Estruturas elementares do cinema documental político indígena no Brasil

Abstract

In the history of contact between indigenous populations and Western society, contemporary times are marked by the indigenous appropriation of non-indigenous technologies with the purpose of claiming human rights and denouncing the violence that has marked this relation since at least 1500 in Brazil. With the processes of retaking territories and representation policies, indigenous peoples currently operate audiovisual apparatuses as tools of struggle. This thesis derives from research on indigenous documentary cinema, in which we analyzed three episodes of the series Maracá (2020), produced by the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB): Plano de Cura, A Mãe do Brasil é Indígena and Ancestralidade. The series was produced and launched during the pandemic period (2020-2021), as part of the strategy to mobilize resources for emergency actions to assist indigenous communities in that difficult historical moment. Starting from the recognition of the need for a critical approach to Western epistemologies, theories and concepts used to systematize the experience of contact with indigenous peoples, in which debates about ethics and colonialism are intertwined, here we seek to shift such patterns towards an intercultural encounter in that the indigenous perspective and epistemologies are in evidence, destabilizing concepts of authorship and authority. Using a framework and contextual analysis of the relations between national society and indigenous peoples in Brazil, we arrive at similarities between Cinema Studies and Anthropology, disciplines deeply involved in the process of documenting and disseminating knowledge about indigenous peoples. In this way, we adopt an epistemological foundation for research on indigenous documentary films considering the political context and the ideas of Culture, identity and representation. With the proposal of an intercultural encounter, in this research we analyze the filmic elements that constitute documentary films in dialogue with classical analytical categories of Anthropology to subvert them to indigenous ways of representation and production of knowledge with a critical approach. From the analysis of the films, three approach lenses emerged: 1 – The incompatibility of the Nature and Culture dichotomy in the indigenous way of filming and telling stories; 2 – The story taken up by the indigenous movement, subverting the point of view of indigenous documentaries; 3 – Seniority and kinship as models of sociability on shot and reverse shot. We conclude from this intercultural encounter that the indigenous political documentary film mobilizes universes that are multiple and transversal with a focus on denouncing historical violations of rights and arguing about other possible worlds.