Embera - The End of the Road

At first sight, the peaceful Embera people of Colombia live what seems an idyllic life. Four centuries ago, the Spaniards went to Colombia for gold - and found that the Indians wouldn't work for them. In the clashes that followed, many Embera were massacred, and the invaders were forced to import slaves from Africa. Those former slaves, or libres, remain poor and largely without rights themselves, yet they have pushed the Embera into the remote jungle headwaters - while, as if to seal their fate, the Colombian government drives the last section of the Pan-American highway straight across the territory. The Embera tell how they want both legal rights over the land they now inhabit and protection from the physical attacks of the libres with whom they trade. This film shows them in their plight, caught between the government's bulldozers and the libres' banknotes.