Extraño rumor de la tierra cuando se atraviesa un surco (secuencia 75, huerto de Juana López, toma 01)

A vegetable garden in Guatemala, in a community of Indians displaced since the 1980s civil war. With a striking formal rigour, Strange Rumor of the Land questions what triggers the words of a witness to History. Although memory is hard to express in words, the cinematic dispositif can nonetheless try to do so. So, we have Juana Lopez, an elderly smallholder who is digging her small furrow. “Caterina, ask me the question…”: the woman addresses the young girl hoeing at her side, asking for help to begin her answer. And what if this question was primarily meant to arouse the curiosity of a teenage girl seemingly unaffected by the persecutions suffered by past generations?

Charlotte Garson