The Real Panama City: Panamá

I’ve spent the past two months living in the beautiful Panama City. Twenty years ago this city was dangerous and not a tourist destination. A lot of things have changed since then. Panama City now has the most expansive skyline in Latin America and one of the most beautiful neighborhoods I’ve ever seen. However this neighborhood has a fascinating yet disturbing history. The neighborhood is called Casco Viejo (Old Town). Here are some pictures to give you an idea of the place:

As I said before it wasn’t always this beautiful. Twenty years ag the neighborhood looked very different, but also had wayyy more permanent residents. It decreased by the thousands in just a few short years. For one of my projects in Panama I decided to create a mini documentary on the gentrification of this neighborhood, Casco Viejo. More specifically on the people who were displaced. My team and I settled on this topic fr a number of reasons, but a big one was the fact that gentrification can be seen in almost every country. It knows no bounds of culture. We hoped the topic could touch the hearts of all people in one way or another.

During the filming process, one person led to another and suddenly we were speaking to the leader of the displaced people’s protest . She became the narrator of our story and brought tears to everyone’s eyes with her story. I learned from meeting her that when you find someone who is desperately to tell their story it is not difficult to make them tell it. It seemed she wanted to speak to us as badly as we wanted her in our film. Hopefully we made a difference in her life, but all I know is the difference the film made in mine. I couldn't;t look at Casco Viejo the same anymore. The lights, the food, the constructions. It all became stained by the knowledge I now had of what needed to be pushed out to create the “beauty” that exists in the neighborhood now.

In conclusion, make art about the problems you see. You can expose problems. You can give a voice to the hopeless. It will change the way you look at the people and places you interact with when you travel and wherever home is. Thanks for reading!

The film can be viewed below (: