Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians

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Friday, February 20th, 2015
7:00 PM to 9:15 PM

Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians is a story about the Wixárika People, one of the last pre-Hispanic cultures in Latin America, and their ongoing struggle against the mexican government and multinational mining corporations to preserve Wirikuta, their most sacred territory and home of the famous peyote cactus.

Since 2010, Canadian mining projects received the concessions to prospect the whole area, rich in silver and other valuable minerals. The company promises to create thousand of jobs for the needy villagers of the region but the mining activities are seen by the Wixárika and their supporters as a great menace for the delicate biodiversity of this unique ecosystem.

This unequal and controversial fight triggers the global debate between ancient cultural values, the exploitation of nature and the inevitable development of the peoples.

Cinema Politica Nanaimo is presented by the Mid Island Council of Canadians and our campus sponsor the VIU Faculty Association Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee.

This screening is part of the Cinema Politica Network’s Divine Interventions project. Divine Interventions: Documentary, Spirituality and Social Justice explores the intersection of social justice and spirituality in documentary cinema. As a sidebar program of documentary screenings, the project looks at the roles spirituality, religion and secularism play in fostering or inhibiting a plurality of perspectives, understanding across cultural, religious, and ethnic borders, and participation in social causes, campaigns and movements.