SILVER

[DIEU EST UNE FEMME]
In this powerfully self-reflexive documentary, Swiss-Panamanian filmmaker Andrés Peyrot embeds himself alongside the Indigenous Kuna people in Panama's Guna Yala islands to document their efforts to recover the lost film GOD IS A WOMAN. Made in 1975 while observing the Kuna's matrilocal society by the acclaimed anthropologist Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (best known for creating the Academy Award®–winning documentary SKY ABOVE AND MUD BENEATH), the documentary, which Gaisseau promised to share with the community, was subsequently confiscated by its funders and never seen by the subjects. After elements are uncovered in Paris, Peyrot follows the endeavors of Kuna elders trying to track down the missing movie and those of the local intellectual Arysteides Turpana and a younger Kuna generation determined to tell their own stories. Expertly walking the line between capturing the community's desire to see the lost film — which in many ways they consider their own — and avoiding a repetition of Gaisseau's representational missteps, Peyrot conducts a moving, layered investigation into why documentaries are made, who they are for and why seeing oneself reflected on the big screen has such power. Official Selection, 2023 Venice and Toronto film festivals. DIR/SCR/PROD Andrés Peyrot; SCR Elizabeth Wautlet; PROD Johan De Faria, Sébastien Deurdilly, Brieuc Dréano, Bénédicte Perrot. Panama/France/Switzerland, 2023, color, 86 min. In Spanish and Kuna with English subtitles. NOT RATED

No AFI Member passes accepted.