>

83. Canto a los Caídos [Song To The Fallen]
Written by Jorge Coulón Larrañaga, Luis Advis and José Seves Sepúlveda
Music by Luis Advis
Performed by Inti-Illimani
From the CD Viva Chile/Hacia La Libertad [Hacia La Libertad was originally released in 1975, and was reissued on CD in 1990 by Monitor International]
Contact the artists via: http://www.gamisim.com/artist/intiillimani

 

 

Una mano del fuego hizo herramienta
y detrás de sus pasos dejó caminos
y de tierra y de fuego pan hace el hombre
y el pan, antes que trigo, es mano que siembra.

Y detrás de sus pasos dejó caminos.
Hay torrentes que corren bajo la tierra,
como muerte que en vida germinará.
Así arde en las venas una palabra.
Su palabra creciendo,
un sol nuevo alimenta cada mirada
como trigo sembrado,
cuando hay junto a una mano manos hermanas,
hermanada conciencia
cuando contra el tirano se alza la Patria,
cuando contra el tirano se alza la Patria.
Un sol nuevo alimenta cada mirada
un sol nuevo alimenta cada mirada
cuando hay junto a una mano manos hermanas,
cuando se alza la Patria contra el traidor.

Un día el cobre se alzará
y en las entrañas del carbón
temblará el grito contenido de la tierra.
¡Para el traidor no habrá perdón!

Un día el cobre se alzará
y en las entrañas del carbón
temblará el grito contenido de la tierra.
¡Para el traidor no habrá perdón!



One: On Inti-Illimani


Inti-Illimani (Ayamara dialect: Inti - sun; Illimani - mountain near La Paz, Bolivia and pronounced Inte-E-gee-mane).
Inti-Illimani are Latin America’s pre-eminent radical folk group. Here’s an introduction to them, sourced from their website, www.gamisim.com.

‘For four decades Inti-Illimani's music has intoxicated audiences around the globe. In 2007, Inti-Illimani celebrates its 40th anniversary and the release of Pequeño Mundo, its forty-third album. Wedded in traditional Latin American roots and playing on more than 30 wind, string and percussion instruments, Inti-Illimani's compositions are a treasure for the human spirit. Their mellifluous synthesis of instrumentals and vocals captures sacred places, people's carnivals, daily lives, loves and pains that weave an extraordinary cultural mural.

Known for their open-minded musical approach, the ‘Intis’ had a much different mission in mind when they met in the 60s at Santiago Technical University - to become engineers. Luckily for the world, their love of music encouraged their restless souls to explore the indigenous cultures of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina. In some of the poorest, purest and most ancient cultures they discovered Andean music and in a sense their roots. Inti-Illimani's music became Latin America's visceral link between pueblo and people, vivified in Nueva Canción.

In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende was deposed while Inti-Illimani was on tour in Europe. The young musicians found themselves without patria or passport. Italy became their home for the next 14 years. In 1988, they were warmly welcomed back to Chile, moving home permanently in 1990. Inti-Illimani became, and remains, South America's ambassadors of human expression. Their unique sound -- forged with passion and poetry is a mantra for peace in the world and within ourselves.

Jorge Coulon, the group's founding member, in an interview stated: ‘We have never been so political that it was propaganda. We are not a political group in that sense, but we have always been politically engaged. We have a concept of society and about the relationships between human beings, and we try to translate our ideas into our sound, not to be part of one political party or another but in the sense to bring about a better world.’

In addition to its tours and recordings, in 2004 Inti-Illimani's music was used for the award winning documentary Devil's Miner, a moving portrait of 14 year old Basilio Vargas and his 12 year old brother Bernardino as they work in the Bolivian silver mines of Cerro Rico.’



Two: On Miguel Littin [part two]

Canto a los Caídos was used by Miguel Littin in his 1973 movie La Tierra Prometida - The Promised Land. You can watch a clip from
the film at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C7gMs-LvsU

And on the subject of Miguel Litten, here is something on his more recent work from IPS [ipsnews.net] in August 2004, titled Wall of Shame to be Used as a Screen, by Gustavo González

‘SANTIAGO, Aug 21 (IPS) - Chilean director Miguel Littin plans to complete his film ‘La última luna’ (The Last Moon) in September, aiming to release it in Chile this year and also project it onto the ’wall of shame’ that the Israeli government is building to close off the Palestinian West Bank.

The film deals with the friendship between a Palestinian and an Israeli and was shot in Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2003. Littin will now be able to complete production thanks to a state grant he won from Chile's National Arts Fund (FONDART).

Littin, of Palestinian origin, is one of Chile's most internationally well-known film makers, with many films to his name. His career kicked off in 1969 with El Chacal de Nahueltoro (The Jackal of Nahueltoro) which was considered the best Chilean film of the 20th century in a survey of critics. The film maker went into exile following Chile's coup d'etat in 1973 -- the same year La Tierra Prometida (The Promised Land) was released. Later, in Mexico, he filmed Actas de Marusia (Letters from Marusia), based on a novel by writer and songwriter Patricio Manns, where Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté played the lead.

In 1978, Littin presented El recurso del método, inspired by the book of the same name by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, and in 1979 La viuda Montiel (the Widow Montiel), based on a story by Colombian Nobel Literature Prizewinner Gabriel García Márquez. Both films starred Chilean actor Nelso Villagra, star also of El chacal de Nahueltoro.

Alsino y el Cóndor (Alsino and the Condor) followed in 1982, a feature filmed in Nicaragua while that Central American country was governed by the leftist Sandinistas, although it was inspired by the classic novel by Chile's Pedro Prado.

Back in Chile following the return of democracy in March 1990, Littin produced Los Náufragos (the Castaways) in 1995, then travelled abroad again to make Sandino, a mega-production on the life of Nicaragua's national hero Augusto César Sandino, also released in 1995.

But both Sandino and Tierra del Fuego, another high budget film, released in 2000, fell foul of the critics. Littin also made documentaries, starting in 1971 with Compañero Presidente (Comrade President), dedicated to Salvador Allende - the socialist president overthrown in the third year of his presidency in 1973 by General Augusto Pinochet.

In 1985 he presented Acta general de Chile (Final Statement on Chile) on European television. He filmed this documentary about the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile after entering the country under a false identity. The story of this event was told in all its details by García Márquez in his book ‘La Aventura de Miguel Littin Clandestino en Chile’ (Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littin).

Littin was born in Palmilla, around 200 kilometres south of Santiago, in 1942. He has never failed to identify with his Palestinian roots and his political vocation led him to become mayor of his hometown for two terms in the 1990s with the backing of the co-governing Socialist Party.

In 2001 he returned to his documentary bent with Crónicas palestinas (A Palestinian Chronicle) dealing with the second Intifada (popular uprising) in the territories occupied by Israel. Now, with La última luna (The Last Moon), Littin is keeping the Palestinian territories in view while returning to fictionwith a project that seeks to delve into the crucial issue of coexistence between Arabs and Jews.

The director has said the film ‘deals with the problems between Israelis and Palestinians. It is hard-hitting and is tremendously relevant to the moment, with regards to the problem experienced by these two peoples.’ The script is spoken in Arabic and Hebrew and will be subtitled for screening in Chile and elsewhere, although the Palestinians will see the original if Littin is able to pull off his plan of using the West Bank wall as a screen.

There are three Chileans in the cast: Francisca Merino, Alejandro Goic and Tamara Acosta, and filming was completed under extremely difficult conditions in the occupied territories, in locations such as Bethlehem, Bait Sahur and Beit Yala.

‘Curfews could be imposed at any time, highways could be closed and we would be unable to leave the hotel. We had to improvise work schedules day by day,’ Littin said in a radio interview on Radio Cooperativa de Santiago. ‘Israeli helicopters were flying overhead, their guns aiming down, while we were filming,,’ he said. In Littin's opinion, the nine-metre high barrier being built by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon ‘does not separate Israel from Palestine, but fragments Palestine itself, making it an inhuman measure which goes against all the rights of man.’

The wall ‘does not contribute in the least to stopping individual terrorism, rather in itself it constitutes an atrocious manifestation of state terrorism,’ he concluded.’’



Three: On Chileans in Palestine

And on the subject of Chileans in Palestine, there is this, ‘PALESTINIAN CHILEAN’, from the website TripAtlas.com [’Discover the world. Share your experience.’] at www.tripatlas.com/Palestinian_Chilean

‘Among the Chileans of Arab origin (around 500,000), Palestinians make up the largest group. Most of them can trace their origins to four mainly Christian villages: Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and Beit Safafa (the latter being within Jerusalem city limits since 1980). Chile has the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world, consisting of up to 5% of the population. Around 81% of Palestinian immigrants settled in Chile between 1900 and 1930.

During their first years in America, the community opted for endogamous marriages, since there was a hostile environment towards them. However, after some years prosperity and social integration came. For instance, in 1970, 70% of the weddings were with people from outside of the community. During the 40s came the first political positions, and already in the 60s some families with Palestinian origins such as the Yarur and Sumar, came to be known as synonymous with wealth.’

 

 

<   >