The first association with Brazil and the word “Territory” is the immediately familiar trash metal song by Sepultura in which the Cavalera brothers, Kisser and the rest of the team thunder about how world leaders use propaganda and hatred to cause fear, then wars for territory. We also follow the fight for territory in the excellent activist documentary that the American Alex Pritz shot in Brazil between 2018 and 2020 and that won the audience award at Sundance, and was then shown at numerous world festivals. It is a story about the fight for land between the Brazilian native tribes who are still trying to live a traditional way of life in the Amazon jungles and the invaders who are trying to get their land, which is nominally a protected area, at any cost.
And there are probably many tribes in Brazil that have similar problems, but the focus here is on the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe, which had its first contact with Brazilians only in 1981. Although the area where this tribe lives has been protected since 1993, we see that numerous settlers are massively clearing and demolishing the rainforest in order to obtain land for extensive cattle breeding. The situation will be further complicated in 2018 after the election of Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, who will completely ignore state regulations on the protection of Indian land, and encourage even more wood thieves and land grabbers. And Pritz deals with this issue comprehensively, and we have the whole story from both sides.
Both on the part of the natives who will organize themselves and start protecting their territory, but also on the part of those modern colonizers who want the land for themselves. And it seems completely unreal, like once upon a time in the American wild west when someone would just come to a certain location, put up a flag and say this is my country now. The situation apparently works in an identical way here as many impoverished peasants are trying to get land by tearing down and burning the rainforest and building houses and even villages in the protected area, justifying that the Indians don’t need so much land.
It is clear that very quickly we are getting to the core of the problem, which is that the big farmers and others who have money have long ago grabbed all the land, and in fact their tactic is to send ordinary, poor people to such actions in order to then take over the stolen land from them. And we will see that the situation has completely gotten out of control because these land grabbers stop at nothing and even kill not only Indians, but activists who are fighting for their rights and the saving of the Amazon rainforest are also in danger. This documentary is specific because a good part was filmed by the Indians themselves, armed with cameras and drones to monitor the situation in their territory, who, under the leadership of the new, young chief, will organize and start defending their country.