Calogero Salvo is a Venezuelan-born San Francisco filmmaker and graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. Juan Felix Sanchez, which was featured at the 1982 Bay Area Filmmakers' Showcase, and La Guajira, recently completed, are two very personal documentaries in which Salvo explores aspects of South American Indian culture on the theory that, despite political and anthropological concern for their welfare, very few outsiders even begin to understand these (or any other) foreign peoples. Salvo attempts in these beautifully photographed films to impart a special kind of knowledge, focusing on intimate aspects of life--movements, moods, pace and sounds--in order to reach larger concerns of social values, religious beliefs, and systems of basic survival.
Juan Felix Sanchez explores the life of a Venezualan weaver and sculptor who, along with his female companion, has lived for forty years in virtual isolation in a remote valley high in the Venezuelan Andes. Quietly observing Juan Felix Sanchez' work--in particular, the movements of his hands--and the couple's daily activities, Calogero penetrates the lives of two adults who chose to extricate themselves from society and develop values of their own.