Copper Working in Santa Clara Del Cobre: A Changing Craft

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by Beate Engelbrecht and Manfred Kruger
Spanish with English subtitles & narration
color, 54 min, 1994
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Santa Clara del Cobre is a small town in Michoaca, Mexico. It is famous for it's high quality copperwork. In precolonial times there was a great demand for the copper kettles made here, it largely supported the economy of the entire town. In this century the demand for and production of these copper containers almost disappeared to the point where there were only a few trained craftsmen still capable of producing objects of high quality in the traditional way.

In the 1940's the people of Santa Clara looked for new ways to sustain their craft. They formed the equivalent of artisans guilds. A state supported development program based on competitions to have their craftwork recognized and rewarded in exhibitions caused a renaissance in the field. Artisans produced traditional copper kettles side by side with more decorative copper plates and stylized containers. Collectors, as well as tourists who wanted to take an example of a prized craft home with them, came from all over the world to purchase these works. The film documents this period of development, growth and decline when in 1991 the world wide recession greatly effected the sales and earnings of these craftsmen once again. The film provides an interesting view of the economic, social and political factors involved in the survival of a craft. It shows in a detailed way the entire traditional process of creating these copper containers from start to finish as well as the environment in which they were made. The film has been recognized for it's exceptional camerawork.

This program is of interest to museums, art schools, university anthropology departments and libraries.

Festivals, Screenings, Awards
Prix Nanook, France 1994
Bilan du film Ethnographique, Paris 1994
Award, Pärnu Film Festival, Estonia, 1994
Special Award for films on Material Culture, RAI, 1994
3rd Prize, Astra Festival of Anthropological-Documentary Film, Romania, 1994
Margaret Mead Film Festival 1995

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