Five Afro-Colombian women sing about the life and death of their people, through traditional music and funeral songs from the Pacific and Caribbean regions of the country. María Fernanda Carrillo Sánchez’s documentary, Cantadoras: Musical Memories of Life and Death in Colombia, highlights the role of women, both in the cultural resistance of Afro-descendant peoples and in the daily construction of a non-patriarchal memory.

The documentary portrays singers of funeral rites like Cruz Neyla Murillo, a singer of alabaos  or a tradition of songs recited by the formerly enslaved people located in Andagoya; Graciela Salgado Valdés, a lumbalú singer in the tradition of those who managed to escape enslavement, coming from Palenque de San Basilio; and others like Ceferina Banquéz, who sings about her experience of forced displacement by paramilitaries in the Montes de María.

Carrillo Sánchez offers tools to identify the musical and political richness in the artistic practices of the population it portrays, exposing the different analytical axes to compare the relation between the music and the complex political situation found in those regions. The women share and denounce their experiences through their lyrics and singing, expressing a form of cultural resistance within radicalized contexts and territories.

The film is presented in collaboration with the international film festival Colombia Migrante and the Nodo Alemania that have supported the work of the Special Truth Commission in Colombia. The Commission has an expanded understanding of the facts and responsibilities of the armed conflict, amplifying the testimonies of the victims of forced displacement, exile, and international protection in an effort to create spaces for dialogue and engage in a pedagogy of peace and social mobilization.