Brickmakers (Chircales)

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An essential and highly influential classic for years to come, restored by the Arsenal Institut fur film und videokunst (Berlin). One of the first documentary works by Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva, Chircales is the product of two of the most prominent and rebellious voices of the New Latin American Cinema.

Rabidly current, Chircales is an exercise for a film production methodology that could be adapted to the sociopolitical conditions of Latin America. Using the framework of “participant observation,” Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva integrated themselves into the community of brickmakers with the Castañeda family to offer a more honest and complex portrait of feminist activism and Indigenous resistance.

Depicting the shocking poverty, domestic abuse, and exploitation of indigenous women and children in Tunjuelito, a neighborhood in southern Bogotá, Chircales chronicles the life of the Castañeda family for five years. The documentary shows the regime of exploitation to which it is subjected by the landowners of large farms from whom they were renting land for artisanal brick production.

In capturing these experiences, Rodríguez and Silva also created a methodology for documentary cinema in conditions of political violence that has been studied and replicated by filmmakers since then.

"Recommended. An emotional approach to exposing the systems that feign ignorance to labor and economic injustices within its borders and does so with a unique and engaging vision." — Sam Buechler, Student Success Librarian, Washington State University Vancouver, EMRO

"I'm sadly convinced that if Marta Rodríguez weren't a woman from Colombia, her films would be more widely recognized as landmarks of nonfiction cinema. The release of Chircales in a remastered digital edition will help make amends. Depicting the shocking poverty, domestic abuse, and exploitation of indigenous women and children in southern Colombian highlands of Cauca, Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva's first documentary bears the traits of Marxist cinema that they would later abandon. And while the labor and craft of brick makers has been a source of fascination to filmmakers as diverse as Harun Farocki (In Comparison), Alain Tanner (Une ville à Chandigarh) and Paul Meyer (Klinkaart), Rodríguez and Silva bring a rigorous methodology to their subject that is as compassionate as it is unflinching." — Josh Siegel, Curator, The Museum of Modern Art

"One of the most rebellious pieces of Latin American documentary cinema of the second half of the 20th century." — Filmin

"Recognized for its originality and beauty as a quite exceptional fusion of politics, visual poetry, and ethnographic documentary." — Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film

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Main credits

Rodriguez, Martha (film director)
Rodriguez, Martha (film producer)
Rodriguez, Martha (narrator)
Silva, Jorge (film director)
Silva, Jorge (film producer)
Silva, Jorge (narrator)

Other credits

Cinematography, Jorge Silva; music, Martha Rodríguez.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

brickmakers, new latin american cinema, participant observation, Tunjuelito, Bogotá, labor, Marta Rodriguez, spanish, spanish language, latin america, latin american cinema, latin american film, ibero america, latin, latinx, latino, latina,,classic films, cult films, film degree, film major, media studies, film and media studies, film and television studies, film production studies, cinema studies, film history, cinema history, black and white films, silent films, talkies, film music, film accompaniment, early cinema, early 20th century cinema, birth of cinema, birth of color cinema, technicolor, kinemacolor, magic lantern, camera obscura,economics, social class, money, capital, capitalism, class, economy, prejudice, intersectionality, inequality, poverty, income gap, wage gap, class warfare, elitism, snobbery, bourgeois, poverty, upper class, middle class, lower class, nouveau riche,labor studies, employment studies, workers rights, workers’ rights, organizing, labor unions, trade unions, unions, industry, employment law, working class, labor rights, labor equity, employment, union organizing, labor organizing, labor rights movements, employment rights movements, workers’ rights movement, workers rights movements,cinema studies, film studies, cinema, film, movies, motion pictures, film history, film production, film criticism, cinema history, cinema production, cinema criticism, movie history, movie production, movie criticism, history of cinema, history of film,anthropologically, cultural anthropology, forensic anthropology, anthropologist, human nature, physical anthropology, ethnocentric, ethnography, functionalism, cultures, societies, human people, human society, functionalism, globalization, ideology, pragmatism, dogmatism, social change, society,child, children, childhood, kid, girl, girlhood, boy, boyhood, teen, teenager, puberty, adolescence, adolescent, coming-of-age, minor, kiddo, kids, juvenile, stripling, moppet, tyke, tween, tot, toddler, sonny, girlie, underaged, dependent, youngster, infancy, babyhood, girlhood, boyhood, friendships, juvenescence, juvenility, springtime, early life,sociology, anthropology, psychology, sociological, sociological perspectives, conflict theory, human conflicts, sociological thinking,conflict perspective, topics in sociology, sociology topics, sociology studies, social studies, people and cultures, human relations, human relationships, cultural studies, culture studies ,short films, short film, short, non-feature, run time, short run time, running time, short running time, live-action short, documentary short, animated short, live-action short film, documentary short film, animated short film,activism, activist, digital activism, advocacy, advocate, involvement, militancy, militant, logrolling, striking, boycotting, championing, champion, effecting change, engagement, supporter, protest, protester, demonstrator, organizing, labor organizing, revolution, revolutionary, community organizing, effecting change, striking, labor strike, labor organizing,indigenous peoples, indigenous people, indigenous, native, native people, native peoples, aboriginal people, aboriginal, aborigine, indigene, indigeneity, tribes, tribal, tribal people, tribal peoples; "Brickmakers"; Pragda; Colombia; Spanish; documentary; doc; classic; Latin America; Latin American; human rights;

WEBVTT

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This digital restoration of CHIRCALES was carried out in 2013-14
by ARSENAL - Institute for Film and Video Art

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in collaboration with Fundacion Cine Documental / Investigacion Social
and Fundacion Patrimonio Filmico Colombiano.

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This restoration was financed by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin.

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The process was done in 2k, based on a 16mm dupe negative
produced by DEFA in the former German Democratic Republic.

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An optical sound negative was used to digitize the soundtrack.

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A new 35mm was produced for archival purposes.

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The analog and digital elements are preserved by the
Fundacion Patrimonio Filmico Colombiano in Bogota.

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The digital restoration was made with advice from Lucas Silva,
Marta Rodriguez de Silva (Fundacion Cine Documental),
Rito Alberto Torres Moya (Fundacion Patrimonio Filmico)

00:00:35.941 --> 00:00:39.052
and Henry Caicedo (Direccion de Cinematografia del
Ministerio de Cultura - Colombia).

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\"Technology reveals man\'s attitude toward nature,
the direct process of production of his life,

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as well as his social conditions, and the ideas and spiritual
conceptions that flow from them.\"

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We are in all of Colombia\'s public squares, in all its homes.

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We have come to the capital and filled Bolivar Square.

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For the first time in many years Bogota\'s central plaza is full again,

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in homage of the Colombian people\'s gratitude
and admiration for our next president.

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♪ multitud screaming ♪

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Because no one, dear Colombian patriots,
will stop his victorious march to the presidential palace.

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♪ Multitud screaming ♪

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♪ Harangues crowds ♪

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Voice Alfredo castaneda: We are Liberal because our parents were heroes.

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So far the Castanedas have always been Liberals.
Father Juan, father Pastor, all of us

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There are a lot of us and we\'ve never switched.

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We will stay Liberals until we die.

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And this is what politics has always meant to us.

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When you vote you see the ink on people\'s
fingers. Some are marked red and some blue.

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I think blue is for Conservatives,
and us Liberals must always be red.

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I don\'t know of any other politics,
just those two options when you vote.

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Since I was a child my parents told me
they were Liberals, so I\'m a Liberal too.

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My parents were Liberals so I have to be the same.

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The Liberal Party has always been recognized by the color red.

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It stands for the blood that was spilled during the war.

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Red is the only color that fits the Liberal Party.

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The color of blood spilled during the war,
that is the Liberal Party\'s symbol.

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But being a Liberal has never brought me anything. Nothing.

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So now I don\'t know what to do.

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Politics and presidents have done nothing for us.

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No more. Better not to vote at all.

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♪ Music ♪

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THE BRICKMAKERS

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♪ Music ♪

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Commentary:

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Production and Editing:

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Cinematography:

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A film by:

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priest voice: Here we don\'t have hereditary castes, social divisions
that are passed on from one generation to the next.

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That rigid stratification seen in other countries.

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Here we don\'t have such monstruous inequalities.

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There is no so-called oligarchy of
fifty families ruling the entire country.

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Those who are saying that 3% of the population
owns 60 or 70% of the land in Colombia,

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are simply ignorant people who are misinformed.

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The country\'s agrarian and economic reality is completely different.

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ROCKEFELLER MISSION ARRIVES
13 WORK GROUPS DESIGNATED

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♪ Silence ♪

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♪ shovel loading wheelbarrow ♪

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♪ Siren sound ♪

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♪ land over water ♪

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♪ water over land ♪

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narrator\'s voice: Colombia.

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The family of Alfredo, Mar*a, and their 12 children
inhabit that hidden reality, which is denied.

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Like them, about fifty-thousand people survive
in primitive brickmaking operations

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in the large urban estates that surround Bogota.

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Workers displaced by poverty and political violence, have gone from
being serfs in rural estates to being the serfs of urban landlords.

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In the hands of landowners backed by a regime,
brickmaking operations escape regulatory and statistical control.

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♪ Water ♪

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♪ whip ♪

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♪ Whip ♪

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♪ Shovel ♪

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♪ Whistle ♪

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narrator\'s voice: Within the structure of production
relationships there are three categories.

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First:

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A landlord who receives monthly rent for the use of his land
for exploitation or brickmaking.

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Second:

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A renter who directs and controls the production process,
and hires the families who carry it out.

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Third:

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A salaried worker who, with his wife and children,
makes up the economic production unit.

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The worker doesn\'t own the means of
production or the product of his labor.

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He is paid weekly on a piecework basis.

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In these conditions, in the landlord\'s estate
with the renter as intermediary,

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the worker is subject to complete domination.

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This domination is enforced by godfather-client relationships

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and the duties these entail.

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Workers are even used for electoral ends.
The landlord serves political groups

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and he delivers the people who subsist in his land to them.

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Alfredo Castaneda voice: The other day, Guillermo Pardo, the owner
of the land that\'s being rented,

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asked if everyone had voted, otherwise
we would be put out on the street.

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So we were forced to vote,
if we didn\'t we would be evicted.

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♪ Music ♪

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Maria voice: Godfather Germ*n came and told us,
\"You better work or you can go to fucking hell.

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These sons of bitches don\'t work. You
don\'t even cover the cost of your room.

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I don\'t get the coal you cook with for free.
You all better work or you can go to hell.\"

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Alfredo Castaneda voice: Since it\'s not our land, we have to
produce as much as the boss says,

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and work as late as he wants.

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♪ Silence ♪

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narrator\'s voice: Under constant threat of being
kicked out, the worker is denied

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First:

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Any chance of forming a union or cooperative
to demand reddress for grievances.

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Second:

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There are no social benefits or labor laws
protecting workers from renters and landlords.

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Radio voice: He knew they had met, they had been together
the very day he planned to propose to her.

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You don\'t love Antonio Morales, I don\'t know
why you became his girlfriend.

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How can you think me capable of such duplicity?
I fell in love with him at first sight.

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I know he is poor and hasn\'t always been
honorable, but I will marry him regardless.

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By his side, even plain bread will taste like heaven.

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It\'s not a silly whim, Omaira. It\'s a firm decision.

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Do you think Arturo will feel the same way?

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Well, at least he seems to and he makes me happy.

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What if I told you something, Julia...

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What? What is it Omaira?

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Simply Maria...

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This is the most famous show in Latin American radio and television.

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♪ Plane ♪

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narrator\'s voice: In normal weather, Alfredo and Maria\'s
family works from 5 am to 6 pm.

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All ten of them earn 150 pesos per week on average.

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On the construction market,
a thousand bricks sell for 260 to 340 pesos.

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But for every thousand bricks made by the
ten family members, they get only 35 pesos.

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Alfredo Castaneda voice: It shouldn\'t be that way. We are the ones who
help them earn their bread, we should get ours too.

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\'Cause if we don\'t make the bricks, what will they sell?

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That\'s the truth. They are exploiting us, the poor.

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If we make five or six thousand bricks,
they bake them and keep the profits

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while we live hand to mouth
and pay the price with our health.

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Voice son Alfredo Castaneda: I can tell my father getting
very sick, this work is becoming too hard for him.

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Last week he only made 40 pesos.

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He can\'t work much longer, he\'s too sick.

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I don\'t know how he will manage if the illness
continues, he can\'t do this job much longer.

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Alfredo Castaneda voice: I\'ve been doing this for a really long time.

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I\'m very sick again. I feel tired and out of breath,
it\'s from the dampness in my hands.

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I feel it between my chest and back.

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I\'ve been making bricks for over thirty-two years.
Every morning I get up and jump into the mud.

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That\'s what hurts your lungs. You get rheumatism,
sciatica and all that from being in the mud so early.

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♪ snoring ♪

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♪ Music ♪

00:17:24.250 --> 00:17:32.583
Alfredo Castaneda voice: We\'ll die doing this. We have to put up
with it until God calls us. What else?

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We are too sick already. We have to spend
what\'s left of our health on this job.

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Alcira Castaneda voice: I\'m so sad my mother is pregnant again,
we are too many already. I had prayed it wouldn\'t happen.

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But a week ago she told me she was
pregnant. I wanted to cry, scream.

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It really makes me sad, she already has twelve children.

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The way my father is it makes me so sad.
It makes me want to leave home.

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♪ crying ♪

00:18:11.208 --> 00:18:16.625
I asked my mother, what can we do?
You\'re pregnant again, and the way my father is...

00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:22.958
So she said, \"Just let it be. There\'s nothing we can do.\"

00:18:23.250 --> 00:18:31.875
Maria voice: The hardest thing for me and Alcira has been
dealing with him, I don\'t know what\'s his problem.

00:18:31.917 --> 00:18:41.000
When he gets drunk he threatens us with
his belt, a gun, a machete, whatever.

00:18:41.458 --> 00:18:45.375
So Alcira tells him, \"Go ahead father, kill us\".

00:18:47.042 --> 00:18:52.042
People tell me I have too many children,
but I tell them it\'s not my fault.

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People tell me I have too many children,
but I tell them it\'s not my fault.
If the Lord blesses me with them I cannot kill them.

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If the Lord blesses me with them I cannot kill them.

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I went to the health center twice. The doctor
asked me how many children I had, I told him eleven.

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He said \"What are you doing? Can you give
them an education, take care of them?\"

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I told him \"No sir, we all have to work
making bricks. We are very poor.\"

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He said, \"Why don\'t you try to get help somewhere,
what is the point of bringing more beggars into the world?\"

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♪ Music ♪

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Maria voice: I feel so tired and lost. Why does God
give so many children to the poor and not to the rich who can afford them?

00:20:01.875 --> 00:20:09.875
God should be more fair. What
am I supposed to do with 11 children?

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Alfredo spends what he makes drinking at the store,

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and at night comes home to
make trouble and beat the kids.

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I have to beg for work because no one wants
to hire us, they know he just drinks and starts fights.

00:20:31.979 --> 00:21:47.970
♪ Silence ♪

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♪ Music ♪

00:21:58.867 --> 00:22:02.373
♪ Water ♪

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♪ Music ♪

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narrator\'s voice: The process of firing the bricks
lasts a month and a half.

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Each kiln can hold about 30,000 bricks.

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The carbon dioxide fumes they produce
cause serious lung damage.

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Death by intoxication is common since
homes are built close to the ovens.

00:24:09.792 --> 00:24:34.198
♪ Silence ♪

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Childhood is not a protected stage.
Children have to take on adult duties prematurely.

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♪ Siren sound ♪

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♪ Sacred music ♪

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Leonor Castaneda voice: On the day of my first communion my
father wanted me to dance on the road.

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Since I didn\'t do it he hit me, threw
beer on my face and stained my dress.

00:26:57.417 --> 00:27:10.042
Alcira Castaneda voice: I told my mother we had to find a way to buy Leonor
a pretty dress. She deserves a new dress because she works too.

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Somehow we have to buy her a new dress,
so she can have that memory for the rest of her life.

00:27:16.958 --> 00:27:25.635
♪ Sacred music ♪

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Alcira Castaneda voice: I was very happy that day, I dressed
Leonor myself. I thanked God for granting my wish.

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A pretty new dress. Not like mine,
which had been cheaper.

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♪ Sacred music ♪

00:28:06.292 --> 00:28:12.042
Alcira Castaneda voice: In the first communion you become
free from one sin, that\'s why there are seven commandments:

00:28:12.040 --> 00:28:19.542
Baptism, confirmation, penance, communion,
unction, ordination, and marriage.

00:28:19.542 --> 00:28:37.494
♪ Sacred music ♪

00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:50.542
Alcira Castaneda voice: A man was once building a tall
house and he fell, but St. Martin caught him and saved his life.

00:28:50.583 --> 00:28:58.000
So I realized St. Martin could perform miracles,
and from then on became faithful to him.

00:29:03.625 --> 00:29:10.000
Every single day I asked St. Martin for first
communion dresses for the two children.

00:29:19.172 --> 00:29:36.385
♪ Popular colombian music ♪

00:29:36.458 --> 00:29:44.125
♪ Where is my saxophone? I can\'t see it in the corner.

00:29:45.208 --> 00:29:49.333
♪ What sweet memory...
Carolina, will you give me flower?

00:29:49.375 --> 00:29:53.167
♪Or have you forgotten me?
Your eyes answer with a blush.

00:29:53.167 --> 00:29:57.083
♪ It never really crossed my mind.

00:29:57.083 --> 00:30:02.042
♪ Only Satan could paint you with such savage brush...

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Radio voice: The President, with the authority conferred
on him by article 121 of the Constitution,

00:30:11.167 --> 00:30:16.500
and considering that by decree 590, issued in 1970,

00:30:16.542 --> 00:30:22.958
the national government declared
disruption of public order and state of siege,

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decrees:

00:30:24.292 --> 00:30:25.708
Article 1

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As long as public disruption and the state of siege
subsist, it is forbidden to hold political meetings,

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public demonstrations, religious, student,
or labor gatherings, protests,

00:30:42.542 --> 00:30:50.833
or any public spectacle that might affect or
disrupt the normal course of citizen activities.

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Social change comes from actions, not words.

00:30:56.458 --> 00:31:01.625
Radio voice: have benefited from the ICT in less than
twenty months of Social Front administration.

00:31:01.625 --> 00:31:03.010
♪ cough ♪

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Cough, cold, bronchitis? It\'s best to avoid them.
But if they come attack them with Balticicol.

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♪ Silence ♪

00:31:32.256 --> 00:32:30.977
♪ Music ♪

00:32:31.042 --> 00:32:39.542
narrator\'s voice: The worker is reduced to the most basic mode
of survival, unable to pursue any form individual spiritual development.

00:32:39.542 --> 00:34:41.395
♪ Music ♪

00:34:41.395 --> 00:34:54.066
♪ Crying ♪

00:34:54.083 --> 00:35:00.833
Woman voice: This always happens to us, we end up
alone. I\'m also alone with five children.

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My husband suffered the same fate, worked the same job,
nobody helped him. He also worked for about twenty years.

00:35:13.875 --> 00:35:18.958
He died of the same, health problems that got worse.

00:35:19.875 --> 00:35:25.083
He also made bricks, and I was
left with my kids as you can see.

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No one helped me at all. No one thought
of giving me even fifty cents for the kids,

00:35:36.250 --> 00:35:40.833
or of helping them so they could get an education.

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♪ Crying ♪

00:35:54.708 --> 00:36:00.167
Good people give up their lives here, and a lot
cof times the bosses don\'t even bother to show up.

00:36:00.167 --> 00:36:03.519
♪ Crying ♪

00:36:03.583 --> 00:36:08.042
Woman voice: The bosses don\'t even think
of giving ten pesos as a gift.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:14.292
My old man! Dear God, look
who you are leaving me with.

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God have mercy on me!

00:36:19.218 --> 00:36:46.951
♪ Crying ♪

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:54.542
Woman voice: We are so poor. We are a community
of brickmakers, we have children.

00:36:54.667 --> 00:37:00.708
When the head of the family is gone
all we can do is become beggars.

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Patience my dear, patience...

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♪ Crying ♪

00:37:09.750 --> 00:37:15.208
Not like this, my God!

00:37:15.708 --> 00:37:20.125
-Oh father!
-Yes, it\'s your father.

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♪ Crying ♪

00:37:22.167 --> 00:37:26.167
They haven\'t buried him yet.

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♪ Crying ♪

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Be brave, can you?

00:37:33.167 --> 00:37:36.678
♪ Crying ♪

00:37:36.750 --> 00:37:43.125
Priest voice: Brothers, it is natural and human to
feel sad when your loved ones die.

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Jesus also cried at his friend Lasarus\' grave.
But you must not despair as if there was no hope.

00:37:53.125 --> 00:38:00.542
If the inevitability of death makes you sad,
the promise of eternal life should console you.

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For the faithful life doesn\'t end, it only changes.

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And when we are rid of this earthly room
we get an eternal home in heaven.

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You must trust and have faith that our brother has
become free from the toil of this life and rests in peace,

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awaiting resurrection, when the corruptible flesh
will become immortal as God promised.

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God\'s destiny for us is not anger, but the
attainment of health through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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So that asleep or awake we may live
with Him. This is the word of God.

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We praise you Lord.

00:38:49.222 --> 00:38:54.880
♪ Rain ♪

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Narator´s voice: The brick worker is subject to the winter and dry
seasons. If the rain ruins the bricks his work is lost.

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Saddled with this production risk,
he gets no payment for that material

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If the renter agrees to lend him money, he survives
on the loan for the months when work is stopped,

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the growing balance ends up leaving
him forever in debt with the renter.

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:35.917
Saturday I found out that after working for German for so long,
it turns out we owe him 800 pesos from winter loans.

00:39:37.037 --> 00:40:08.594
♪ Silence ♪

00:40:08.625 --> 00:40:13.542
Maria voice: And now we have to leave. The landlord told
German not to give us any more work.

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Godfather German came and told us, \"I don\'t need
you anymore so get out of here, stop working.

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I need all you sons of bitches to leave.\"

00:40:30.333 --> 00:40:35.849
♪ birds, wind ♪

00:40:40.167 --> 00:40:46.458
Narrator´s voice: Lacking any form of union solidarity
or access to a labor board,

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when the latent conflict with the renter
turns violent or becomes unbearable, the worker leaves.

00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:19.201
♪ Wind ♪

00:41:19.208 --> 00:41:26.692
Narrator´s voice: Each new generation of the ruling
bourgeoisie hypocritically conceals Latin American reality.

00:41:27.125 --> 00:41:32.111
A reality in which repression and inequality are daily affronts.

00:41:33.465 --> 00:41:38.735
Untold thousands of families in Colombia and
Latin America are exploited by the castes

00:41:38.735 --> 00:41:44.154
that have for centuries inherited and
usurped political and economic power.

00:41:45.071 --> 00:41:55.697
♪ Wind ♪

00:41:56.488 --> 00:42:05.983
After selling their labor for thirty years, Alfredo,
his wife, and their children, leave as they once came.

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With no posessions, except for some risible
objects, visible symbols of their alienation.

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♪ Siren sound ♪

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\"The struggle is long, let\'s start now\"