The songs my grandmother and grandfather sing to me

During 2023, the Culture sector of the UNESCO Office in Chile, in collaboration with the Olivo Foundation and Gaticine, worked on a project for audiovisual education and the enhancement of the oral tradition of the central area of Chile, as part of the twentieth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).

Through a pedagogical program of research and documentary audiovisual production, students from the subsidized private school Juanita Fernández Solar in San Francisco de Mostazal (O'Higgins Region, Chile) were tasked with collecting songs from the traditional oral culture of their locality, which was recorded in a short film of their own making.

This initiative aims for students to achieve the necessary learning for the research, collection, and safeguarding of local intangible cultural heritage, and, on the other hand, to experiment with the language of documentary cinema and familiarize themselves with camera and sound equipment to strengthen their capacity to observe, listen, analyze, and sensitively represent the world within the framework of artistic education.

The project will conclude with the presentation of the research and documentary short film at a premiere open to the community, taking place on December 7, 2023, in San Francisco de Mostazal. The documentary will remain available for mediation work in art and heritage at the school and in cultural centers of the region. Thus, through a collective, reflective, and practical training methodology, children can rediscover and connect in a new way with their culture.

1. Introduce concepts of intangible cultural heritage to the children of Juanita Fernández Solar School in San Francisco de Mostazal.
2. Conduct cinema workshops: appreciation and filmmaking. Screening of films and use of equipment.
3. Fieldwork: interviews and collection of songs in the town along with audiovisual recording.
4. Documentary production and screening.