Starting the Conversation

Immediately after the film, you may want to give people a few quiet moments to reflect on what they have seen. You could pose some general questions (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers before opening the discussion. Alternatively, you could ask participants to share their thoughts with a partner before starting a group discussion.

• What emotions came up for you while watching the film?
• What did you learn from this film? What prior knowledge did you have, and how did that affect how you watched the film?
• What surprised you the most about the film? What was left unclear for you, if anything?
• Which scene in the film had the most impact on you? Why?

Creative Arts and Storytelling

We meet Rember Yahuarcani in his apartment in the heart of Lima, Peru, the city where he spends most of his time working on large mixed-media paintings, writing, and other creative projects. His brushstrokes are incredibly detailed, producing vibrant bodies of work that tell the stories of his cultural cosmology. What was your first reaction to Rember’s artwork? What adjectives would you use to describe Rember’s paintings?

We see images imbued with the vibrant flora and fauna of his homeland, as well as creatures that embody mythic personas and character arcs. What might this artwork reveal about Rember’s connection to his culture and his ancestral homelands? What story can you see being told through Rember’s artwork, if any?

We learn that Rember has an ancestral connection to his grandmother Martha, who passed away some years ago. Rember talks about how his grandmother guides him in his creative expression, citing her as both a source of inspiration and a source of knowledge on his history and heritage. He says:

My grandmother, Martha, used to think, or to believe, that I was going to become one of her voices. I didn’t really understand that until very recently. Martha is always here, always with me. When I smoke a tobacco, when I hold the paintbrush, when I paint a character that she has described to me. She’s my inspiration. My work is… My work is her, what she has told me. I believe that my work is the way she understood the Amazonía, our history… I can hear my grandmother’s voice when I am painting. And if I can hear her voice, I imagine that the painting should be fine. My biggest concern is if I’m a really good translator of what my grandmother gave me.

What does Rember’s commitment to being a “good translator” say about his values? What does it say about his reverence for his culture and his grandmother’s teachings?

When Rember finds himself in need of creative inspiration, he travels from the city of Lima to his parents’ home in Pebas to spend quality time with his family. His mother, Nereida López Gutierres, is a sculptor and his father, Santiago Yahuarcani López,is a painter. They both use their crafts to reflect and narrate the history of their people. How does Rember’s artistic style and thematic content compare to those of his parents? What’s the significance of Rember’s father telling children that the story is more important than the aesthetic qualities of the artwork? What is the significance of Rember choosing to focus on the beauty of his homeland and heritage rather than the historical violence his people endured?

When Rember expresses that he has been experiencing a creative block, his parents encourage him to keep creating and exploring his cultural roots. What key messages about the importance of cultural knowledge are Rember’s parents imparting? Why are those messages important to the resilience of the Uitoto people? What do these messages imply about the role of creative expression in cultural resurgence? How do creativity, art, and performance play into your vision of justice?

In your view, what is the importance of connecting to loved ones during times of hardship or creative blocks? What role does your community play when you’re working through internal difficulties? What does that role say about your culture, worldview, or way of life?

We see Rember’s parents use creative activities to educate Rember’s younger siblings: his father guides a history lesson through collective painting and his mother passes down stories while teaching traditional mask-making techniques. What was significant about the father telling the children that the story is more important than the aesthetics of the painting? What is similar about Santiago’s and Nereida’s approaches to passing down generational knowledge through the arts? What is different?

Family and Cultural Memory

Rember is on a journey to reconnect with the cultural memory of his family and tribe, and he feels a compelling sense of duty to confront the darkness his people endured while he paves new pathways forward. While he stays in Pebas with his family, we see him honoring traditional ways and learning more about his cultural heritage while also doing normal day-to-day activities like sharing meals, communing with tobacco, and harvesting cassava root. What are some other ways that you witnessed Rember and his family choosing to honor their cultural heritage? What does their observance of their traditional ways of life say about their cultural values?

In the scene where Rember and his father are tapping rubber trees for latex, we hear Rember’s grandmother Martha narrate a poem over the quiet echoes of the forest soundscape:

That’s how our parents worked,

That’s how they extracted the rubber.

And that’s how our root was taken out.

They killed us, they threw us to the fire.

And the healing words of our grandparents are already lost.

Who will tell our story?

This poem is referring to the rubber boom era and the loss experienced during those years. Why do you think the directors chose to overlay Martha’s poem over the rubber tapping scene? Who do you think is the intended audience of this poem, if any? What meaning can you find in Rember and his father tapping native rubber trees years after the tragedy of rubber in the area?

Does your community, family or cultural heritage deal with historical trauma? If so, how are you able to engage and communicate with others about it? How do the creative arts play a role in that, if any?

Think about how the Uitoto rubber tapping techniques predated the tragedy of rubber. In many settler-colonial contexts, there is a historical pattern of misusing or exploiting Indigenous cultural practices for profit. How are Indigenous practices exploited and appropriated today? Has your family, tribe, or group experienced the impact of cultural appropriation? If so, how do you respond? What culturally safe and community-based methods can you employ in your community to resist cultural erasure/ethnic cleansing?

How is the rubber boom situated within a broader social, political, cultural, and historical context of perpetual state violence inherent to settler colonialism? How can traumatic individual and collective memories be spoken about in a way that highlights Indigenous resurgence, agency, resistance, sovereignty, and solidarity? In a more general sense, how can outsiders speak about these tragedies in a way that doesn’t re-victimize or re-violate Indigenous identities?

What are the benefits of building a society that is fully aware of its cultural heritage and past traumas? How can the discussion of traumatic histories result in greater respect and dialogue rather than arouse aggressive or vengeful potential? How can we discuss these historical topics in a way that allows individuals to be more sensitive to human rights and land violations?

In your view, how early in life should children be taught the traumatic histories of their lineage? What are the benefits and challenges of discussing the violent details of a given history with young children? How can we do so in a way that honors their painful collective memory and also contextualizes the present-day issues they face?

Healing and Community

After leaving his parents home, Rember travels to La Chorrera, the heart of his ancestral homeland. Here, he meets with current members of the White Heron clan, the Uitoto tribe his grandmother was a part of. They greet him with open arms, and a ceremony is planned to officially welcome him as a member of the clan. Do you have experiences with a rite of passage? If so, what significance did it hold for you? Do you have a belief system that involves the concept of ancestral connection or ancestral healing? If not, what are some ways that you can develop open-mindedness when hearing about worldviews or narratives that don’t necessarily fit into your own worldview?

During the ceremony, traditional Uitoto songs, dances, and prayers are performed, and Rember is given a new name in a Uitoto dialect. Why do you think it is important for Rember to reconnect with his ancestral lineage in this way? How does this help him make sure the voice of his grandmother doesn’t get lost? How is this film’s focus on Rember’s family and Uitoto traditions a political statement?

While in La Chorrera, Rember travels to the building where Casa Arana once stood. It has since been turned into a secondary school. How do you feel about the decision to turn the place where Julio César Arana and others built a legacy of torture and enslavement into a place of learning? How did you feel watching the scenes of the building? There is a moment where contemporary footage of the building is overlaid with an old photo of the building with slaves and overseers lined up out front. What impact did that scene have on you?

Take a moment to think about what was lost from the genocide, displacement, and slavery of the rubber boom: lands, clans/families, language, cultural knowledge, land practices, and so on. Now think about the contemporary concerns the Indigenous people of the Amazonías are forced to face today, in terms of land displacement, environmental destruction, human trafficking, and so on. What has changed since the 19th century? What has remained the same? Consider the ongoing impact of globalization, capitalism, and settler-colonialism. What are some ways that you see extractive economies disproportionately impacting Indigenous peoples today? How can extractive industries cause social and biological violence? What needs to change now, in your view?

How do you think Indigenous people of the Amazon basin should be given reparations by the government? In what ways could a meaningful reconciliation take place? How might they be compensated? What is missing from the conversations that government officials are having about reconciliation?

Today, Indigenous nations and individual leaders in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and other surrounding countries are still fighting for their sovereignty to be honored and coalition-building for international solidarity. How might increased knowledge about the historical trauma of the rubber boom inform the ways workplaces/communities/societies/cultures/individuals promote Indigenous resurgence in the Amazonias? How do we move forward in a way that ensures history doesn’t repeat itself? How do we amplify the voices of those most impacted by race-based/gender-based violence and systematic disenfranchisement? Why would it be important to raise awareness among non-Indigenous people about the dark past of industrial projects in the Amazonías?

The last scene of Rember’s travels shows him speaking with some women of the White Heron clan who knew and were related to his grandmother. One woman explains that the women in their tribe are the “essence of sweet cassava” and that their “hearts are cheerful and warm.” As she wishes him well on his journey, she tells him that they “don’t want his heart to become cold” so that he can “continue to spread the sweet word” of his ancestors. Why do you think Rember is encouraged to face the dark past of his cultural memories without letting his heart “become cold”? Why might that be important to Indigenous resurgence? Why do you think the directors chose to end the film on this scene? What does it say about the purpose of the film as a whole?

Closing Questions/Activity:

At the end of your discussion, to help people synthesize what they’ve experienced and move the focus from dialogue to action steps, you may want to choose one of these questions:

• What did you learn from this film that you wish everyone in your community was aware of? What might change if everyone knew this information?
• The story of The Song of the Butterflies is important because ___________.
• Complete this sentence: I am inspired by this film (or discussion) to __________.
• Why do you think the film is called The Song of the Butterflies? Think about butterflies as a symbol of transformation, as well as the clips of butterflies in the film and the story of butterflies flying out of the fallen clansmen.