About Lobo Luna Films
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Lobo Luna Films, an independent alternative film cooperative based in Toronto, Canada, is committed to the development, production, and distribution of documentary films that focus on cultural and political expressions of resistance from the disenfranchised or under-represented peoples of the Americas.
Lobo Luna Films was co-founded in 2007, by Raksha L. Villalobos and Marysol de Luna. It is a creative knowledge-sharing venture working between Caracas, Venezuela, and Toronto, Canada. Their mission is to provide accessible and inclusive collaborative production partnerships for alternative and independent documentary filmmakers.
Lobo Luna Films promotes documentaries that explore the heterogeneous textualities of culture: some arising from the practices of every day life, and others from the complex confluence between culture and the politics of resistance. These documentaries challenge the conventional, sometimes controversial, perceptions of culture and politics as conveyed by intransigent institutions, biased mainstream media, and globally irresponsible corporations.
Our featured documentaries are created using hand-held digital video cameras, typically following a guerrilla filming style. Documentary scenes are improvised on-the-spot filming instances that are organic expressions of the people, natural actors telling their own stories, in their own voices, raw and unrehearsed.
Sanoja, Tambor y Canto. Andanzas y memoria de un decimista.
In the great metropolis of Caracas one glimpses the figure of a man, briefcase in hand, walking the streets and weaving its realities from barrio to barrio, from schools to prisons, from the city to the countryside. A Decimista is walking about. This is a brief documentary which portraits the artistic, political, and social maturity of a fighting man who possesses a clear conscience towards life. This is a public life represented through fragments which appear to distinguish themselves from the daily routine and focus on the instances of his art and passion. On the streets they know him as “The Professor,” his friends and family call him Juan, he is Juan Gilberto Sanoja Blanco and he is a Master Decimista.
What is a Decimista?
In Venezuela, a decimista gives voice to the décima, an improvised lyrical form of oral poetry derived from the Spanish lyrical traditions and woven into a syncretic expression of afro Venezuelan popular culture.
Lobo Luna Films, Toronto-Caracas. 2008. (57 minutes).
In Spanish (no subtitles).
Estado Cultural
Estado Cultural explores official and popular perspectives of the state of Venezuelan culture under the Bolivarian administration of president Hugo Chávez Frías. This film is the first in a new testimonial series that documents a true paradigm shift in the notion of culture that is currently transforming Venezuelan society. Expressions and reflections of the Bolivarian people emerge through formal and informal conversations with politically engaged Venezuelan cultural practitioners.
In Spanish (No subtitles).
Canta y cuenta El Caimán
Dicen que en Venezuela, en las montañas del estado Lara, en Sanare, hay un caimán que canta y cuenta cuentos.
El Caimán de Sanare, José Humberto Castillo (1937 – 2010), maestro cuentacuentos y recordado ícono entre cultores venezolanos. Dedicó su vida y obra a la difusión del cuento oral y la cultura campesina.
Sus improvisados cuentos o “mentiritas” son maravillosos relatos que entretejen el conocimiento de la medicina popular con el mito y la leyenda, para destacar la importancia de cuidar la naturaleza.
Este documental presenta reflexiones críticas que reiteran el valor cultural de la obra de José Humberto Castillo, a la vez que preserva selecciones íntegras de su repertorio cuentístico: los improvisados relatos sobre el mundo mágico del Caimán de Sanare.
Songs and Stories of The Caimán
They say that in Venezuela, in the mountains of the state of Lara, in Sanare, there is a caiman
that sings and tells stories.
The Caimán of Sanare, José Humberto Castillo (1937 – 2010), master storyteller and unforgettable icon among Venezuelan cultural practitioners. He dedicated his life and work to popularize the art of oral storytelling and campesino culture.
His improvised stories or “little lies” are marvelous tales that weave together knowledge of popular medicine with myth and legend. to, ultimately, highlight the importance of caring for nature.
this documentary presents critical reflections that reiterate the cultural capital of José Humberto Castillo’s ouvre while preserving integral selections of his storytelling repertoire: the improvised tales from the magical world of the Caimán of Sanare.
Cinematografía y dirección
Victor R. Rivas
Edición y montaje
José Avilé
República Bolivariana de Venezuela
En Español
25 min. con material adicional