Confronting Devastation: The Guardian Cinema of the Guajajara People

Two recent films made by Guajajara people show how cinema allies with indigenous groups to confront the environmental destruction underway in Brazil. Guardians of the Forest follows a large group of young Guajajara, Awá-Guajá, Ka'apor, and Tupi-Guarani peoples assembled to resist the constant and increasing invasion of their lands by loggers and land grabbers (grileiros). Where Guardians makes the devastation visible on screen, depicting a growing concentration of forces on the verge of a violent outbreak, The History of Chants is dedicated to the mysteries of the preserved forest, experienced like the modulations of a chant, the paths of a dream, the breath of a shaman.