Subversive Diversity
a film by Jan-Holger Hennies
When Spanish colonisation arrived in the territory that today is known as Mexico, more than 200 languages were spoken by its inhabitants. By now only 68 languages still survive and migration has brought many of them deep into the country’s urban centres. Here, the languages continue to be heard because some speakers refuse to let them disappear. In the face of centuries of repression and enforced silence they become a re-connection with memory, a proof of resistance and a subversion of the power relations that were founded in the colonial experience and carried forth in the modern nation state.
credits
Direction, camera, editing: Jan-Holger Hennies
Idea and concept: Fabián Bonilla López, Uriel Nute Kuijin, Jan-Holger Hennies
Narration: Fabián Bonilla López
Translation: Emanuel Crisanto, Fabián Bonilla López, Uriel Nute Kuijin
With financial support by:
“Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community”
A consortium led by the University of Manchester
Open World Research Initiative (OWRI)
Arts & Humanities Research Council
Language: Tu’un Savi, Didza Shon and Spanish with English subtitles
UK/Mexico 2017, Full HD, 13 minutes
festivals and screenings
2019
Indigenous Film Screenings for International Mother Language Day, London, UK
2018
Native Spirit Film Festival, London, UK
SEF Festival, Zadar, Croatia
FIFEQ – Festival International du Film Etnographique du Québec, Québec, Canada
Language and Identity Explorations through Film, OWRI Film Screening, Manchester, UK
Centro Cultural José Martí, Mexico City, Mexico