ERENDIRA IKIKUNARI THE FILM

Hucha mítetixapquia escacsi hupiringa, máteru cuiripuecha. Atahpiticha encacsi tyámu xucuparhapca ca engacsi cacapequa úquaaca imaechani engancsi cuahpequarhenga.

We had heard about the intruders: Fearful warriors covered with iron that descended from the sky and killed all who dared oppose them.

Ma cuiripuhcu no cherheaspti. Yurhistsquiri ma enga naneni, hamemquia Eréndira arhicurhispti...

The only one that didn't fear them was a girl, barely a woman: Her name was Erendira…

ERENDIRA IKIKUNARI is an action film about the conquest of Mexico by the Europeans in the XVI century. It tells the story of a young Indian woman  who stole a horse from the Spanish conquerors and used against them, defending her people. An exceptional girl, that showed astounding uprightness and courage in face of the invasion of her land. A warrior woman, that fought to attain the dignity and respect that her culture only granted men. Which still is, unfortunately, a very common situation today.

It's a similar legend to that of Joan of Arc, with elements of tragedy, such as the fratricidal struggle for power in a closely related group, amidst apocalyptic chaos.

The plot is based on two XVI century sources, the Legend of Princess Erendira, who stole a horse from the conquerors, and the codex RELACION DE MICHOACAN, that tells the History of the Purehpecha people, since pre-Columbian times until the arrival of the Europeans. The two narrations complement each other, although giving opposed views of the conquest, the RELACION being the official History, written by the victors, and the Legend handed down by oral tradition, which is the only history book of vanquished peoples.

The story is told by the voice of an old Indian, through the text and drawings of a codex. The film combines the RELACION DE MICHOACAN drawings with live action, establishing a style that follows the Indians' concept of epic and allows the rendering of a myth, making credible a world that we can't possibly recreate.

The dialog is spoken in Purhepecha, XVI century Spanish and Latin.  In order that the Purehpecha language could be used in a fluent way, the actors were mostly authentic Indians. As this was the first time that many of them acted, intensive rehearsals were held in the eight weeks before we started shooting. For the role of Erendira, we wanted to break away from the image of mannish and superhuman heroines that American films have made commonplace.

The music was made from the sound recordings of the scenes. Human voices, sounds of nature, conches and drums, were used to digitally create the music, The film thus attained a very special character, as all the sound, music and images stem from the same source.

The largest part of ERENDIRA IKIKUNARI was shot in digital cinema with three simultaneous cameras, one in high definition (HD) and two miniDVs. Another section was shot with two S16 mm film cameras. This made possible the combination of graphics and live action in collage form, in order to bring the form of the film near to the aesthetics of pre-Columbian codices. The film was printed on 35 mm negative through a data to film  process.