Screening of the film “Kogis, the Message of the Last Men”

There are societies without poverty, where violence is identified and channeled, where young people are raised in harmony with nature. Highly democratic, supportive societies, in constant pursuit of balance and peace. This is the case of the Kogi Indian society, the last heirs of the great pre-Columbian civilizations of the South American continent.

Withdrawn into the high valleys of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia), they are desperately trying to preserve their memory and the balance of the world, in the face of the assaults of modernity: guerrilla warfare, drug traffickers, grave robbers, and paramilitary groups.

Saved from death by the Kogi Indians, and accompanied by Gentil Cruz, his Colombian “brother,” Eric Julien embarked on a wild gamble: to return their lands to the Kogi people and support them in the revival of their culture. Three years after the publication of his first book, The Path of the Nine Worlds, Eric Julien once again spent a year in Kogi territory, and fortune smiled on him again. Stone cities are being brought back to light, lands are coming back to life, sacred rituals are being restored, and pre-Columbian objects recovered from grave robbers are being bought back and returned to the community’s spiritual authorities, the Mamus.

Down there, deep in forgotten valleys, a memory is coming back to life, a people is regaining hope, a healing is taking place. And step by step, a path is reopening that questions our world and reveals a subtle philosophy capable of shedding light on the dead ends of our time. “I am convinced,” says Eric Julien, “that our own future depends on reintroducing, into our modern societies, the principles of life that underpin root societies.”

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