TESTIMONIES ABOUT VIDEO NAS ALDEIAS

Claude Levi-Strauss
Antropólogo
"The DVD (The Aguti's peanut) that you lend me is the best film I ever saw about Indigenous people in South America. All is perfect: the choice of the arguments, of the locations, the framing; and the quality of the images is fantastic. We have constantly the feeling of getting the chance of seeing the indigenous life from inside...And the xamanistic session is an anthological sequence."

Ivana Bentes
Researcher in cinema and communication, teacher at the Communication School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ

"Beyond its pioneerism, the Vídeo nas Aldeias project, coordinated by Vincent Carelli, is reaching a decisive and radical stage as it is training a generation of indigenous filmmakers, who are doing a kind of “auto-ethnography” or auto-documentary film, in which the Indians themselves register and edit their images, becoming subjects instead of objects of the speech.
There is no doubt the result doesn’t come by spontaneity or miracle. One can glimpse the dynamics of repeated workshops, of the community’s participation in the choice of the themes, of the construction of chosen characters and in other videos even the experimentation with dramatization and animation.
This cinema is a bet on images not only as a representation of oneself to others, but radically as a discovery of an audiovisual way of thinking, a global audiovisual village, in which the singularity of the brazilian Indians meets the singularity and vigor of documentary film and of contemporary cinema’s questions."

Isaac Pinhanta
Filmmakers and Ashaninka teacher
"Video is an open door that gives you incentives; it allows you to get new experiences and also makes you feel like doing it, organizing its production, managing the forest and your natural resources, enriching your food. Video has been very important for us to register our project and show it to other communities.
However, it is important not only to know the Ashaninka, but also to know how we are defending our people and our land. Our organization system can become an example for others, just as theirs can be useful to us too. It is an exchange through video, because often we can’t go there, but the video does go there.
So we want to understand this process, because we’ll only be able to defend ourselves when we’ll understand this process and these tools. Computer, writing, TV and video are ideal tools to enrich our knowledge."

Jean Claude Bernadet
Cinema critic and filmmaker
"Seen on occasion of the seminary entitled Formação do Olhar (Formation of the Gaze) held in São Paulo, these films captivated me. What makes them so special? There is an intimate relation between the camera and the person that is filmed. It seems to me that this caring observation of people’s gestures, this respect to the situation in which they encounter themselves, is something that has totally or almost totally disappeared from the Brazilian documentary cinema. We have a lot to learn with them."

Ruben Caixeta
Anthropologist and director of Belo Horizonte’s Documentary Films Festival – ForumDoc
"It is necessary to force the occidental world to recognize that there are other ways of seeing the world, of living and of thinking and that, consequently, there is another way of making films beyond the commonplace that is the television way. (…)
In this new video harvest we emphasize some magnum opus such as The Raining Season (2000) and Shomõtsi (2001)."

Andréa França
Cinema and communication researcher, teacher at the Social Communication Department at the Pontificate Catholic University/Rio de Janeiro, coordinator of the Cinema Course at the PUC/Rio de Janeiro
"Beyong the intimacy and the complicity between the one who films and those who are filmed, obvious in each shot of every one of these documentary films, there is a desire for film that is not only on the side of the indigenous filmmakers, but also on the other side of the camera. There is a desire for film as great as the filmmaker’s desire and, by turning this desire visible, active, talkative, these images create an absolutely egalitarian cinema, a cinema in which each body – may it be the plant’s, the shell’s, the crocodile’s, the agouti’s, the child’s, the elder’s body – has for the camera the same value as another body, all of them equally different, important and unique."

AWARDS
  • Award in appreciation of Vídeo nas Aldeias at the VIII International Cinema and Video of the Indigenous People, Oxaca in México, 2006.
  • Award in homage to Vídeo nas Aldeias at the 25º International Film Festival of Amiens, France, 2005.
  • UNESCO Award for VNA’a contribution to the preservation of imaterial patrimony, 2005.
  • Chico Mendes Award, from the Ministry of Environment, for the valorization of the Amazonian peoples’ cultural and environmental references, 2003.
  • Special Jury Award at the XII CINE CEARÁ Festival for Vídeo nas Aldeias project, 2002.
  • UNESCO Award, for respect for cultural diversity and search of peaceful interethnic relations, 2000.
  • Vídeo nas Aldeias project was selected by the National Consultation Agenda 21, promoted by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, to be among the 100 brazilian experiences of sustainable development.
  • Video nas Aldeias also received for the videos produced (a majority of which directed by indigenous filmmakers) more than 70 awards at national and international festivals.

VÍDEO NAS ALDEIAS RETROSPECTIVES AND EXHIBITIONS


2008 – "A view from the Villages" exhibition organized by the National Museum of the American Indian in New York and Washington.
2006 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Exhibition at Ouro Preto’s Winter Festival.
2006 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Exhibition at the Cinema and Video Event "Um dos olhares da ficção/realidade etnográfica", in Dourados, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
2006 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Exhibition – Um olhar Indígena, Teatro Nacional, Brasília.
2006 – "Indigenous Videos and Filmmakers" in the Itaú Cultural in São Paulo.
2005 – Exhibition and special homage to Vídeo nas Aldeias with the presenation of 13 videos in French version at the 25º International Film Festival of Amiens.
2004 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Exhibition – Um olhar Indígena, CCBB, Rio de Janeiro.
2002 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Special Exhibition at the Video and Cinema Sami Festival in INARI, in Finlândia.
2001 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Special Exhibition at the Cinema Festival of Vitória.
1998 – 10 years Vídeo nas Aldeias Retrospective at the MIS – Image and Sound Museum of São Paulo.
1997 – Vídeo nas Aldeias Exhibition at the Itaú Cultural Center, Belo Horizonte.
1996 – Vídeo nas Aldeias documentaries Retrospective at the ”Video-Author” event in the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center, Rio de Janeiro.

PUBLICATIONS


Due to the project’s originality and repercussion, the relations that Vídeo nas Aldeias maintains with diverse national and international universities, specialy in the field of visual anthropology, open spaces for research of academic interest, facilitating the production of a reflexive material in this domain and its diffusion among university students.

Below we include a selection of publications refering to the project and its participation in several activities since is creation. The majority of these texts were published in cinema and visual anthropology magazines.

CARELLI, Vincent. - Video in the Villages: Utilization of Videotapes as an instrument of Ethnic Affirmation Among Indian Groups, CVA Newsletter, 1988.
------- Vídeo nas Aldeias: um encontro dos índios com sua imagem - Tempo e Presença, vol.270: 35-40, CEDI, 1993.
------- The Project and the documentaries: two distinct and complementary dimensions of the Video in the Villages Project, New York University, Center for Media, Culture and History, ms., 1995.
--------- Projeto Vídeo nas Aldeias: um encontro dos índios com sua imagem (Projeto de Pesquisa Integrada / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa), 1994.
Carelli, V. & Gallois, D.T. - Vídeo dans les Villages: l ‘ experience Waiãpi, Lumières Cinéma, 1992.
-------- Cinema e povos indígenas: Experiências - Seminário II - (org.) Patrícia Monte-Mor e José Inácio Parente - Cinema e Antropologia: Horizontes e Caminhos da Antropologia Visual, Interior Produções, Rio de Janeiro, 1994.
-------- Vídeo e diálogo cultural - Revista de Antropologia Visual, vol.2, UFRS, 1995.
-------- Diálogo entre povos indígenas: a experiência de dois encontros mediados pelo vídeo - Revista de Antropologia, vol.38/1, USP, 1995.
-------- Índios Eletrônicos, revista CINEMAIS, Rio de Janeiro, 2000.
-------- Moi, um Indien, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
CORRÊA, Mari. Vídeo das Aldeias, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
--------- Vídeo nas Aldeias no olhar do outro, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Brasília, 2006.


A selection of articles dealing with the results of the Project:

CEREGHINO, M - Vídeo d’autore dalla floresta pluviale amazônica - Le Culture, Il Manifesto, 1993.
AUFDERHEIDE, P. - The Video in the Village’s Project: vídeomaking with and by Brazilian Indians - Visual Anthropology Review, vol.11/2, 1995.
GINSBOURG, Faye, “Videoparentesco: um ensaio sobre A Arca dos Zo’é e Eu Já Fui Seu Irmão”, Cadernos de Antropologia e Imagem 6, Rio de Janeiro, 171-181, 1998.
Robert Stam, João Luiz Vieira and Ismael Xavier, The Shape of Brazilian Cinema in Postmodern Age, 459-463, Brazilian Cinema, EUA, 1995.
BERNADET, Jean-Claude. Vídeo nas Aldeias, o documentário e a alteridade, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
PINHANTA, Isaac. Você vê o mundo do outro e olha para o seu, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Rio de Janeiro 2004.
QUEIROZ, Ruben Caixeta de. Política, estética e ética no projeto Vídeo nas Aldeias. Catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena, Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
BENTES, Ivana. Câmera muy very good pra mim trabalhar, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena. Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
MONTE, Nietta Lindenberg. A formação dos realizadores indígenas, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena. Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
KRENAK, Ailton. Cinema de Índio, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena. Rio de Janeiro, 2004.
ESCOREL, Eduardo. Nós aqui e vocês aí, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena. Brasília, 2006.
FRANÇA, Andréa. A livre afirmação dos corpos como condição de cinema, catálogo Mostra Vídeo nas Aldeias: Um Olhar Indígena. Brasília, 2006.
GOLDSTEIN, I. S. Iauaretê, cachoeira das onças: um registro fílmico de patrimônio imaterial. IN: Proa - Revista de Antropologia e Arte [on-line]. Ano 01, vol. 01, n. 01, ago. 2009. Disponível em: http://www.ifch.unicamp.br/proa/resenhas/resenhailana.htm