Brazilian Documentary and Ethnographic Films

Both groups of indi­ge­neous brasil­ians, the Waiãpi and the Zo’e, belong to the Tupi lan­guage family and share quite a bit of their tra­di­tions. But while the Waiãpi have been living in close con­tact with white people for the last twenty years, the Zo’é are about to make their first expe­ri­ences with them. In the con­text of the »Video in the Vil­lages« project by the »Centro de Tra­bal­ho Indi­genista« the Waiãpi have »met« the Zo’é through video. 

They rec­og­nized their lifestile as being sim­i­lar to what oral his­to­ry tells them about the life of their own ances­tors. Waiwai, chief of the Waiãpi has been vis­it­ing the Zo’é togeth­er with a small filmcrew. 

In MEETING THE ANCESTORS Waiwai tells his own people about his expe­ri­ences on the trip and he com­ments the video sequences shot with the Zo’é.

CONFIDENCES FROM THE RIVER OF DEATH is an inti­mate doc­u­men­tary, which attempts to ana­lyze the rela­tion­ship of people and envi­ron­ment, work and his­to­ry through the oral his­to­ry, passed on from … read more

Intro­duc­ing the video at the Waiapi in the con­text of the »Video in the Vil­lages« project. 

Doc­u­men­tary on the life and work of French ethno­g­ra­ph­er and fotog­ra­ph­er Pierre Verger (1902, Paris/France – 1996, Sal­vador de Bahia/Brazil) whose stud­ies revealed the rec­i­p­ro­cal cul­tur­al influ­ences between Brazil and … read more