Information in English

ORIGINAL TITLE Este maldito país
ENGLISH TITLE This Damn Country
GENRE Documentary
RUNNING TIME 78 minutes
FORMAT Digital Video
NATIONALITY Ecuador/ Brazil
YEAR OF PRODUCTION 2008

Script and direction: Juan Martín Cueva
Cinematographer: François “Coco” Laso.
Edition: Juan Fernando López
Direct Sound: León Felipe Troya
Sound Post-production: Juan José Luzuriaga
Production Director: Cecilia Araújo
Executive Production: Malu Viana, Televisión América Latina
Field Production: Mónica Jácome y Soledad Santelices
Color correction and finishing video: Daniel Andrade
Graphic Design: Aurelio Valdez
Promotion and festivals: Iván Márquez

SHORT SYNOPSIS

The film is an analytical reflection about certain distinguishing traits that could define the Ecuadorians. Miscegenation is the theme that drives the narration.
Is Ecuadorian society essentially composed of mestizos (of mixed race)? What is a mestizo?
Different life stories are intertwined in this film that doesn’t expect to find the answers, but rather to bring out into the open issues that haven’t been solved in terms of the way Ecuador has been defined as a society, or the way Ecuadorians relate to their subjectivity.


DETAILED SYNOPSIS

The film is an analytical reflection about certain distinguishing traits that could define the Ecuadorians. Miscegenation is the theme that drives the narration. The film is based on the questions: Is Ecuadorian society essentially composed of mestizos (of mixed race)? What is a mestizo?

Although the film doesn’t expect to find the definite answers to these questions, which would only be simplistic and partial, the documentary interweaves several ideas around these issues.

Different life stories are intertwined in this film seeking to bring out into the open issues that haven’t been solved in terms of the way Ecuador has been defined as a society, or the way Ecuadorians relate to their subjectivity.

The idea that has been the most accepted in Ecuador and that derives from the social sciences of the past century, is that Ecuador is basically composed of three ethnical and cultural groups that have been mixed in the past 5 hundred years: Indians, Blacks and White Europeans.

What this film is able to show, thanks to the characters who have had to face circumstances in their lives that have made them specially sensitive to identity matters, is that reality is much more complex. Miscegenation is not only a mixture of ethnical traits, nor a process that took place and has come to an end. It is a complex game that has something to do with ethnical matters, but also with cultural, economical, psychological, social matters, etc. It is also a game that goes on, a process that doesn’t come to an end and that continues to define who we are, our identities. As someone says in this film, identity is no more than certain ideas we have about who we think we are.

We move from the writer of Lebanese origin (Jorge Enrique Adoum) to a black marimba player from Esmeraldas who grew up with the Chachis Indians (Guillermo Ayoví, “Papá Roncón”), from the Indian leader who tells us the story of her family in the discriminating reality of the haciendas (Lourdes Tibán) to the gay activist from Quito’s new generation. These life stories and reflections given by the characters enrich the debate, they make it both a sensitive and rational issue; they show us new nuances and invite the audience to look at themselves and to think of themselves in a different way.