''Ika Hands'' is a 1988 film by ethnographic filmmaker
Robert Gardner.
This film was shot in the
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Northern
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
. The people in it may be the only survivors of the
Tairona. At an informational level, the film shows the rounds of daily life while it attempts to disclose the interior life of a leading figure in the community portrayed. It does so by using a camera in a way that
Robert Gardner says, in his brief introduction, no camera has yet been designed to do. What is seen is a man who is part
mystic, part
priest, and part ordinary householder, performing rituals and offering prayers in lonely and seemingly painful meditation, often accompanied by his own chanting and singing. There is an attempt with this film to find a new form for dealing with not only information, but feelings and mood.
References
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External links
"Ika Hands"
Anthropology documentary films
1988 films
American documentary films
1980s English-language films
1980s American films
English-language documentary films
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