Bermuda International Film Festival 2009

The filmmaker took four years to record life in two of Panama’s ghettos - Barraza and El Chorrillo. Photographer John Urbano and his crew filmed the on-going destruction of these two impoverished communities. Urbano approached the project with self-confessed naivety; he was clearly lucky to escape the first few days with his life. As the film unfolds we become aware, as he did, of the dangers that pervade this area and yet, as he points out, there is tremendous beauty too. A man is left homeless with nothing more than the clothes he wears but he creates and decorates a new home out of driftwood and flotsam on the beach. Even when the authorities have it removed, he rebuilds and seems happy, stating simply ‘without a home you have no life’. The ‘fight’ is to survive, to have a home, to have a life. As for ‘beauty?’ Urbano finds beauty in abundance; from the smile of a little girl, to the ambition of a champion boxer, to the twinkling eyes of an old man. This is a gem of a film.