Through the eyes of her child, Patpro will go through three periods of the history of her native people in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Relentlessly persecuted, but guided by the rituals of their ancestors, their love for nature and the struggle to preserve their freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance. The Buriti Flower spans the last 80 years of Krahô life with a focus on the massacre that took place in 1940 in which dozens of natives died. Filming the massacre was a big dilemma. It is a story that needs to be told, but the directors did not want to produce pictures that would once again perpetuate violence. Therefore, they understand that the only way to record it is through their shared memories, through stories from the collective imagination of this people that insists on survival.
The Buriti Flower was filmed over fifteen months in four different villages within the native land of Kraholândia. Historical reports based on conversations and current events in the community served as the basis for building the film’s narrative in close cooperation with the natives who also co-signed the script.
Demonstrations in Brasilia due to a ruling that threatens the indigenous way of life, as well as the dangers they have faced in recent years – wildlife theft, logging, reactivation of an illegal dam – are absorbed into the film through a narrative in which past and present coexist equally. If the forms of violence today are multiple and capable of destroying entire nations, the forms of resistance are even stronger, more alive and reinvented every day.
Unlike the invasive agribusiness, the Krahô do not see the cerrado (the “water cradle” as they call the Amazon basin) and its inhabitants as “assets” or “resources” to be exploited. On the contrary, for them the cerrado is a complex and vital network made up of people, plants, animals, spirits and other entities that think, feel and act in the world. Due to their ancient coexistence and intense interaction with these creatures, the Krahô have developed sophisticated ecological knowledge, which is passed down through generations via stories, songs and rituals. This indigenous people is therefore today on the front line of the battle for the fate of the entire planet.
Awards and Festivals:
Cannes Film Festival (2023) – world premiere; CPH:DOX (2024); Huelva Latin American Film Festival (2023) – Special Jury Award; Munich Film Festival (2023) – Best Film by an Emerging Director; El Gouna Film Festival (2023) – Green Star; Cinema Eye Honors Awards (2023) – Heterodox Award
João Salaviza (1984) studied film at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School and at the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires. His first feature film Montanha had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival (Critics’ Week) in 2015. Since then he has lived between Portugal and Brazil, with the native Krahô people. His next film The Dead and the Others (co-directed with Renée Nader Messora) premiered in 2018 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section. The Buriti Flower is his second film co-directed with Renée Nader Messora and in collaboration with the people of Krahô, and again, premiered in Cannes.
Renée Nader Messora (1979) graduated in cinematography from the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. For fifteen years, she worked as an assistant director on several projects in Brazil, Argentina and Portugal, including Montanha, João Salaviza’s first feature film. She shot the short film Pohí, through which she got to know the Krahô people. Since then, he has been working with the community, contributing to the organisation of a collective of young filmmakers who use film as a tool to strengthen the cultural identity and self-determination of the Krahô people. Her first feature film The Dead and the Others (co-directed with João Salaviza) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section in 2018. The Buriti Flower is her second feature film, co-directed with Renée Nader Messora and made in collaboration with the people of Krahô, which again had its world premiere in Cannes.
