Our Languages

Thirty years ago, a rubber company enslaved a group of Asháninka people, manipulating them into tapping the trees in the lush borderland between Peru and Brazil. The company was expelled by a coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, led by one mixed race couple. Now the adult children of this marriage combat political corruption and ongoing environmental disaster.

Waving the flag that states every film is political, Vincent Carelli visibilizes in this documentary the cause of the Guarani-Kaiowá: a group of indigenous people that fear their lands, located in the Mato Grosso do Sul, will be confiscated by the State. A territorial conflict born more than one hundred years ago, during the Paraguay war. While fighting against the Brazilian Congress in order not to be evicted from their homes, the 50.000 indigenous people demand the demarcation of the space that belongs to them. With some rigorous investigative work, the Brazilian director tells with his own voice of the social and political injustices suffered by the Guarani people through material he filmed over the course of more than forty years. The archive images, both color and black and white, reveal the crudeness with which they coexist every day: among the violation of their civil rights and the guts with which they confront the usurpers.

Ariel Kuaray Ortega returns to his hometown to visit his grandfather in a region of Brazil bordering Argentina. He wants to finally hear the full story of Canuto, a fellow villager who turned into a jaguar and then died a tragic death. A plan soon arises to make a film about the mysterious Canuto, with the villagers playing all the roles.

In the Kuikuro homeland of the Upper Xingu in central Brazil, the community is called upon to make preparations for the Jamurikumalu ritual: a traditional festival of singing and dancing that is performed only by women. However, complications arise when an elderly woman is seriously ill. With refreshing frankness and exuberance, this extraordinary documentary follows the Kuikuro people in a race against time to preserve the knowledge of their elders and the practice of their traditions before they are lost forever.

In 1985, a daring worker of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Brazil denounced a massacre in the lawless region of Corumbiara. The investigations turned to a series of indigenous genocides in the area. Spanning 20 years, the film shows the search for proof and the version of the survivors, when they were finally found, hiding in the forest, terrified of white men.

Beginning with the arrival by canoe of a TV and VCR in their village, The Spirit of TV documents the emotions and thoughts of the Waiãpi as they first encounter their own recorded images and those of others. Viewing news broadcasts and videos of other Brazilian native peoples, the Waiãpi see the power of images to facilitate memory preservation and political awareness. Some people worry, though about the invasive spirits of outsiders that can come through the TV. Another concern is the negative exposure that might result from the Waiãpi broadcasting their own images.

The story of ‘Captain’ Krohokrenhum, leader of the Gavião indigenous people, from Pará state in northern Brazil, who died in 2016.

Arquivo Aberto is a series of five videos that revisits the "Vídeos nas Aldeias" project with the aim of returning the audiovisual recordings made during the project to the original communities.

A first-person account on what it is like to be a part of the indigenous group Guardians of the Forest, in the indigenous territory Caru (Maranhão, Brazil).

Mythical-religious interpretation of the Mbya-Guarani on 17th century Jesuit reductions in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

The 'Vídeo nas Aldeias' performed with the Enawenê Nawê Indians, for fifteen years, extensive records of Yaõkwa, their longest ritual, in which the masters of ceremony pull, for seven months, a myriad of songs, in order to maintain the balance of the earthly world as a spiritual world. In this film, another fifteen years later, the Enawenê Nawê rediscover these images and, with them, deceased relatives, customs that have fallen into disuse and precious ritual songs.

Chanter Tachico Guajajara shares the story of how his people learned the sacred chants that conduct their rituals and festivities.