Legacy · Television series · 2011–2015
Contracorriente: entertaining to invite people to change the world
Puntos de Encuentro's second series brought to broadcast television the stories of young people facing trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, work in garment factories, abuse, migration and sexual diversity. It was the first Nicaraguan series with a simultaneous international premiere.
Trailer
Contracorriente, the series
In Spanish; episodes dubbed into French are available on the channel.
In numbers
A Central American series for the continent
Sources: The Communication Initiative; Furiaca; IMDb
Beyond the screen
A transmedia strategy
Contracorriente was watched on television but discussed in classrooms. The cast toured schools across Nicaragua with the DKY FM radio program; in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, educational packages —the EduPuntos Pack— were distributed with the episodes and guides for working with adolescents.
Its characters —William, Mary, Estefany, Cristiana— took on a life of their own in videos that expanded each story and answered the audience's questions.
Method
The principles behind the series
Contracorriente applied the principles Puntos de Encuentro had systematized with Sexto Sentido and that were documented in the guide Pop Culture with a Purpose (Oxfam Novib, 2008):
- Critique the status quo and propose alternatives. The storylines show how traditional discourses sustain the subordination of women and young people, and rehearse other ways of living relationships.
- Use language everyone understands. Complex ideas —human trafficking, labor rights in garment factories, sexual diversity— told through everyday stories, without jargon.
- Take on taboo topics and build bridges. It is not written for the already convinced but for the majority who do not call themselves feminist yet are willing to question what they take for granted.
- Change is neither linear nor single-issue. Each character lives several intertwined problems, because that is how audiences live.
- The magic is in the mix. Television opened the conversation; DKY FM, the cast tours through schools, the EduPuntos packs and local organizations sustained it face to face.
The same method lives on in DKY Digital, which today takes the conversation to the social networks where Central American youth are.
From the channel
Behind and around the series
A talk show spun off from the series.
The real voices behind one of the central storylines.
The premiere of Contracorriente.
Episodes, French dubs and educational material.
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