LA FLEUR DE BURITI © Karô Filmes, Entre Filmes
Crowrã (The Buriti Flower), João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora’s vision
With Crowrã (The Buriti Flower), João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora, winners in 2018 of the special Jury Prize for The Dead and the Others, once again follows the indigineous Krahô people over three time periods of their history, in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Shot on their land over fifteen months, this film screened at Un Certain Regard is a tribute to the extraordinary capacity of resilience of this indigenous people and of the fight they carry out to preserve their freedom.
How do the Krahô develop their history? What are their concepts, their principles? In the form of a non-linear narrative, that of the oral storytelling of indigenous people, The Buriti Flower offers a reflection on resistance, the relationship between the Krahô and the earth, and the violence suffered over recent centuries to the detriment of their ancestral rites and practices.
Shot in four different villages in the indigenous territory of Kraholândia, the film depicts, for each of the periods it passes through, a decisive event in the history of this people: a massacre of Krahôs carried out by farmers trying to take their land in 1940, a traumatizing experience during the military dictatorship in 1960, and, finally, in our days, the political struggle of a new generation of indigenous leaders in response to the dramatic consequences of Bolsanaro’s rule.
Through the eyes of Hyjnõ, Patpro and Jotàt, the film evokes a poetic imagination, connected to the collective memory of communities. And beyond the Krahô people and their territory, it recalls the importance of indigenous people and the teachings we can learn from their struggles.
