‘Cinema is like a bridge’: the Amazon’s first floating film festival brings Indigenous stories to the big screen

Travelling on a solar-powered boat, the Kanua festival is showing 29 films from nine countries to communities in Ecuador

“I’m a bit nervous,” says Milena Piaguaje, a 19-year-old director from the Ecuadorian Amazon. On a warm evening in the small town of Puerto Misahuallí, Piaguaje and her friend and fellow director Magdalena Quenamá are preparing to show their films to a festival audience for the first time.

Quenamá, 19, from the A’i Cofán community of Dureno, says her film, Chimindi’s Vision (Chimindi Athe’pa), “is a call-out for the youngsters of my community, which is gradually losing its traditions”. In it, she explores the practice of accessing the spiritual world through the consumption of a sacred drink called yoco.

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