MICROCINEMA SESSION 01 Focus on Amazon
- Time: Tuesday 11 March 3.00pm – 6.00pm
- Venue: Eastside Arts
OUR LAND Terra Nossa
Bill Day & Caito Martins, 2007, USA/Brazil,
19mins, Documentary, Portuguese w/ English subtitles
In this short video, Waldemir Kaapor, the chief of the small Kaapor tribe takes us to a camp that has just been re-captured from loggers who have devastated the local forest. The camp was illegally built on Kaapor land. The tribe intends to build a new village in this camp and reforest the land around it. To show us why the Kaapor must fight for the forest, Waldemir takes the camera into the forest to reveal the bountiful supply of food and drink that is within arm’s reach just about anywhere the Indians care to go. This is a unique look inside a federally designated “confl ict zone” deep in the Amazon. The filmmakers had to travel far into the jungle to capture this portrait of a community with renewed hope in the regeneration of their forest.
For more information go to www.chicomendes.com
OS GUARANI MBYA
Marcia Gomes, 2007, Brazil
21mins, Documentary, Guarani w/ English subtitles
The film speaks of the wishes of the Guarani Mbya people in the indigenous village of Sapukai, south of Rio de Janeiro. After building two nuclear reactors on their native lands, the Brazilian government now wants to build a third reactor with the help of european multinational Framaton/Siemens. The film’s narrator is 94 year old village chief Vera Mirim, his knowledge of the land and its spiritual significance runs deep, as are his ominous visions for a world employing nuclear power.
NOSHINTO SHAMPORO Mi Hija Shamporo
Tita Portela, 2007, Spain / Peru
52mins, Documentary, Ashaninka w/ English subtitles
Elias, native Peruvian jungle Ashaninka Chief, concerned about his daughter Shamporo’s future, decides to return to his birthplace, Quempiri, in search of the ‘Healer with the Vapour of Medicinal Plants’, to learn about plants, their use and their rituals. They start a journey following the Ene river all the way to Quempiri and beyond, to remote lands, always following the trail of the best healer he has ever known. Thoughout their passage Shamporo discovers the landscape and customs of the Ashaninka Quempi people, the natural space where her ancestors have lived in harmony for generations, until the arrival of the social violence of the Shining Path. They travel by boat, air, car, through the city until they finally reach Maria’s house, who listens and reflects upon their journey of rediscovery.
YOUR OWN BLOOD Tu Sangre
Julian Larrea Arias, 2005, Ecuador
71mins, Documentary, Spanish w/ English subtitles
In the Ecuadorian rainforest, members of the native Shuar community are competing with the Mestizo settlers in the elections for the mayor of the town. In canoes over plentiful rivers and on foot across the jungle, political campaigning is rife. From communeto commune and from family to family, some carrying their messages in Spanish, others in Shuar. In every speech the issues of race, language, customs and territories are approached. Inside the Amazon Forest the key issues addressed are those of cultural identity, not politics or ideology.
