Indigenous cinema: From object to subject of film production in Brazil

Abstract

Based on cultural studies, this article refers to a cinematographic production experienced by a group of Sateré Mawé youngsters, inhabitants of the brazilian Amazon. We tried to set this experience in a broader historical and political context of indigenous cinema. We discuss the main features corcerning brazilian cinema during the twentieth century and its relationship to nationalist movements in the building of indigenous people image. We focused on Cinema Novo as a break with Hollywood standards, working with the assumption of it as an ideological and epistemological basis for the future emergence of Indigenous Cinema. We specially emphasized the indigenous cinema on America, concerning to questions related to national identity, within culture politics of the national States which directly affect ethnic diversity in their territories. In this context, we discuss the “Cineastas Indígenas” project, realized by the NGO “Video nas Aldeias” as an important theoretical and methodological tool, that must be transformed and multiplyed.