Ever since their first contact with the Western world in 1969 the Paiter Suruí, an indigenous people living in the Amazon basin, have been exposed to sweeping social changes. Smartphones, gas, electricity, medicines, weapons and social media have now replaced their traditional way of life. Illness is a risk for a community increasingly unable to isolate itself from the modernization brought by white people or the power of the church. Ethnocide threatens to destroy their soul. With dogged persistence, Perpera, a former shaman, is searching for a way to restore the old vitality to his village.
Direction
Bolognesi's patient observation lets horror unfold in real time.
Cinematography
Jungle beauty vs. corrugated tin — devastating visual contrast.
Director
Luiz Bolognesi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Paiter Suruí were 'uncontacted' until 1969 — meaning everyone in this film witnessed their entire world's collapse within one lifetime.
Director Bolognesi spent five years embedded; the church's deliberate suppression of shamanic practice is documented through hidden camera footage that nearly got the production expelled.
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