ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Vicki Galloway examines a Bolivian feature film from 2008 that is a collective production funded by indigenous community organizations and educational centers and led by indigenous filmmakers. Cry of the Forest demonstrates the interconnectedness of all four dimensions of sustainability—economic, environmental, social, and cultural—and the impacts of decision making based on immediate economic gain. The film also reveals the complex relation that indigenous communities have historically had with a logging industry that has marginalized them as menial workers on their own lands and whose concepts of “territory” as ownership and “nature” as a consumable commodity are in conflict with their cultural values. While the film readily lends itself to examination of sustainable practices in forest management and sourcing in wood-product manufacturing (SDGs 8, 9, and 12), it also provokes reflection in both story and production process on the power of community dignity, solidarity, and activism in achieving voice and creating change and equity (SDGs 10 and 11). Importantly, Cry of the Forest takes us inside the indigenous community to hear and witness the cultural dialogue of everyday life whose values and practices may differ from our own, such as decision making and power structures and the meaning of gender “equality” (SDG 5) and concepts of health, medicine, and well-being (SDG 3) that are directly tied to the cry of the forest.
