Statement 2019
Transcription of the statement for the 21st Biennial
I have currently been making films in the South-Southeast region and Mato Grosso do Sul state with my Guarani people of Mbya, Nhandeva and Kaiowá origin, with the goal of strengthening our oral traditions by recording and preserving the narratives, songs, prayers and beautiful words of the elders. Such transversal and interstate action is very important to us Guarani, for it allows us to convey knowledge through the images we capture to non-indigenous societies, thus showing them a little about our culture and what it means to us to live the true Guarani Teko (Life).
As I hold a degree in intercultural education, since 2013 I have been coordinating cultural and educational projects and training new filmmakers among the Guarani. Each trained student is a seed and each seed bears fruit, gradually attaining the wisdom and strength of the elders from the records of our memory, language and history.
Guarani film is today an important tool for communities in the struggle for the right, acknowledgement and appreciation of our way of life. The media mostly depicts us in a stereotyped and romanticized manner. But when we invert the camera’s point of view and produce our own record, we convey our outlook to the world, going from “prey” to hunter. We Guarani resist and struggle from our mother’s womb. So when I started filming, I chose to start with silence, to listen to what was not said. Following the rhythm of birds, I found myself eternalizing time, storing voices and silences, in tune with the wisdom of people. Images cannot be renewed nor do they age, and wisdom recorded and stored in film will not be forgotten over time. The camera is like a second eye, a second ear, it is not only a keeper of images, it is one of the Guardians of Memory.
As I own some equipment nowadays, many times I make documentary films with scant resources—because making films for the community is different from making films for the market. We have a few projects, like the launch of a feature film made in April 2019 about one of our wisest elders, deceased in 2016, O Último Sonho. We also have a project to make a film on the triple border, Yvy Pyte (Coração da Terra), but haven’t raised any funds yet.