Garifuna in Peril Garífuna en Peligro |
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Garifuna in Peril poster
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Directed by | Alí Allié Rubén Reyes |
Produced by | Alí Allié Rubén Reyes |
Written by | Alí Allié Rubén Reyes William Flores |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Alí Allié |
Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
Country |
United States Honduras |
Language | 55% Garifuna 30% English 15% Spanish Closed captioned in English and Spanish |
Garifuna in Peril is a low-budget independent fiction docufiction feature film directed, written, and produced by Alí Allié and Rubén Reyes. The film depicts historical and contemporary issues within the Garinagu (plural of Garifuna) Afro-Honduran indigenous community and features a cast of actors from Honduras and Belize.
The film was shot in Garifuna, English and Spanish, and is notable for being one of the first, if only, contemporary feature films shot in the Garifuna language. The Garifuna language and culture depicted in the film is also noteworthy as it was proclaimed by UNESCO in 2001 as a Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, under threat of extinction as at that time there was almost no surviving record of the language and it was not formally taught outside of the countries of Honduras and Belize. The language and this film features music that is an oral tradition of storytelling of song and dance that is a unique blend of African and Amerindian cultures that are often quite satirical in nature.
The movie follows the journey of a Garifuna language teacher Ricardo, played by co-director Rubén Reyes, in Los Angeles as he struggles to be a good father, husband and brother while taking responsibility to preserve his native language, traditional culture and community lands against the expansion of tourism. Ricardo’s plans to build a Garifuna language school on the north coast of Honduras become complicated by the expansion plans of a tourist resort in the area. Personal betrayal pushes him to travel to Honduras and directly confront land issues in tandem with his educational mission.