A powerful and vital piece of filmmaking
ALEX PRITZ’S FEATURE DEBUT IS A DIFFICULT, SOMETIMES TERRIFYING LOOK AT THE BRAZILIAN RAINFOREST
FILM REVIEW The Territory Cast: Bitaté Uru- eu- wau- wau, Neidinha Bandeira Director: Alex Pritz Duration: 1 h 24 m Available: opens Aug. 19 in Toronto and Vancouver and Aug. 26 in Montreal
There are no easy answers in The Territory, the feature debut from documentary filmmaker Alex Pritz. Instead, there are difficult and sometimes terrifying questions, most of which boil down to: Who owns the Brazilian Amazon rainforest?
Legally, 7,000 square kilometres of it belong to the Uru- eu- wau- wau, an Indigenous tribe whose initial contact with the outside world was only 40 years ago. The film largely focuses on Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau, who was elected chief several years ago at the age of 18. His grandfather still has clear memories of their hunter- gatherer lives before first contact.
The Brazilian government has decreed that only Indigenous people can live on their ancestral lands, but that hasn’t stopped farmers and other settlers from moving in, some backed by quasi- legalistic arguments, others driven by faith that God wants this. For anyone following the centuries- old Doctrine of Discovery as it relates to colonization of North America, the modern- day parallels are stark. But this isn’t ancient history.
Pritz connects with local environmental activist Neidinha Bandeira, who fears for her life and that of her daughter after receiving numerous death threats. But she’s adamant about helping Bitaté and the rest of his people, who number fewer than 200 after Western diseases ( and, more recently, COVID- 19) decimated the population.
And more is at stake than just land ownership. Deforestation in the Amazon threatens both biodiversity and efforts to combat climate change. Drone footage of the area — the Uru- euwau- wau bring the latest tech to bear in their fight — shows a stark contrast between the lushly forested Indigenous lands and the desiccated, burnt-out settler zones, cleared for agriculture and future housing.
Pritz doesn’t hide his sympathies, and includes footage of the natural beauty of the region, including butterflies, frogs and leafcutter ants, all of them presumably at risk from the settlers’ clear- cutting. But he also interviews individual settlers, many of them adamant that they are merely providing for their families, and that they have as much right to the land as anyone.
Things get even darker when Ari, a 33-year-old Urueu- wau- wau, is found murdered at the side of the road; the crime remains unsolved. And it doesn’t help that the far- right president Jair Bolsonaro has no love of the Indigenous cause. Under his leadership, the country’s Indigenous affairs department admits it has no resources to stop incursions. The Urueu-wau-wau respond by creating their own police force, arresting would- be settlers at arrowpoint before turning them over to the authorities
The Territory is a powerful and vital piece of filmmaking, though not an especially hopeful one. It ends with the troubling news that invasions of the Uru-eu-wauwau lands have doubled last year, and that there are now more settlers than Indigenous people inside the region. But it’s also clear that the natives are continuing to push back with technology, through legal means, and on the journalistic front. Their future, while grim, is by no means certain. ★★★★