In the depths of the Brazilian Amazon, the consequences of contact with colonization were felt even before the Natives encountered white people. It was through disease that colonization first decimated the Aboriginal people. This is what Vincent Carelli’s fascinating documentary tells, Adeus, Capitao, presented at the First Peoples’ Festival this Sunday.
For decades, Carelli has filmed the fight of Krohokrenhum, chief of the Gavião nation, in the Amazon, for the survival of his culture and his language. The film actually begins at the end of the process, when Carelli returns to the village with his archives and those of Brother José Caron, a missionary who worked in the community, to share them with the survivors. It ends with the death of Krohokrenhum, mourned by his community and by Vincent Carelli, who had become his friend.
A man’s will
Filmed mainly in Portuguese and parkatêjê, the language of these Gavião Indigenous people, and subtitled in English, Adeus, Capitao attempts to reconstruct the history of this community emptied of its culture, which must now rely on the will of a man so that its knowledge survives. We learn in particular that several girls, including Krohokrenhum’s sister and daughter, having been taken as children among the whites during the epidemics linked to the arrival of the colonizers, never returned.
Over the course of numerous interviews, Chief Krohokrenhum, known as the Captain, recounts the difficulties he encounters in trying to bring the young members of his community, who now live in the western style, to participate in a traditional gavião festival, for example with the customary songs and the naked bodies painted accordingly.
“Krohokrenhum still spoke his language, but he had no one to talk to,” notes Vincent Carelli.
In this regard, the role of the camera is quite impressive. Indeed, Vincent Carelli shows the Aboriginal people the images he has taken of them, and they become aware of their acculturation. They then decide to have their lips pierced again in the style of their elders. “They lived with a very negative image of themselves,” says the filmmaker, joined by The duty in Brazil. “They were perceived as dangerous in the region. »
The film also recounts the tensions and deadly wars that existed between the different groups of Gaviaos in the region.
Lasting almost three hours, Adeus, Capitao seems to be the work of a lifetime, both for Vincent Carelli, who among other things founded an indigenous work center in the region, and for the chief Krohokrenhum whom he follows. Along the way, the latter finds himself in negotiations with various companies to authorize the passage of roads and power lines on the territory gavião, in the Amazonian forest.
“Around the territory occupied by the Aboriginals, there are pastures in very poor condition. The environmental issues are important,” says Vincent Carelli.
The director will receive, as part of the Indigenous Presence festival, a historical achievement award “for his work over four decades to give image and voice to the indigenous peoples of Brazil”.
In addition, as every year, the Présence Aboriginal festival will present an international selection of films on Aboriginal issues, in competition at the Cinéma du Musée.
Starting Monday, the Indigenous Perspectives on the Americas symposium will take place. Each year, this event takes on the mission of “building bridges between the university and the world of film and indigenous media”. In the presence of Abenaki documentary filmmaker Alanis O’Bomsawin and a host of Seminole, Maori, Wayuus, Cherokee and Mohawk directors, this time we will ask ourselves: “What sustains Aboriginal cinema? and “What does Indigenous cinema support?” “. The event will be held in Kahnawake and Montreal.