Films for change
Denise Zmekhol’s Children of the Amazon was received well by Nepalis when screened at the fifth International Indigenous Film Festival on Sunday
The stories of the Amazonian tribes are little known in the medium of film—at least not ones that look at how things change for the natives when outsiders intrude. Filmmaker Denise Zmekhol’s Children of the Amazon fills in for this absence. The 1960s saw devastating changes in the environment of the region, and Zmekhol frames these through the eyes of the children she met fifteen years ago. The film has received international acclaim with its campaigns to help the Surui tribe of Acree, Brazil. Denise Zmekhol spoke to Shahani Singh about making the film.
What were your expectations from an audience here?
I was pleased to see that a lot of the audience here took in the nudity of the indigenous people well.
This is how the Surui tribe would have been in the 60s. When they came in contact with loggers, they contracted diseases. The Surui people now wear clothes, are Christian and their environment looks so much worse with all the logging.
Can you explain a little bit of the history?
The coastal areas of Brazil were first colonised by the Portuguese, but it was very hard to enter the Amazon forest. Outsiders failed so many times—not just the Portuguese, but the Spanish, the French and the English. When the rubber tappers came two centuries ago, they did not change the way of life too much as they did not cut down trees—they only scraped the bark for rubber and made tyres for wars. In the 1960s when the loggers came in the rubber tappers sought to unite with the Surui tribe to fight back logging.
Have you as a filmmaker faced opposition from anybody?
No, not really. I think the first time I went there, when I wasn’t doing my film, it was very easy for people to know which side we were on. Sometimes we had to pretend that we were neutral, so there were moments when I felt vulnerable. When I went back the second time, I felt welcomed—a lot of people got to know what I was doing and they connected with my efforts.
Please tell us more about the Google Earth Outreach programme in Acree.
The leader Almir Surui is a visionary, and he had this sense that there was something he could do with Google—to put content and history on the map. With Google he could connect to millions of people all over the world and build up a force to oppose the business of logging.
I was called up to make a film about a project happening in Acree. This went well with my own intentions to educate, bring consciousness and inspire people to take action; because there are so many things we can do in our lives to not repeat this cycle of destruction.
Was there anything that you consciously did to make this film one that will arouse people to take action?
One thing that I was always careful about was that I didn’t want people to feel depressed at the end of the film. I didn’t want people to think that nothing can be done. So at the end of the film, I wanted to show how the Brazilians are dealing with the indigenous people. I wanted to bring in good news—as much of it as there is—and that was my choice.
Posted on: 2011-04-27 10:37
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