowhere and in the middle of nowhere, so far from any central hub of a town or city. And most, if not all, have modern amenities--running water, electricity, cable, even wifi. On previous trips, calling home was unheard of. Checking email? Forget it. You were MIA for the duration of your stay. Completely disconnected. I prefer it that way. What happened to the simple life? Pura vida? Beachfront palapas, sleeping in the sand, catching fish or diving for rock scallops to feed yourself and your family, trucking in and storing water in 50-gallon drums, rise with the sun, sleep when its dark. . . . For such a long time this was, in my opinion, part of the allure of Baja: its harshness. You had to be okay with roughing it and going a few days or more without a shower, or devise creative ways to entertain yourself to pass the hottest part of the day. Sure, it was not an existence of convenience and undoubtedly many will disagree with my opinion. One travels to Baja to do just that: go to Baja. Immerse yourself in the sights, the culture. Why the need to bring home with you? Is it just a matter of comfort? How many resources are wasted for these kinds of conveniences? I can only imagine the waste associated with larger resorts and hotels along the cape.
Baja is far from being Cabo; it is not Cancun. I hope it never will be, yet I can't help but fear it's evolution into a tourist destination is unstoppable.
Yes, the local economy benefits from tourism, but at the cost of Baja, its natural resources, flora and fauna. Large populations of tourists demand modern conveniences. This could mean a depletion of naturally occurring fresh water sources, or desalination plants for fresh water (at the cost of plant and animal life on land as well as already-sensitive marine life due to the resulting toxic brine), unsustainable (and perhaps unregulated) fishing practices, erosion, habitat destruction for fragile endemic species... the list goes on.
But is there a way to meld ecological preservation and tourism more seamlessly? Or does opulence breed opulence? Will one always outweigh the other?
The World Conservation Union defines eco-tourism as "Environmentally responsible travel to natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and accompanying cultural features, both past and present) that promote conservation, have a low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local peoples."
One of our goals in making this film was to capture the beauty of Baja as it was at the turn of the last century, how it is now, and show what will happen if this region is forever at the mercy of those that want to exploit it. We are, at our core, eco-tourists, wanting to make as small an environmental impact as we can, enrich ourselves with Baja's culture, and appreciate it's beauty. We also want to share with the world all that defines Baja in hopes that our passion for it is contagious. To quote a number of conservation organizations, we protect the places we are most passionate about. Maybe we strike a chord in someone, or in a group of people. Maybe we bring to the surface all of the change over the last century, or of the importance of the work that Nelson and Goldman did for Baja's natural history. Maybe. We remain hopeful.
Carolina Shepard-Espinoza, Director of the Bahia de los Angeles Natural History and Cultural Museum, talks about some of the economic changes she's witnessed over the past 44 years.
A midden is an archaeological feature created by the dumping of human refuse.
Here, thousands of mollusk shells were discarded by Native Americans on Isla Cerralvo in Baja California, creating a mound that still exists today.
19th century naturalists E.W. Nelson and E.A. Goldman investigated the cloth and dye manufacturing industry in Magdalena Bay that was driven by the harvest of the unique Orchilla Lichen. The industry crashed when manufacturers moved over to artificial dyes.
