Cane Does Not Make Soup is a film by Lorena Arias Solano (CASAS’ member), as a is part of her doctoral research project “Violent Landscapes, Sugar Plantations in Southwest Colombia”, Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Cane Does Not Make Soup tells the story of Afro-descendant communities living surrounded by sugarcane plantations in the south of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The sugar industry consolidated the power of the plantation that arrived during colonization, when sugarcane was introduced through enslaved labor. Today, that same crop occupies 86% of the land and consumes 97% of the available water, cornering the communities who descend from those who freed themselves from the imposition of colonial plantation labor, and leaving them with no space to grow food, no clean rivers to fish in, and no place to stay. The documentary follows Afro-descendant women who hold leadership and cultural authority in these territories, and narrates their everyday practices: kitchen meetings, communal meals, and the collective sowing of seeds as forms of communal reproduction that sustain life and resist the advance of the sugarcane monoculture. These practices are not merely acts of subsistence; they are the foundation from which these communities have built collective power, defended their territory, and recovered a wetland that the sugar industry had taken from them. This is their story.

Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/q_gTWKY1nrk

Credits:
Script and Direction: CINESPINA. Eugenio Gómez Borrero
Director of Photography and Camera: Juan Pablo Marín
Editing and Montage: Cinespinólogos Collective
Research Supervision:
Danielle Drozdzewski
Anders Wästfelt

Featuring;
Obdulia Tovar Viafara
Mariela Pacheco Carabalí
Rubiela Manzano
María del Socorro Reyes Andrade
María Elsy Valencia Moreno
Clara Ruby Alzate Lugo

Special Thanks:
Local Collective Land Authorities
Consejo Comunitario AfroTiple
Consejo Comunitario de la comunidad negra Cabuyal y sus veredas
Grassroots Organizations
Fundación de Mujeres Afrotipleñas Raíces Fuertes “Funmuafrot”
Afrocabuyal – Asociación Comunitaria para el desarrollo integral de nuestras comunidades negras, afrodescendientes y raizales

Research Contributors:
Edulfanit Díaz Gil, Consultivo Departamental y representante en el Espacio Nacional de Consulta Previa
Yudith Gallego, profesional social, Candelaria

This film was funded by:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (Kungl. Skogs- och Lantbruksakademien).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien).