Voices

Feminist groups in Argentina and abroad greeted the New Year in celebration as the country’s National Congress voted in favour of the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Bill, which will allow childbearing people in the country to access abortion for free in public hospitals up to 14 weeks pregnancy.

This video essay from LAB partner Ojos Ilegales Red, Venezuela, tells the story of Leonardo Milian Ruiz, a member of the Pumé community. Milian left his territory Boca Tronador, on Riecito in Apure State, near the the Venezuelan border with Colombia, after cattle ranchers continually invaded their territory.

Argentina’s strict lockdown measures have seen an outpouring of solidarity for queer tango in Buenos Aires. Edgardo Fernández Sesma, LGBTQI+ activist and queer tango teacher holds tango classes using none of the heteronormative gender dynamics traditionally assumed by ‘male’ and ‘female’ dancers.

The short film El Silencio del Rio, ‘The Silence of the River’, by Peruvian director Francesca Canepa, won the Grand Jury Award at the Oscar-qualifying Calgary International Film Festival and is currently longlisted in the Best Short Film category for the 2021 Academy Awards. Mathilde Aupetit considers the film’s blurring of dream and reality in order to present an Amazonian perspective, and its representation of the narrative power of nature.

Covid must be bad in Brazil, even carnivals are being postponed. My favourite, Recife, will not take place in February. A new date of 9–17 July has been set, but even this may be cancelled.

Scholars for Academic Freedom in Brazil was set up in late 2018 with the aim of building a network of academics in UK universities and beyond, to raise awareness of attacks on academics and academic freedom in Brazil. Group member and LAB trustee David Treece outlines the changes during Bolsonaro's presidency that have brought about the group's creation.

British businessman and football club owner, Joe Lewis, has created resistance from the indigenous community by purchasing and developing their ancestral lands in Rio Negro, Argentina. Lewis blocks access to the land, where he has hosted Israeli soldiers and former right-wing President Mauricio Macri.

Haiti is not unfamiliar with violent uprisings. However, since the US-backed installation of Jovenel Moïse in 2004, unrest has been relentless, with violence and repression reaching a bloody crescendo in recent weeks.

Residents of traditional communities in the Brazilian Amazon municipality of Barcarena, near the mouth of the Amazon River, say that their subsistence and commercial livelihoods, and their health, have been destroyed by an invasion of mining companies which began in the mid-1980’s. This story is the fifth in a series.

Award-winning Chilean documentary filmmaker Maite Alberdi unveils her new documentary 'The Mole Agent', which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and has been met with veneration from critics. Unusual, stylish and poignant, the film will be released in the UK on 11 December.