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In early 2020, the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon were contending with two centuries-old threats: attempted exploitation of their lands by oil interests, and deadly diseases brought by outsiders. Directed by the Sarayaku Kichwa filmmaker Eriberto Gualinga, The Return follows a family that, amid Ecuador’s devastating COVID-19 crisis, chooses to uproot from their home and journey further into the jungle for protection. Encompassing roughly a year, the short film captures how Indigenous communities in Ecuador are constantly forced to assert their rights to protect their culture and lives. But, resisting familiar ‘Indigenous-peoples-in-peril’ narratives, which often portray such communities as powerless and their cultures as dying, Gualinga’s film celebrates Kichwa resilience, tracking how the family reconnects with ancestral knowledge and reaffirms their spiritual connection to the land – a narrative of perseverance and rebirth that’s underscored by Gualinga’s distinctive perspective as an Indigenous filmmaker.
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Language and linguistics
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Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
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Architecture
The celebrated architect who took inspiration from sitting, waiting and contemplating
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Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
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Subcultures
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Wellbeing
Born in China, Zee seeks a gender-affirming life in the American Midwest
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Chemistry
Why do the building blocks of life possess a mysterious symmetry?
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Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
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Cosmology
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