Unerasable Memories
A Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection. Conflictual episodes of history based on the personal perspectives of renowned artists. Curator: Agustín Pérez Rubio.
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O sangue da terra, 1982-1984
Video, 33’53”
O sangue da terra addresses the legal battle fought by the Sateré Mawé indigenous people against the French oil company Elf Aquitaine in Brazil’s Amazonas, in 1982 and 1983. The piece highlights the shutting down and the overpowering of indigenous peoples, and raises a primordial question: the importance of video to their struggles. The author was shooting another documentary when the Sateré Mawé approached him with a request to document their battle against the foreign giant. The natives understood that in a world mediated by images and television, the most effective struggle is that of the media, that which employs the white man’s weapon.
Aurélio Michiles is a filmmaker and documentarian. Initiated in the 1980s, his film and television work focus on the Amazonian region and its people. The holder of degrees in architecture from the UnB and performing arts from the Visual Arts School of Parque Lage (1978), he has directed award-winning films like O cineasta da selva (The Filmmaker of the Amazon, 1997), Que viva Glauber (1991), Teatro Amazonas (2002), and Lina Bo Bardi (1993), and A agonia do mogno (1992), in addition to his latest film, Tudo por amor ao cinema (2014).
© Still: Aurélio Michiles
A Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection. Conflictual episodes of history based on the personal perspectives of renowned artists. Curator: Agustín Pérez Rubio.