Ocean Wings

Celina Llan Llan and her elderly mother, Rosa Catalán, were born and raised as Kawésqar, a nomadic culture that ten thousand years ago deployed a vast territory around the Magellan Strait. They were relocated by force to the city of Punta Arenas, and now for the first time they return to their place of origin. They invite their friends Christoph Zollikofer and Marcia Ponce de León, paleoanthropologists of the University of Zurich who in 2008 discovered, along with filmmaker Hans Mülchi, the remains of five Kawésqar in the basement of the university's museum after they were displayed and photographed for "human zoos" in Europe during the nineteenth century. Two years later they personally donate these bones to Rosa and Celina. Mülchi, who recorded the process in his award-winning documentary Calafate, Human Zoos, filmed this new journey in order to portray this culture with dignity, a culture in which photography and film became part of the abuse. The journey unfolds within harsh geographical beauty, nostalgia for the past and resentment for the damage to the ecosystem. The Catholic missions where the dying Kawésqar would go to die, the abundance ceremonies with whales, and the apnea diving of Kawésqar women, are resuscitated by Grandmother Rosa with clarity and vitality. Christoph and Marcia are stunned to witness what they once read in Darwin's chronicles, while Celina recalls some of her sufferings in situ, like when, on the same shores, she was torn from her mother's embrace to be taken to boarding school, but offered to a wealthy family to essentially work as a slave. The group disembarks on Englefield island, a place that Celina claims must return to the remaining Kawésqar people. They rebuild a hut with sea lion skins; Rosa teaches Marcia to weave baskets with wild reeds, a skill that her grandmother passed on. The film director confesses to the difficulty of respecting the Kawésqar's vision while recording the images for this film.