Alex Pritz’s prize-winning documentary The Territory drops viewers on both sides of the battle to preserve the Amazon rainforest.
To make it, Pritz spent time with both the indigenous Uru Eu Wau Wau people (who number less than 200) and the farmers seizing their lands.
Still from The Territory documentary Photo: Supplied
Listen to the interview
Like New Zealand’s own colonial settlers, these newcomers are looking to make a life for themselves in what they perceive as undeveloped and unoccupied land.
Pritz began filming in 2018 as far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro was elected Brazil’s president, championing farmers developing land in the protected region.
The director worked collaboratively with the Uru Eu Wau Wau as co-producers, providing them with cameras and audio equipment.
The Territory won both the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival this year.
“It's a really interesting situation where these farmers and settlers that are invading and illegally settling indigenous land, lighting fire to it burning the trees in the process - they see themselves as the heroes in this story.
“And in their narrative, they are the pioneers going out and turning nothing into something, you know, taking wilderness and turning it into private property. And they think that they should be celebrated for doing as such because it's the way that Brazil as a nation was built. And in a sense, they're right. That is how Brazil was built. It doesn't make it right, but it is part of the colonial process in Brazil, as it was in the United States and many other similar countries.”
Director Alex Pritz Photo: Supplied
The loggers and corporate extremists see no intrinsic worth in the forests, he says, even though they teem with life and provide ecosystems that filter our air and water.
Instead, they see virtue in privatising the land to turn a profit.
“To them, forest is nothing ... It's a blank space on a map, and only when it is turned into something that can be bought and sold as a commodity - beef, soy, or even just the idea of private property that land can be turned into a unit, that is, bought and sold."
Both the farmers and the Uru Eu Wau Wau viewed Pritz sceptically, he says.
Fear and scepticism were understandable coming from the indigenous community, given the history of land appropriation and colonialism, Pritz says.
He didn’t attempt to convince either them or the fathers that the film would take a side but attempted to explain to each group what a film was and what it was capable of doing.
The Territory highlights a story that might otherwise be invisible and makes it visible to a huge portion of the world, Pritz says.
One character in the documentary is inspirational, a young man who leads resistance to the loggers, gaining grants to buy drones and becomes savvy in the use of the technology.
“He is a visionary leader, and especially at such a young age, 18, taking on the responsibility for protecting a huge area of rainforest. It's nearly 7,000 square miles of old-growth rainforest that the rural community, with less than 200 people defending almost 18,000 square miles of old-growth rainforest, you can see from outer space…
“It's a huge responsibility, and he took it on with gusto and was able to see the power of media and GPS and drones and the ability to take their complaints that had previously been verbal, you go to the public prosecutor and you say, ‘look, we know that there are invaders in our land’.
“He was able to take that and translate it into western empirical terms - photo evidence, geo-located evidence of these invasions and things that the state could not ignore anymore. So I found we hit the jackpot within the details of an amazing person, seeing him transform and go from a young child into a capable mature leader. is one of the great gifts of this film.”
The farmers have been operating with impunity as protections for the forest and indigenous populations had been rendered meaningless in Brazil, particularly after the 2010 defeat of leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the subsequent election of Jair Bolsonaro as president,
Lula is looking likely to recapture the presidency at the start of next month.
“That is the great conundrum of this administration in Brazil, that the country on paper has quite strong laws and protection of the rainforest and protection of indigenous rights.
“The problem is that those are not being enforced at all. In fact, there's an active, dis-enforcement of these laws and involvement of people to go out and commit infractions that then go unpunished. And that leads to this culture of impunity, and weak rule of law, and is what has forced these indigenous communities to take matters into their own hands, patrolling their own lands and defending these really valuable ecosystems. Through their own measures."
Another heroic character in the documentary casts light on a woman who champions the environmentalist cause while putting herself in mortal danger.
Living in a part of the world where nearly everybody is against her, Pritz says this outspoken activist puts herself and her family in an extremely vulnerable position.
“This is the hotbed of agribusiness and very conservative anti-indigenous anti-environmental sentiment in the Brazilian Amazon.
“When her children were in elementary school they had to be escorted to and from school, with armed security guards, because the threats against her family were so large. And these aren't new things - under the Bolsonaro regime, it's poured some gasoline on the fire.”
One of the more dramatic elements of The Territory involves the murder of the 32-year-old school teacher and father-of-two who was in charge of the surveillance team for the indigenous people.
The man was found dead halfway through making the film, due to what the police originally claimed was a motorbike accident.
Eventually, they acknowledged he had been murdered but now claim this had nothing to do with his role defending the land.
“If the community believes that this is related to our defence of the land, we're going stand by them,” Pritz says.
The Territory is also notable for its scenes shot by members of the Uru Eu Wau Wau community, after Covid-19 prevented a documentary crew from accessing the area.
“We said, ‘hey, do you guys feel comfortable shooting and producing the last chapter of this film yourselves? We think that could be a way forward now that we're not able to see you in person anymore. They were resoundingly enthusiastic.”
“Everybody was really excited about the idea of assuming control and power over their own narrative. We supplied cameras and better audio equipment to the community so that during Covid they could film themselves going on these surveillance missions.”
Pritz says his previous footage failed to capture the realism of the situation and was inferior compared to what was shot by an indigenous community member.
“It just clearly wasn't the same quality, the urgency wasn't there in my footage the way that it was in [his] footage. So, I've learned a lot from him and the way that he chose to frame and tell this story through his own eyes.”
During filming, the documentary crew had serious fears for their safety, he says.
But this was tempered by a realisation of the greater danger that was being faced by the Uru Eu Wau Wau “returning home living as literal neighbours next to the same people that are invading and threatening their land”.
The Territory screens in selected cinemas nationwide for a limited time.