Birdwatchers

La Terra Degli Uomin Rossii

(Italy , Brazil, 108 mins)

Producers: Marco Bechis, Caio Gullane, Fabiano Gullane, Amedeo Pagani
Screenwriters: Marco Bechis, Luiz Bolognesi
Cinematographer: Hélcio Alemão Nagamine
Editor: Jacopo Quadri
Cast: Claudio Santamaria, Chiara Caselli, Matheus Nachtergaele, Leonardo Medeiros, Alicélia Batista Cabreira, Taiane Arce

At the edge of the imposing but dwindling forest in the southern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, a small group of Guarani-Kaiowá Indians attempts to reclaim their ancestral lands by any means necessary. Forced to leave the reservation by poverty and suicide, the Guarani are no longer willing to accept the authority of the wealthy white farmers who claim to “own” the land. An explosive tension develops as the Guarani establish a makeshift settlement on the borders of a plantation, and the group’s apprentice shaman, Osvaldo, senses the presence of the evil spirit Anguè hovering at the edge of the forest. Osvaldo also encounters another danger in the local farmer’s daughter, whose interest in him is far from antagonistic.

Director Marco Bechis turns the usual conventions of films on native peoples on their head, portraying his Guarani protagonists as conflicted, spiritual individuals who have been forced into a corner by centuries of land grabs. Furious in its politics and its beauty, the film plays almost like The Grapes of Wrath by way of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, while remaining startlingly original.

-- Travis Miles

Host Red Nation Film Festival/Human Rights Watch

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