Beauty of the Fight to show at NB Film Festival

In his photography book and documentary film Beauty of the Fight, photographer and director John Urbano explores, with both intimate and devastating imagery, the effects of historic realities on two Panama barrios. Barraza and El Chorrillo suffered heavy losses when US forces invaded in 1989 in order to capture General Manuel Noriega, and now this “interim” shantytown nears extinction due to recent outside private and commercial development. With deft camera-work—and under military police protection while entering the “red zone”—the filmmaker renders for posterity not only the daily struggle but also the dignity, joy, and heightened awareness of its residents. Boxers, cock fighters, gang bangers, street urchins, small business owners, family members, community leaders, and visionaries detail the day to day plight to hold on to homes and endure the loss of loved ones due to street conflicts while they also express the inevitable hopes of all peoples who fall victim to unconscious political and economic forces. Not only does the film give voice to the people of this neighborhood, but it also explores the vagaries of documenting a community destined to slip into the past.

DIRECTOR STATEMENT:

My friend Jeff kept telling me about these two neighborhoods in Panama, Barraza and El Chorrillo. He kept saying it’s a pretty special place, and I was excited to take some photographs there. The first time I went into Barraza, I was completely blown away. I’d never seen anything so intense or so unreal. The place is a visual overload. During that visit, I met so many beautiful people, with so much to say and so much to fight for. I came to realize that no one from the outside world had ever really stopped to listen to these people.

As I spent more time in Barraza and El Chorrillo, I started to see things I hadn’t noticed at first. I walked past a building many times before I realized that it was a boxing gym and that it stood next to the church and that, next to the church, stood the cock fighting sheds. Slowly, I began to see the fight in Barraza: the boxer’s fight to become world champion, the cock fighter’s fight to train a match-winning chicken, the gang banger’s fight to survive the streets and feed his family, the family’s fight to hang on to their home.

While we were in Barraza and El Chorrillo, we had to have constant military and police protection. Word spread fast among the gangs that there were a few gringos walking around with cameras. I’ll never forget meeting the Pentaganos in a narrow alley next to a house that had just been knocked down and burnt to the ground. I was expecting twenty- to thirty-year-olds. What I found were kids as young as six holding guns. I had to learn quickly that these gangs don’t discriminate by age as to who becomes a member.

I fell in love with so many things in Barraza: the smiles, the friendships, the colors, the smells, the music, the streets, the wooden homes. Each time I returned to Barraza and El Chorrillo, I brought envelopes of 8 x 10 photographs to give the people whose pictures I’d taken. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they saw their lives documented on paper. After a few visits to Barraza and

El Chorrillo, with only my still camera in hand, the locals started to tell me story after story. It seemed as if everyone had something to say. Even the gang bangers wanted to share their stories, because they knew their days were numbered. That’s when I decided to make a documentary to tell the stories of the people of Barraza and El Chorrillo.

After going in and out of Barraza and El Chorrillo for four years, I witnessed entire blocks of homes disappearing, elderly relocated, people dying, children becoming adults over night. The soul of the community, what I’d fallen in love with, was crumbling before my eyes.

Somehow I had to make the Beauty worth the Fight.