Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The French-Brazilian filmmaker and indigenist Vincent Carelli founded, in 1986, the NGO Vídeo nas Aldeias (VNA – Video in the Villages), which trains indigenous people in filmmaking. By ensuring access to equipment, postproduction support and international distribution of video works, VNA strives to democratize audiovisual production, allowing ethnical minorities to express themselves through it.

To this end, the anthropologist Lilia Schwarcz lauds the creation of the film A Arca dos Zo’é (1993) in an essay featured in the Unerasable Memories book: “In this video, indigenous filmmakers orchestrate their own perceptions, choose their characters and reinvent themselves through cinema. The camera records their temporality, a different complicity or intimacy. At a time when the world is ‘perspectivated,’ this type of material shows that there are different ways of thinking, of classifying and of representing the world.”

A Arca dos Zo’é documents a trip of chief Wai Wai, of the Amapá state-based Waiãpi tribe, and his film crew to the village of the Zo’é, in Pará. Wai Wai became aware of Zo’é culture through Vincent Carelli’s video series O Espírito da TV (The Spirit of TV). The Zo’é seemed to keep alive traditions his own tribe had already lost, and Wai Wai’s intention was to show the tribe’s youth the images of their ancestors, Carelli told PLATFORM:VB.

The Waiãpi and the Zo’é share a mutual curiosity that reflects the diversity of Brazilian indigenous nations, which are often equalized by our history. Wai Wai is taken aback by the Zo’é’s nudity and they, in turn, show interest in the Waiãpi’s clothes. “They do not use plates, only bowls, like our ancestors did. We were the ones who changed after meeting white men. They are identical to what they were in the times of the Creator,” Wai Wai reports back to his tribe, who gathers in front of the TV to view the footage. Chief Wai Wai warns the Zo’é about the destructive aspects of contact with white men, who open holes in the woods, soil their rivers and bring disease to the indigenous peoples.

Vincent Carelli has featured in four editions of Festival Sesc_Videobrasil and three of his works are included in the Associação’s collection. Incorporated into the collection in 1994, following the 10^th edition of the Festival, A Arca dos Zo’é was directed by Vincent Carelli in partnership with Dominique Gallois, an anthropologist who assists indigenous communities in the states of Pará and Amapá. Due to her familiarity with local populations and their languages, Gallois played a key role in translating the conversations with the indigenous people. The video has won prizes at the 9^th Rio-Cine Festival (1993), the 16^th Tokyo Video Festival (1993) and the 16^th Cinéma du Réel (1994), among others.

Learn more about the artist:

• Vincent Carelli e Dominique Gallois on Videobrasil Collection
• A Arca dos Zo'e on Videobrasil Collection