GIACOMO PORRA
Filmmaker | Photographer
PHOTOGRAPHY
FILMMAKING
HANDS OF THE SOUTH
STORIES FROM THE BORDER
I have to sell this large bunch of bananas for, like, maybe seven thousand pesos—that's barely enough for the gas to take it up the mountain on my motorbike. I can't even imagine how much they'll sell them for in Bogotá” says Mauricio, a farmer from Sandoná, Nariño, while we walk down a trail with her daughter, Samira. “Fortunately, my land is fertile and provides us with everything we need, but we won't get rich selling our products”. In his steep, volcanic fields, Mauricio cultivates an impressive number of plants. Coffee, avocado, oranges, yuca, papaya, tomatoes, guama, guayaba, granadilla, guanabana, achiote. Many others that I couldn't name.


EL INGENIO, NARIÑO
This report documents the inequalities of rural life in southern Colombia, contrasting it with urban centers. The divide between rural and urban is more pronounced than ever. In rural areas, food and artisanal goods are purchased for little sums, only to be sold at exorbitant prices elsewhere, often exported, stripping them of their cultural context and origins. This project aims to start a critical dialogue about extractivism in production and exportation, raising the fundamental question: who truly benefits from this system?





The village of Sandoná is known to be one of the biggest producers of hand woven Panama Hats. “I am the one who takes the bread to this table” laughs Dalis, Mauricio’s wife. An expert artisan and leader of a women’s weaving cooperative, she oversees more than ten workers. “These sombreros are to be exported, god only knows where, maybe Europe, maybe United States. They sold it to more than 250 dollars each. So, they have to be more than perfect”. Says Dalis while helping one of the artisans re-do some detailed weavings. "They call them Panama Hats, and they think they're made in Ecuador. There's some confusion on the theme." They are made with a local palm, called paja toquilla, dried and sometimes dyed.


PUERTO ASÍS, BAJO PUTUMAYO
“They screw us over, the police kick us out, they don't let us work in peace. They call us illegal miners. The truth is, we're just poor people washing a little dirt to earn our bread. And the big mining industries, nobody bothers them." Juan de Jesus tells me, while showing me how gold is extracted on a beach of the Putumayo River, under the strong sun of southern Colombia, along with his friend Pedro. Since pre-columbian times, this country was known for goldsmithing. The legend of El Dorado is set here, The yellow part of the flag is for the abundance of gold on its subsoil. "Managing to get a gram a day is already a success. If you're diligent, if you work every day, you can live well. You start by separating the larger stones, the smaller chunks of rock, you wash out the dirt and continue until you get to a fine black sand, made of iron, with small, shiny flakes of gold”. After some hours of "washing", we proceed to leave the bochorno (slang for oppressive humidity and heat) with half a cup of sand. While we're picking up our rudimental tools, a huge trucks of a local minery company comes with two men, that rapidly fill up the truck with dirt and rocks. For the final separation, at home, many use mercury. The element amalgamates the tiny flakes of gold, making a sort of liquid mixture of gold and mercury, separated from the iron sand. The mixture gets heated up in a fire, the mercury evaporates. The whole process is extremely toxic: it contaminates the air, the soil, the waters, the communities, the ecosystems, the miners themselves. Note that also "legal" minery uses mercury on the separation process.


SANDONÁ, NARIÑO
"Everybody around here cultivates sugarcane. You can do a lot with it. Here we do panela, that is exported all over the country." Eduardo tells me in a small break within transporting huge buckets of dry cane on his back. We are in a small artesanal panela factory, known as "trapiche". "Can you name a colombian family without a big chunk of panela in its kitchen? Here's where it comes from". The process itself it's kinda sustainable: when the liquid part of the cane is squeezed the remainings are dried and then burned, to cook and refine the juice that comes out from the canes itself. Every part of the process is a hard job. From mixing the boiling syrup, to set the molds, to drying and packing.









ABOUT
Italian freelance filmmaker, photographer and journalist. He worked for years in a communication company in his country: in 2022 he started travelling around Mexico and central America, while doing projects with NGOs, association and organization focused on biodiversity and social themes. Now lives in Bogota, Colombia, and he's developing a project focused on primate conservation.​
+57 310 5875561
