Ana Vaz proposes film as a physical experience: in Amérika: Bahía de las Flechas, the constant camera movements and shifting perspectives immerse the viewer into the landscape of Lago Enriquillo, a dying lake in the Dominican Republic.
“It is said that in the year of 1492, the first European ship led by Christopher Columbus, disembarked on the coast of Samaná, present-day Dominican Republic, and was received by a rain of arrows carefully plotted by the Caribbean Taíno. Presently, a saline lake named after the Taíno chief Enriquillo witnesses profound eco-systemic changes leading to species migration, forced evacuation and an expanding coral desert revealing the lake’s geologic past. Taking the camera itself as an arrow, a foreign body, Amérika: Bay of Arrows looks for ways in which to animate, to awaken, to make vibrate again this gesture in the present — arrows against a perpetual ‘falling sky’.” (Ana Vaz)
