Vincent Carelli

The story of ‘Captain’ Krohokrenhum, leader of the Gavião indigenous people, from Pará state in northern Brazil, who died in 2016.

In 1995, a team of filmmakers and anthropologists recorded ceremonies and daily life with the Enawenê-Nawê of the state of Mato Grosso in central Brazil. Twenty-five years later, images of the Yaõkwá ritual, a seven-month festivity, emerge. Cataloged and edited by the Vídeo nas Aldeias collective with the participation of the Enawenê-Nawê community, the remarkable images return to the villages. The arrival of these precious images reintroduces the history of the traditional ceremony to a new generation.

A young indigenous rapper tries to find his identity amidst the genocide of his people.

Chanter Tachico Guajajara shares the story of how his people learned the sacred chants that conduct their rituals and festivities.

Thirty years ago, a rubber company enslaved a group of Asháninka people, manipulating them into tapping the trees in the lush borderland between Peru and Brazil. The company was expelled by a coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, led by one mixed race couple. Now the adult children of this marriage combat political corruption and ongoing environmental disaster.

Waving the flag that states every film is political, Vincent Carelli visibilizes in this documentary the cause of the Guarani-Kaiowá: a group of indigenous people that fear their lands, located in the Mato Grosso do Sul, will be confiscated by the State. A territorial conflict born more than one hundred years ago, during the Paraguay war. While fighting against the Brazilian Congress in order not to be evicted from their homes, the 50.000 indigenous people demand the demarcation of the space that belongs to them. With some rigorous investigative work, the Brazilian director tells with his own voice of the social and political injustices suffered by the Guarani people through material he filmed over the course of more than forty years. The archive images, both color and black and white, reveal the crudeness with which they coexist every day: among the violation of their civil rights and the guts with which they confront the usurpers.

Mythical-religious interpretation of the Mbya-Guarani on 17th century Jesuit reductions in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

As Ariel Ortega thinks about the history of contact of the Mbya-Guarani, he tries to understand how his people got expelled from their land.

In the Kuikuro homeland of the Upper Xingu of central Brazil, the community is called upon to make preparations for the Jamurikumalu ritual: a traditional festival of singing and dancing that is performed only by women. However, complications arise when the elderly woman who knows all the songs is found to be seriously ill. With refreshing frankness and exuberance, this extraordinary documentary follows the Kuikuro people in a race against time to preserve the knowledge of their elders and the practice of their traditions before they are lost forever.

In 1985, a daring worker of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Brazil denounced a massacre in the lawless region of Corumbiara. The investigations turned to a series of indigenous genocides in the area. Spanning 20 years, the film shows the search for proof and the version of the survivors, when they were finally found, hiding in the forest, terrified of white men.

The Waiãpi indigenous people decide to meet and document the Zo’é people. after met, the Zo’é make the visitants know their ancestors' life style; the Waiãpi tell them about the dangers of the white world.

Beginning with the arrival by canoe of a TV and VCR in their village, The Spirit of TV documents the emotions and thoughts of the Waiãpi as they first encounter their own recorded images and those of others. Viewing news broadcasts and videos of other Brazilian native peoples, the Waiãpi see the power of images to facilitate memory preservation and political awareness. Some people worry, though about the invasive spirits of outsiders that can come through the TV. Another concern is the negative exposure that might result from the Waiãpi broadcasting their own images.

Pemp traces the 25-year struggle of the Parakatêjê (Gavião) to maintain autonomy in the face of huge development projects in the south of Pará, Brazil. From the initial recovery of their lands in 1957 through dealings with FUNAI in the 1970s and the appropriation of Brazil nut monopolies to their negotiations with the government in the eighties, Pemp shows the Parakatêjê’s most precious project; the preservation of their ceremonies and songs. The Kokrenum, chief and keeper of the group’s traditions, uses video to transmit them to future generations.

Documentary about indian people Nhambiquara, living in Brazil, and their celebration of girls' first menstruation, which is for them a sign they are ready for marriage. The film also tackles their struggle to keep their cultural identity and retrieve their lost lands.

This video documents an encounter between two groups of indigenous Brazilian people. Wai-Wai, a Waiãpi leader, takes a trip to meet the Zo'é, a group only recently contacted by outsiders. Both tribes speak Tupi-Guarani dialects and share many cultural traditions; a rapport quickly develops between Wai-Wai and the Zo'é as they take on the roles of anthropologists, questioning one another about hunting techniques, crafts, and forms of dress. Having had more experience with white society, Wai-Wai is able to warn the Zo'é about the potential danger of gold prospectors. He also introduces video technology, to everyone's fascination, and makes videos of his trip to show to everyone at home