A docufiction film shot deep in Panama’s Darién region has launched a six-week international tour, bringing the story of the Wounaan people and a sacred bird to audiences across five countries. “The Dance of the Kokorrdit,” also known as “El viaje del Kokorrdit,” is set to screen at seven film festivals through late October.
What Happened
The festival tour began on September 12 in Canada, with a screening at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. It will run until October 26, when the film arrives at the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland. In total, the production will visit seven festivals in five countries over six weeks.
The film was directed by Argentine journalist and filmmaker Guido Bilbao, who has lived in Panama for 20 years, alongside Indigenous Emberá filmmaker Elio Cunampio. It follows Areo Peña, a Wounaan community chief, and Ayned, a 16-year-old teenager, as they journey through the rainforest in search of the Kokorrdit, a sacred bird whose disappearance is tied, within the story, to the transformation of the jungle and deforestation.
Development of the project took five years, and filming was carried out together with the Wounaan Congress and with the participation of local communities.
Background
Bilbao first came to know the Darién as a journalist and later returned to research topics related to Indigenous communities and deforestation. In 2016, he learned of the Kokorrdit and its significance to Wounaan tradition. According to the account he gathered, the bird taught human beings how to dance, while the ñeque, a small forest mammal, gave them music. Traditional Wounaan dances reproduce animal movements and are passed down to children through observation.
But the Kokorrdit began disappearing from the area, and the explanation Bilbao received pointed to deforestation. As the bird vanishes from sight, children also lose the chance to learn the dances associated with it. That story became the starting point for the film.
The movie also shows areas affected by logging and other extractive activities, as well as communities demanding recognition of their collective lands. During filming, the team also encountered migrants crossing the jungle — a reality that forms part of the Darién’s current context, though it is not the film’s central focus.
What This Means for Panama
The film offers a counterpoint to the images of the Darién that most often reach international audiences, which tend to center on danger and migration. Instead, it presents the region through the eyes of its peoples, their culture, and their relationship with the rainforest.
The journey of Areo and Ayned also addresses the pressures facing Wounaan territory and the growing distance between younger generations and their traditions. Areo embodies ancestral knowledge and community authority, while Ayned lives in the city and has drifted away from her people’s customs. For the directors, this pairing allows the film to explore broader tensions: city versus jungle, the new versus the old, extractivism versus conservation, and individualism versus communal life.
With its international festival run now underway, “The Dance of the Kokorrdit” carries a distinctly Panamanian Indigenous story to global screens — one that its creators hope will broaden how the world sees the Darién.
This story was originally reported by La Prensa.