 WAR
TAKES with Patricia Castaño
Letter from the Directors – Adelaida
Trujillo and Patricia Castaño
 Filmmakers
are expected to be behind the camera trying to be objective and
to describe what they see and understand from reality. That is what
we have done for the last sixteen years producing a wide range of
quality, meaningful television programs in and about Colombia, for
local and international audiences.
In the last years, however, as the Colombian social, political and
economic situation became very critical, we felt the need to point
the camera at us and ask ourselves many questions about how we are
facing the conflict in our country; how do we explain its evolution
into the present situation; have we changed or is reality today
very different from when we started recording the Colombian situation
over a decade ago?
In 1987, we set out to the remote coca-planted areas
in the Caguán River and La Macarena, far away in the Colombian
Amazon basin. At the time very few people knew much about the area,
the people, the number of peasants involved or its relation with
the FARC marxist guerrilla.
We made there our first 16mm documentary, Law of the
Jungle (ZDF/CH4/ RTVE, 1989) which has become a landmark on the
subject, more so during the last government ( 1998-2002), when the
Caguán became a household name in Colombia, as the "distension
area" (the size of Switzerland) ceded to the FARC as the first
step in a peace process which started in January 1999 and did not
move anywhere. On the contrary, the war spread through the rest
of the country and became a harsh reality, not as a civil war would,
for the civilian society at large is not siding with guerrillas
or paramilitaries, but as their main unarmed...target: we are the
victims of massacres, kidnaps, bombings.
To make things worse, the Americans are here! In August
of 2001, President Clinton visited Colombia to start the Plan Colombia;
this is basically military aid, to support the war against drugs
(and against the guerrillas, evidently, for drugs money is one of
the main sources of income for them -the other being kidnapping).
We are then facing a number of dilemmas (between the
devil and the deep blue sea):
We come from a liberal-minded, educated upper class
with all the privileges, risks and contradictions (good and bad)
this entails in a Latin American country like Colombia.
We would like a better society and have always been
committed through our work to reaching that aim. But how further
away are we from achieving a better society now?
We have become disenchanted with the Colombian guerrilla
movement because of the way they have devised to reach power (drug
money, kidnaps, extortion) and because nothing seems as far from
a "democratic" society than their means of dealing with
problems: authoritarian, stalinistic, vertical and with no respect
for any humanitarian principles; euphemisms instead of truths.
We do not want a powerful US supported Army, fighting
a "war against drugs" or a “war against terrorism”
with no chance of being successful either against the drug trade
or the guerrillas. This will strengthen the guerrillas’ peasant
support and encourage "nationalistic" undertones, which
might blur the real implications of the guerrilla power.
War Takes tries to picture this complex situation
in a country stigmatised by the international media. It also shows
another point of view of the upper classes in our continent; it
challenges the stereotypes and shows the real day to day life of
the urban dwellers of a country’s democracy, full of creative
people and initiatives that are internationally known. But never
make the mainstream media abroad.
We also hope War Takes shows not only the harsh
reality, but mainly the hope we all live with in trying to make
our country a better place for all.
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