We met director João Salaviza, who presented The Buriti Flower at Un Certain Regard, along with his co-director Renée Nader Messora.
João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora’s explores the vicious past and present of the Krahô’s indigenous community in The Buriti Flower, their second appearance in the Un Certain Regard section (The Dead and the Others, 2018). Continuing their relationship with the Amazonia, the film spans from the 1940’s to the present, depicting the livelihoods of the Krahô in the present day to showcase the horrors and issues of the indigenous community in the Amazonia. Showing first-hand accounts of tribal rituals to life in the modern world, João and Renee’s spiritual exposition exposes a harrowing past with a hopeful future in their second directorial collaboration. We had the pleasure of sitting down with João to talk about their latest film.
“This is the second film we do with the Krahô. And we wanted to make it in a very collective way.”
Film Fest Report: Did you enter the Krahô community easily? And where is the frontier between documentary and fiction in the film?
João Salaviza: My co-director and partner Renée Nader Messora started to visit the Krahô indigenous territory back in 2010 and I started to go there in 2014. So, we have a very long relationship with the community. Over the last years, we have spent more time there than outside. We have shot for 15 months. So, in the end, it was like filming with friends or family. Besides our cultural differences, which are obvious you, we have a very intimate connection with them. We are allies of the community. We are indigenists too. That means we are activists. The Buriti Flower is the second film we do with the Krahô. And we wanted to make it in a very collective way. It is not a film like most films are done, when you write the script at home or you make research and then you go to a place and you say, “I want this, I want that.” And now you have six weeks to make the film. It was absolutely the opposite. We arrived with some ideas. We had our expectations, our desires, but they also have their requests and expectations as to things they wanted to put in the film. We then started working every day. Some days, we would not work on the film, but we would do other things. So, after 15 months with them, we have not filmed everything. Of course not. It was truly a collective process. The Indigenous participated in the script. And we would edit the film as we went, along with them. Which guided us and led us to try things and sometimes film in a different way. The film was made out of a collective effort and a permanent conversation.
Film Fest Report: The film is truly a sequel to the past. How did you decide to insist on the past of the Krahô community?
João Salaviza: We knew that the connection between the Krahô and the land would be the spine of the film. We knew the film would end with a baby being born, even though we did not know whether we could film it. But that was our idea. We also knew we wanted to look at the past. There is, in the film, a 20-minute sequence dealing with a massacre that happened in the forties. We took an oral testimony of one of the survivors of the massacre ten years ago. And the main protagonist of the film (who is a non-actor obviously) reports what this old survivor has experienced, as if it happened to him, in first person.
What I like about the film is that every sequence has a different spirit and adopts a different strategy. I think there are many films within the film. Sometimes, the film has a real documentary style, such as when we film the village, the rituals, and the celebrations. Some other moments, the film is more classical, especially at the beginning of the film, which is very staged.
Film Fest Report: How did you work along with your co-director Renée?
João Salaviza: It is funny because we can talk about the production, the technical issues we had on set etc. but in the end, it really boils down to personal things, because it is a very small film. Renée and I were almost the only foreigners, along with two or three other people helping with sound or production. So, our work relationship is basically couple life. Yet, Renée is the cinematographer of the film and has a great ability for lighting. I am more sensitive to sound and editing. But since the film does not follow any traditional ideas, she is in the camera most of the time. But it happened in some moments that I was in the camera. She also grabbed the mic in one or two sequences. It is a very handcrafted way of making a film.
Film Fest Report: In the film, the young girl is experiencing something unusual: the spirits separate from her body. What does that mean?
João Salaviza: The Krahô do not have the division that we have between conscious and unconscious. For us, we dream, and something happens in your brain; you have like a film projector inside your brain! For them, the spirits are material, they exist. So, when you dream, your spirits leave the body it can go very far away. You can meet the dead ones for instance. Yesterday, before the screening here in Cannes, the main actor told me that he was dreaming of six old leaders of the community that he met when he was a kid. And he said, they were here with us. He felt that they were following us. The shamans, they are doctors. When they are healing, their goal is not to let your soul to be that far away from your body. In the film, the girl is, in a way, a traveling her spirit into these moments of the history of the Krahô. And she is testifying things that happened during the massacre in the forties, and in the seventies, when the Krahô were mobilized to be part of some official guerilla during the dictatorship. So in a way, she also represents for us in the film some sort of a testimony. She is a witness of all these things. And in the film, we try to see what, from the cosmology of the Krahô, can be transformed into cinematic language. This is not a paranormal movie, nor terror or fantastic film. For them, it is real life. It is not a matter of believing or not in the spirit. It is more about trusting: “Is this spirit good or bad?,” it is a question of trust, not a question of belief.
“Lula won the elections. […] Things are changing. It is a moment of hope.”
Film Fest Report: Are you going to continue to follow the Krahô and keep filming them?
João Salaviza: This is more than an artistic project. For sure, we will have this connection with them forever. We will always be there. We will try to be there as much as we can. We also try not to be in a hurry and not to think about ten films at the same time. It needs to make sense for them and for us as well, to have the material conditions to do it in a fair way. We never thought about bringing a film crew into the community. They are also making their own films, so who knows? But for sure we will be with them.
Film Fest Report: Is it important that they now start filming themselves?
João Salaviza: Absolutely. The community demanded cameras because they felt they needed to create their own images, especially because when they appear in the media, it is always a horrible representation. So, about ten years ago, they started making films about their rituals. The films they do are also played in the very big indigenous cinema movement that has been arising in the last 20 years in Brazil. In other communities, some Indigenous directors have already screened their films in important festivals. We hope a Krahô director will emerge soon as well.
Film Fest Report: What does the future hold for the Krahô? Are they declining ad a group, or are they growing?
João Salaviza: They are growing demographically. At the time of the massacre, they were reduced to 300 people. They almost disappeared. Now, they are 4,000. Bolsonaro’s government helped the farmers kill the land and kill the Krahô. Now something very beautiful is happening because Lula won the elections, thanks to the social movements, the indigenous movements, the black antiracist movements, the LGBT movements, the farmers, the small farmers, small families farming communities. All these movements are joining the governments, the institutions. The recently created Ministry of the Indigenous People is a former activist. Things are changing. It is a moment of hope.
