Carlos Motta

Nefandus

In 'Nefandus' two men travel by canoe down the Don Diego river in the Colombian Caribbean, a landscape of 'wild' beauty. The men, an indigenous man and a Spanish speaking man, tell stories about 'unspeakable sins' and 'abominable crimes'; acts of sodomy that took place in the Americas during the conquest. It has been documented that Spanish conquistadors used sex as a weapon of domination, but what is known about homoerotic pre-Hispanic traditions? How did Christian morality, as taught by the Catholic missions and propagated through war during the Conquest, transform the natives' relationship to sex? 'Nefandus' attentively looks at the landscape for clues of stories that remain untold and have been stigmatized in historical accounts.