Desde la tierra

From an early age children are brought up very differently depending on their gender. The process of discovering the world is a veritable box of surprises in which school, the family and the media programme us about what it is to be a “good” girl or a “good” boy.

The subject is women and their participation in politics, and this is used as a pretext for a humorous, provocative, female perspective on official (male) discourse and the almost nonexistent participation of women in Uruguayan politics.

The engineer Eladio Dieste, the most innovative architect in Uruguay, is interviewed by the architect Mariano Arana. He talks about the ethical responsibility involved in creating, the idea that the things that surround us should be beautiful, and how important it is to use our intelligence and creativity to produce original responses and generate our own ways of thinking.

This documentary examines the problems of Uruguay's Atlantic coast in the face of a scheme to exploit the area's tourist resources that is not geared to sustainable development.

Forty million people and countless species of flora and fauna depend on the rivers of the Rio de la Plata basin. But there is a development initiative, the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway Project, which aims to change the natural courses of these rivers and build a “Super Highway River” for the transport of grain and raw materials. If this project is implemented, what will the consequences be for society and for the environment?

A father tries to make his little daughter understand the reason for his political imprisonment. The jungle serves as an allegory of society and the hunter as its danger.

A woman that is an excellent wife and mother, and responsible and efficient in her work, commits a shameful act pushed by fate.

This is a marsh area in the very heart of the protected wetlands in the east of Uruguay, but today it has almost completely disappeared. A message in the Guaraní language, an "India Muerta" prayer, sounds the alarm about the dire consequences for nature of what human beings are doing.

Idea approaches the figure of Idea Vilariño, considered as one of the greatest Spanish-language female poets. Her literary work, especially her poetry, is acclaimed by critics and public alike, a rare case in the Uruguayan culture scene. With her own testimony, pictures, poems, songs and archive footage, this documentary offers an in-depth look at the essence of Idea Vilariño's poetic universe in a frank adherence to her literary and human posture. Her childhood, her ghosts, her desolate vision of a godless world, the stormy burden of suffering from her relationship with Juan Carlos Onetti and the commitment assumed with the issues of her time define the various facets of this woman.

In the east of Uruguay there is a little-known region of vast wetlands in a beautiful natural setting which is a sanctuary for thousands of species of flora and fauna. Although it is officially protected, it is under threat from rice producers who are draining parts of the area.

Women in an isolated backwater in the countryside tell the story of how they live, and talk about their work in a cooperative that processes wool to make good quality clothing.

The community at Rincón de la Bolsa, just a few kilometres from Montevideo, is suffering from all kinds of environmental problems, and the local people organize and demand solutions.

Selkirk, an unruly, selfish pirate, is the sailing master of the Esperanza, an English galley sailing the South Seas in search of treasures. When Captain Bullock decides to abandon him on an uninhabited island, he discovers a new outlook on the world and learns to survive alone, becoming the real Robinson Crusoe.

Two inmates at Canelones prison fight for a better future, running a voluntary rehabilitation programme.

A documentary film about the production and distribution of uruguayan militant cinema during the 60s

After a long exile in Venezuela, filmmaker Mario Handler returns to his country, Uruguay. There, the dictatorship is still present in the media, public opinion, and in the memory of people. The director feels he owes something to the comrades, those who could not leave the country. This debt translates into poetry, black humor and conscience, in a sharp and accurate atmosphere of this dark time of Uruguay.