The Falling Sky

synopsis

The Yanomami and Watoriki are indigenous tribes inhabiting the Amazon rainforest. Until the early 1970s, they lived in relative isolation. However, during Brazil's military dictatorship, a highway was built across their territory, devastating the landscape and opening it up to resource extraction companies. With them came pollution, violence and disease. The frustrating clash with a system that has no regard for anything living is portrayed in the film as perceived by the indigenous men and women. The leisurely pace and the (otherworldly) visual dynamics are suited to them. We are thus invited to look, hear and feel for a while, just like the people whose world is quickly disappearing.

“Our desire was for the camera to feel the vitality, the friendship and of course the strength of the Yanomami people. So we didn’t arrive with a firmly structured way of going about it. We got there with a very, very small crew. The camera looked at the vibrancy, the heat that these people emanate. And we worked with that.”

Quote source: Variety

biography

Eryk Rocha (1978) is a Brazilian director, producer, editor and cinematographer, the son of Glauber Rocha. He studied cinematography at the San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba, and has made many films shown at leading festivals.

Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha (1982) is a Brazilian filmmaker, theatre director, researcher and environmental activist. Her work has been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and elsewhere.

more about film

director:	Eryk Rocha, Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha
producer:	Eryk Rocha, Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, Donatella Palermo
photography:	Bernard Machado, Eryk Rocha
editing:	Renato Vallone
sound:	Marcos Lopes
sound design:	Guile Martins
associate producer:	Richard Copans

contact

Jing Xu / Rediance
jing@rediancefilms.com