The Messengers Have Been Telling Us Something -- But Are We Listening?

There is little doubt in my observations of art and culture that cinema is one of the most powerful mediums for capturing the events of our existence and packaging them in stories that resonate and clarify the reality in which we reside. There is a movie coming out in a few weeks, on October 10, 2014 (the same night that Calle 13 will be at the Warfield in San Francisco!) that will be a powerful example of how film can illuminate and convey stories that are important for understanding our past, our present, and the possibilities in our future. This movie is called Kill The Messenger, and it is about the experience of California based journalist Gary Webb as he broke his Dark Alliance series in 1996 regarding the Nicaraguan Contras, the CIA, and cocaine and crack dealing in California.



This is history that I have been observing in real time since the 1980's when my efforts in Central America solidarity activism taught me in very real terms the sordid reality of US intervention in Central America and other locales around the world.

There are a number of great articles that explore the history and experience of Gary Webb that deserve reading both for the information and as background on the Kill the Messenger film:

The Pariah -- the 1998 story by the incredible writer Charles Bowden.

Hollywood's Gary Webb Movie and the Message that Big Media Couldn't Kill -- a recent story by Narco News founder Al Giordano on his blog The Field about how the story of Gary Webb arrived to the big screen.

Gary Webb: Vindicated -- a recent Narco News story about the perspective of Webb's family on his experience and the soon to be released film.

Managing A Nightmare: How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb -- a recent article on the amazing new national security state newsite The Intercept regarding the recently released documentation that describes how the CIA handled the PR issues around the Dark Alliance story.

The release and distribution of this film will be important -- one hopes that we can hear the messenger!

Speaking of Messengers...another film that is awaiting release and distribution is the new film Aluna.

This is the film that is the follow up to the amazing BBC documentary about the Kogi people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia (see embed below) entitled Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers Warning.

The message was clear decades ago when the Kogi first endeavored to try to communicate to us little brothers about what we are doing to the lifesystems of our planet.

When will we listen? Aluna the Movie looks to be a really good opportunity once again for film to help wake up the mass of people in human society that simply seem to not only have no compass, they really seem to be resistant to hearing the words of the messengers. I think these films will help.

You can see the trailer to Aluna on Vimeo.

Watch the original of Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers Warning.