June 2011
Social activist, producer and director Ivan Sanjinés has dedicated his life work to the development of indigenous and intercultural communication. He is the founding director of the Cinematography Education and Production Center/Centro de Formación y Realización Cinematográfica (CEFREC) in La Paz, Bolivia. CEFREC works with the Bolivian Indigenous Peoples Audiovisual Council/ Coordinadora Audiovisual Indígena Originaria de Bolivia (CAIB). Together the two organizations lead Bolivia’s National Indigenous Aboriginal and Campesino Intercultural Communication System, a non-profit nationwide training and production initiative launched in 1996. In 2010 the initiative founded an independent indigenous advocacy news agency, the Agencia Plurinacional de Comunicación (APC), and its multimedia website (www.apcbolivia.org).
Since 1983 Sanjinés has engaged in socially-conscious media production training in Bolivia. His work with migrant Aymara women living in El Alto, La Paz, led to the founding of CEFREC in 1989. His collaborative production approach has been instrumental in building partnerships and securing funding for diverse media projects. In 1998 and 1999 CEFREC worked with CAIB to produce the first documentaries and fictional works by indigenous filmmakers in Bolivia. In 2001 Sanjinés spearheaded the establishment of a regional community radio and television project, Norte La Paz, now Bolivia’s first indigenous television channel. The two organizations also produce Between Cultures/EntreCulturas, a weekly series broadcast on Bolivian national television, BoliviaTV, since 2002.
From 1996-2004 Sanjinés headed Latin American Coordination of Indigenous Peoples’ Film and Communication/Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de Pueblos Indígenas (CLACPI), directing CLACPI’s tenth festival, held in Bolivia in 2008, and providing video workshops in indigenous communities in Bolivia, Paraguay, and northwest Argentina. CLACPI festival works are also screened annually in Spain through the film showcase El Universo Audiovisual de los Pueblos Indígenas. Sanjinés is also coordinator of the Anaconda Award (Premio Anaconda al Video Indígena Amazónico del Chaco y los Bosques Tropicales de América Latina y el Caribe), a bi-annual showcase touring indigenous communities in the tropical regions of South America, for which the community audiences vote to select the award winners.
Sanjinés has presided over the Platform for Communication Rights in the Information Society in Bolivia and participates in the Bolivian section of the World Association of Community Radio (AMARC). He studied documentary film and media in France, Bolivia, and Spain. In 1984 he was a founding member of the New Bolivian Film and Video Movement (Movimiento del Nuevo Cine y Video Boliviano) and its Executive Director in 1991. He currently serves on the boards of the Bolivian Cinema Foundation and Wapikoni Mobile (Canada). He has received numerous awards including an Ashoka Fellowship (1999), the Bicentennial Award of La Paz (2009) and a lifetime achievement award from the House of Representatives of the Chaco Province of Argentina, presented at the region’s 2010 Indigenous Film Festival. He lives and works in La Paz.
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Audience
at Club Red Radio, 2000 Native American Film and
Video Festival - photograph by Amalia Córdova, NMAI
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