DAVID CANEVA AKLE

Nacido en el planeta TIERRA,


Multimedia Artist with a very dynamic artwork, that began his experience career development, putting into practice his creative and technical skills together.
Since he finished university in 2003, he has been working in different fields, mostly related to media studies, such as documentaries, video and television, subjects wich he has been teaching at university.

FILMOGRAPHY

The documentaries Canevakle have produced during this process of finding himself, studying and researching are as follows:

*“Cáñamo Cosmovisión y Castigo” (1998, Final Project Gimnasio Emilio de Brigard school, Bogotá Colombia). This experimental piece explored the use of indigenous medicinal plants by modern urban cultures. It placed emphasis on the use, tastes, flavours and industrial derivatives of cannabis sativa and its different species. It also has a historical compilation of the prosecution of that plant from the 1930’s until the present day.

*Reinsertion: armed conflict actors “Reinserción: Actores del conflicto”(1999. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Bogotá, Colombia). It was a Talk show project with participants in the Colombian armed conflict, the civilians and the institutions talking amongst themselves without resorting to argument by using sarcasm and humour. The aim of this project was to understand the atrocities of war and to achieve peace throughout the contradiction in an alternative audiovisual way.

*City Music 2000 (2000, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá Colombia): This video clip is a documentary showing music in different shunned quarters of Bogotá. A visitor explores these areas guided by a local resident and they talk about the area, its problems and possible solutions, meeting bands along the journey. This project was aimed at the relevant regulatory bodies in order to generate development of this area, with the use of audio-visuals.

*Ways of Bogota “Senderos de Bogotá”. (2000. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá Colombia). This film, which was the first of an ecotourism journalism series of 25 chapters, was the result of a long period of research. It concluded that ‘Bogotanos’ were and still are walkers and constantly making new pathways. This process has helped to create the history of neighbourhoods, their urban myths, ghosts and also the connection with the country.

*The Symphony of Noise “La Sinfonía del Ruido”: (2001. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano): Musical Incidental Documentary about the sounds that are in the daily lives of the citizens. These sounds generate a repetitiveness that automates us until we become machines.

*During 2002, I wrote scripts and produced some videos exploring supernatural topics such as the possible landing of a UFO on a hill close to Bogotá in Colombia

(Huaica)

and the existence of angels in our daily lives

(A fallen angel,“Un angel caido”)

I also made a TV series, “El inquilino de la Universidad” (The University’s squatter), exploring the conflicts in the lives of Colombian teenagers.

*During that same year, I participated making educational documentaries for the Psychiatric Faculty of the Colombian National University. They were: (1) Obsessive and compulsive disorder, (2) Gilles de La Tourette Syndrome and (3) Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia “(1) Trastorno Obsesivo Compulsivo, (2) Trastornos de Guilles de Latourette and (3) Trastornos del comportamiento alimenticio: Anorexia y Bulimia:”. All of them were part of an educational research Project, where psychiatry students could observe the characteristic symptoms of people with those problems or deficiencies caused by the lack or increment of chemicals in the human brain. In addition, the documentaries induce medical solutions and explanations for relatives and patients. These works were made during my internship in Tucan cinematographic productions.

In 2003 with a group of classmates the following documentaries were made:

*Public Health “Salud Publica”: This work reviews the concept of public health as a set of cultural practices, where not only the lack of illness counts but also the well being of society. It criticized the way mass media predated this right and it invites them to participate actively in the diffusion of responsible concepts about health.

*Coca leaves “Hoja de Coca”: On a different note, this short video clip documentary draws a parallel between the plant of Coca as an ancestral medicine and its degradation by the modern world, which converted it into cocaine. Starting from this basic differentiation, the plant was redeemed as a traditional and transcendental indigenous ritual separating it from the trafficking conflict and its demand that arises from the lifestyles and economic support from the western modern world.

*Another documentary was called Interrupted Vivid Green “Verde Vivo Interrumpido”, which was a visual experiment, showing the lack of management when treating waste in conservation areas of Colombia, especially in Suesca hills. It then goes on to show how this waste is inevitably integrated into the landscape under the indolent view of the irresponsible ecotourism.

*In the year 2005, when I moved to the city of Catargena, I observed that the opulence of the occupants within the walls of the city contrasted sharply with the misery of those outside, with the privileged not wanting to acknowledge the existence of the poor. As a member of faculty for film and television in the department of Social Communication of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Cartagena I started to develop audiovisual pieces focused on this contrast. A group of my students and I developed the following documentaries:

*Reborn of an Identity

“Renacer de una Identidad”

the theme central to this work was the traditional feasts commemorating the independence of Cartagena, which seem to get sidelined due to the celebration of the National Beauty Contest. There is a queen associated with the traditional feast as well, whose beauty represents the emancipation of the people of Cartagena, while making a satire of battle for independence, critiquing the origin and future of this tropical city. This documentary was relayed by a national channel for a month and its copyrights were sold to a local channel, and currently it is shown as one of its cultural programmes. On the Independence Day commemorations in 2005, this documentary was used to open the feast to hundreds of spectators and an honorary mention was given by the city Major to the University acknowledging the importance of this work. It was also shown in the International Film Festival of Cartagena, where it was well received by the critics, making it the first time that the Tadeo University participated in this important event.

Following this success, the university issued grants to me in a very short period of time to make more films. These were about the people of Cartagena that work for the city, the foreigners that contribute to the Cartagenan culture, history about the traditional neighbourhoods of “the Heroica” and other topics pertaining to the youth. These films are part of a series that is shown as part of the sunday line-up on the Cartagenian television channel, Cartagena Total and the episodes are titled: The Siders

“Los del lado”

Youngs with Youngs “Jóvenes con Jóvenes”, My Neighborhood Counts “Mi barrio Cuenta” and Opening Doors “Abriendo Puertas”. These series are still being aired and they provide an opportunity to to use documentaries as an alternative tool to communicate social issues to the masses. Amongst these series, a documentary about the marsh La Virgen was the result of a wide research that I have been working for about four years.

With the arrival of 2006, the audiovisual department of the university became more active and organized, attempting to improve the image and the sound quality of the production. This led the university to ask me to lead a group of 14 people to make another documentary about the independent feasts of November. It was completed very recently and the result was an high quality work called Faces of the Feasts:Journey around the music and the Cartagenian folklore

“Los Rostros de las Fiestas: Una travesía por la música y el folclor cartagenero”

The documentary navigates around the musical ideals of this city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It tells the stories of the most significant composers in the musical history of Colombia. There was an attempt to capture and express the spirit of their music and the aspects that motivated them, which have enabled their music to last over the years and become iconic of the culture of Cartagena.

"Volver A la gente"

After this I filmed and finished a documentary about the women who had to assume the status of head of the refugee families because of the loss of men due to the armed conflict in Colombia. Although this job is sponsored by an NGO belonging to the European Union, I feel closely involved to the project as it deals with the region of the marsh La Virgen, which has been central to a lot of my research since I was an undergraduate student. With this film I hope to expose the crude reality of the manner in which the Colombian government has abandoned these communities, while attempting to help integrate them with the society that denies their existence.
WATCH THIS LAST MOVIE

TALLER DE SANDALIAS VOLVER A LA GENTE

Droguipandilli CARTAGENA

In 2009 I received an Award to complete an MA in Documentary Filmmaking in London, United Kingdom, where i produced:


Immigrant of Expression
The Warrior
Lucky 13








THE RELATED DOCUMENTARIES AND MORE ARE LINKED HERE

CANEVA VIDEOS