Manoela Ziggiatti

Director Manoela Ziggiatti seeks what inspires and motivates our lives, depicting intimate encounters with her family and close friends to build a delicate narrative about the meaning of being alive.

A woman who moved from the city to the countryside, a small farmer, a successful lawyer, an Italian immigrant, a forest ranger and a student tell us their stories. This film is part of a project called “The Latin Americans”, which is about national identities in countries throughout the continent.

In 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa proposed not to exploit the ITT block in the Yasuní National Park in exchange for $3.6 billion in international compensation. However, rising oil prices led to the reactivation of the project in 2013. The film documents the struggle of the Yasunidos group to call for a referendum to reverse the exploitation. The documentary, through archival material and current recordings, follows the effort and the legal battle against corporate interests throughout three governments, left and right. The documentary is part of a diptych with Toroboro: the name of the plants.

In the city of São Paulo, the routine of gravedigger apprentice Deodato changes when a new working girl arrives at the cemetery. Together, they must re-register the abandoned tombs, but strange events make the apprentice wonder about the consequences of messing with the dead.

In this musical documentary we are shown a period in the cultural history of Uruguay after the dictatorship ended, told through the story of Tabaré Rivero and his rock group. There are anecdotes from people who took part in that story and archive material, and we are treated to an intimate and amusing reflection about the role of the artist in contemporary society, especially in Latin America.

Through the years and from a very intimated point of view, this is the story of the adaptation process of two Syrian refugee's families to a faraway country called Uruguay, they completely disown.

Silvia is a young teacher at an elementary school. One day, her class is interrupted when the students notice her double walking on the other side of the street. Silvia tries to ignore the apparition, but this strange event begins to permeate her daily life and transform her pesonality.

A botanical expedition in Ecuador's Amazon becomes a medium for an indigenous Huaorani community to remember the genocidal colonization it suffered in the 1960s. Meanwhile, a group of ecologists from the capital tries to stop oil exploitation in the last remaining forests where the isolated Huaoranis still live, who to this day refuse to come into contact with civilization.