Grandma Cricket, an Animated Film for Life
By Irina Echarry
HAVANA TIMES – Abuela Grillo (Grandma cricket) has the gift of attracting rain with her singing. Her beautiful and joyful voice makes drops descend that she shares with the earth, and people, without distinction. But something so beautiful and vital isn’t well understood by humans.
Like nature itself, she is full of mysteries, rebellious and a giver of life, as she goes on singing and greening the countryside. If she stays too long in one place, she can also cause flooding. You just have to understand her cycles and possibilities to live in harmony.
When that harmony is broken, whether due to greed or ignorance, what ensues are droughts, deforestation, scarcity, wars, displacement, disease, misery, and death.
Abuela Grillo is a magnificent short film, the result of a cultural exchange between artists from Bolivia and Denmark. It is based on a legend of the Ayoreo people of Bolivia.
She tells us about the consequences of not valuing our natural resources, of privatizing them and promoting their commodification, of labor exploitation and also about solidarity.
The song of the grandmother still persists, as well as those who want to lock her up. It is a daily reality in many countries.
The grandmother cricket reminds us of the urgency of the fight to defend nature; because life depends on it.