A poster for A View from the Villages
Courtesy NMAI

Vídeo Amazônia Indígena: A View from the Villages is a showcase of award-winning videos by indigenous video-makers from the Brazilian Amazon. This retrospective honors the outstanding work of Vídeo Nas Aldeias/Video in the Villages (VNA), an organization that empowers Native media-makers in the Brazilian Amazon to use video to voice their stories and reflect the contemporary life of their villages. Works will be introduced by the directors of each video and by the co-directors of VNA. Their productions have received numerous awards internationally and have been shown at festivals in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, and the United States, including at the Native American Film and Video Festival in New York regularly since 1989. VNA received special recognition with Through Indian Eyes, a major retrospective in Rio de Janeiro in 2004 and Brasilia in 2006.

For this event, presented by the National Museum of the American Indian and the All Roads Film Project, we will screen the following films:

Daritidzé, Trainee Healer (2003, 35 min.) Divino Tserewahú.
Since the screening of his film Wai'á rini, the Power of the Dream in other Xavante villages, the people of Aldeia Nova from the São Marcos reservation asked Divino to make a film on the same ritual, the Wai'á ceremony. In this ceremony the young men are initiated into the spiritual world to develop their curative power. A new experience for Divino who has to shoot in a different village but also an opportunity for him to try new techniques and develop his editing skills.

Imbé Gikegü/The Scent of Pequi Fruit (2006, 36 min.) Takumã Kuikuro and Maricã Kuikuro.
As the dry season comes to an end, it is a time of celebration and merriment in the Alto Xingu. The smell of the damp earth is mixed with the sweet perfume of “pequi”. But it has not always been this way: if it had not been for a death, the pequi might not exist. Linking the past to the present, Kuikuro video-makers tell a tale of dangers, pleasures, sex and betrayal, where men and women, hummingbirds and alligators, build a world in common. Please note: Film contains mature content

Each screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and Vincent Carelli, Founding Director, Vídeo Nas Aldeias, and Mari Correa, Co-director, Vídeo Nas Aldeias.

Vídeo Amazônia Indígena: A View From the Villages is funded in part by the Smithsonian Latino Center and the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, D.C.