“We can’t leave our culture behind, even when wearing flip flops”. These words feel non-sequitur. But they are wise words coming from an Embera transwoman as she talks to one of her younger peers. This leads to a short yet friendly debate. The slightly older woman doesn’t like to wear the short skirts that women wear today while the younger woman likes to show off her legs. This short yet excellent discussion comes from Simon(è) Jaikiriuma Paetau and Natalia Escobar’s Aribada. It’s a short experimental documentary that captures three days in the lives of the traviesas, the Embera trans community in Colombia. During the day they do jobs like picking coffee, but at night they go out and party. Sometimes, regardless of the time of day, they participate in shamanistic rituals. But they perform them with the white man’s world in mind.

Aribada, for the most part, successfully navigates among different genres. It’s first six minutes have a wonderful feel of a horror film, excellently using surrealism to express the eerie presences that lurk in the night. Regardless of that, the traviesas walk within their spaces with comfort. This short film is a declaration of their belonging, of a community that exists regardless of the white man’s world. There is also a lot of esoteric symbolism whenever the traviesas present themselves on screen. Some of that symbolism may not be obvious to viewers who are going to be mostly not from an Embera background. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t interpret what we see on screen. Some of what we see smoothly transition from scary to funny, reminiscent of performance art in the West.

Another word to describe the traviesas’ comfort and ease on screen is naturalism. After a long night of partying, they sit on steps on an empty street, scrolling on their phones the way Western people do. There are some moments that feel performative. Aribada‘s climatic moment is a woman plucking a chicken. And unless there’s deeper symbolism of that, it comes across as a joke that may overstay its welcome. There’s also a traviesa that livestreams her shamanistic rituals and a lot of what she says feels didactic. The short’s sound design is better than its cinematography. The cinematography here feels too clean that it adds an artificiality when more naturalism is better. Some of the costume changes also add to this artificial feel, but then I feel ridiculous for criticizing transwomen for wearing costumes.

Watch Aribada on MUBI.