Fejos Postdoctoral Fellow: Alice Villela

During the period of the Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship, a post-production was carried out on the film “As Far as the Eye Can See”, initially called “Retomada”. In the film, co-directed by Hidalgo Romero and produced by Laboratório Cisco, a documentary production company based in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, three generations of Kariri-Xocó indigenous people (state of Alagoas, Brazil) come together on an expedition to recognize what they call their memorial territory. During centuries of colonization, the Kariri-Xocó territory was expropriated, and these people hid their language, their knowledge and even their sacred rituals from non-indigenous people as a survival strategy. Now, armed with cameras, drones, pipes, headdresses and maracas, they travel through the geographical landmarks of their territory in a road movie that is the preparation for new retakings.

This film is the result of postdoctoral research about the struggle for land and the Kariri-Xocó music-making, and it is the outcome of almost 10 years of a relationship with this indigenous ethnic group.

The results of my previous research (See Villela, 2022) showed a relationship between Kariri-Xocó music-making and the struggle for territory, whether it was keeping the community together in the occupations of the retaken territory or in situations of political confrontation. Musicking (cf. Small, 1998) is used here as a way of extending the idea of music making beyond performance; one makes music when listening to music, talking about music, dreaming about music, preparing the space for a performance, cooking to feed the community after the singing and dancing of the Toré, which happens in relationships between people, but also in relationships between humans and non-humans. In this sense, I observed the relationships between the Toré and the idea of resistance, as the Kariri-Xocó use it, with special attention to how this musicking is integrated into everyday life, promoting spaces and feelings of belonging and commitment in the context of the political struggle for land

In April 2023, during the Acampamento Terra Livre – ATL, the largest indigenous mobilization that takes place annually in Brasília, the Federal Capital (Brazil), President Lula ratified the Kariri-Xocó lands, putting an end to the almost 20-year wait for the regularization of indigenous land. The approval of 4,419 hectares triggered a very interesting process in Pawanã, a leader and shaman, and his family, and he set out in search of knowledge about the extent of the Kariri-Xocó territory in the memory of the elders. Accompanied by his uncle, Pawanã leads a series of expeditions to what they come to call the memorial territory, a territory where their ancestors walked, delimited by mountains, the São Francisco river and lagoons covering some 50,000 hectares. The film “As Far as the Eye Can See” tells the whole story of the search for the memorial territory after it was ratified.

As they travel through the memorial territory, they not only remember, but also update their relationships with their ancestors. When they arrive at the landmarks, they sing Torés, led by Pawanã, who “receives” a different song in each place, addressing the non-human entities. On the trails of this territory-memory, Pawanã remembers various songs that he knows but didn’t know they referred to his people’s history of territorial displacement.

During the period of the Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship, I carried out the post-production of the film in collaboration with many people. Below I detail the stages of this work.

Editing: The editing stage of the film “As Far as the Eye Can See” lasted 6 months. We relied on the work of editor Leco Wahrhaftig and it was an important moment in which the directors worked on the editing room most of the time with the editor constructing sequences from a previous script, which was then redone during the editing work. The film had three cuts before the end and, at the end of each cut, we held screenings for specialized audiences in the field of cinema, anthropology, activism with indigenous peoples and the Kariri-Xocó themselves; with these screenings, we had important feedback to keep moving forward with the editing. Between the first and second cuts, we welcomed Pawanã Kariri-Xocó and his daughter, Kayane Kariri-Xocó, both participants in the film, to work with us on the editing. We spent a week with the indigenous people on the editing island experimenting  with changes to the previous cut and listening to their comments about the sequences, lines, what they thought was most relevant and what they wanted to take out of the film.

We also had two editing consultations with director and filmmaker Alice Riff and film critic, curator and screenwriter Eduardo Valente. Both watched the cuts and gave us feedback to improve the editing of the film.

Soundtrack: The film’s soundtrack was made by musician João Arruda, who has collaborated with the Kariri-Xocó people in recordings and concerts. Pawanã Kariri-Xocó and Kayane Kariri-Xocó took an active part in the construction of the soundtrack. We brought them from the village and took them to the musician’s studio to record some Kariri-Xocó songs that, in agreement with them, we thought were important for the film.

Color treatment: We relied on the work of colorist Tobias Resende to give the images in the film a treatment.

Sound design and mixing: The sound design and mixing work was carried out by Augusta Gui and Guile Martins. The two professionals gave a treatment to the direct sound recorded, and added, in a very subtle way, soundscape elements to some scenes and passages in the film. Mixing was carried out at the JLS studio in São Paulo, which has excellent infrastructure for mixing work.

Art and design: The film’s artwork was created by indigenous artist Ziel Karapotó. Ziel is a visual artist and filmmaker who has been making national and international headlines with  his visual works, performances and films. The Karapotó people live very close to the Kariri-Xocó and the two ethnic groups are linked by a common history and various inter-ethnic marriages. The artist gave us a drawing of the memorial territory’s map, used in the film’s title and promotion, as well as a drawing of the indigenous people taking part in the film for us to insert in the credits. Bia Porto did the graphic design for the film.

Subtitling and translation: We subtitled and translated the film into three languages: English, French and Spanish.

Impact consulting: During the period, we also carried out an impact consultancy with Rodrigo Diaz Diaz, who is part of Taturana Mobilização Social, an organization that distributes films about socially relevant topics. During this consultancy, we began to design an impact campaign, identifying niches that might be interested in the discussion the film brings up, as well as thinking about how the film could reach the academic and anthropological world.

Distribution at festivals: Distribution at international festivals is being carried out by Renato Manganello of Utopia Docs. Submission to national festivals (Brazil) is being handled by Laboratório Cisco, the film’s producer. We hope that the film will soon be shown at national and international festivals. There is still no set date or premiere date.