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Out of body

Background

Ereira worked at the BBC on television and radio from 1965, contributing documentaries.  One of his most notable documentaries was called  The Heart of The World: Elder Brother's Warning (1990) made for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

In this film he documented his unique visits to the Kogi people of Colombia, an indigenous ('Indian') ethnic group which survived attempts by the Spanish conquerors to destroy them by retreating high up in the mountainous area of the Sierra Nevada where they live. These meetings were only allowed by the Kogi Mamos who normally restrict any direct interaction with the modern world. In Ereira's case the Mamos made an exception as they saw him as the filmmaker they wanted to convey their message to the world.

Ereira regards the Kogi as unique amongst indigenous peoples in the Americas in that they have managed to retain their traditional culture almost entirely intact. Since the 1980s, the Kogi have warned, on the basis of their observation of ecological changes in the Sierra Nevada, that the world is facing an ecological catastrophe.

They asked Ereira to make his films about them in order to warn the rest of the world (and particularly the West) that it needs to radically change its way of living, and its exploitative attitude to the natural world, if it is to avert this catastrophe. Ereira later wrote about the filming of the documentary in his book The Heart of the World (1990). This book has been republished and retitled as The Elder Brothers (1992) and The Elder Brothers' Warning (2009),

Aluna is the sequel documentary to The Heart of The World: Elder Brother's Warning it was made by an indigenous film crew and the Kogi Mamos in collaboration with Ereira. This is to be the final warning to the world by the Kogi Mamos as it is apparent to them that the world did not heed their original warning in the first documentary. The indigenous film crew was necessary as a modern film crew couldn't see "so that what the modern film crew cannot see may appear to the camera".

The source of the experience

Concepts

Symbols

Science Items

Activities

Overloads

Commonsteps

References

This youtube link may not last long but whilst it does this is an extract from the documentary LINK

This LINK takes you to Alan talking about Aluna

This is the ALUNA trailer

And this is the link to the ALUNA main webite