Paper short abstract:

The Mbya Guarani cinema is defined by one of the directors as political and spiritual. In this presentation, I analyse how cinema encounters phenomenological resonances with the ethos and shamanism of this people and how other ways of living mean other ways of feeling, knowing and making films.

Paper long abstract:

The Video in the Villages (VNA) project was founded in Brazil in 1986 with the aim of strengthening the struggle of indigenous peoples. Since 1997, it has organized filmmaking workshops for indigenous directors in a spirit of dialogue and shared production. In 2007, VNA began to collaborate with a group of Mbya-Guarani that live in the south of Brazil and in Argentina. Until today, they have produced six films that circulate in the villages and in national and international film festivals. According to one of the indigenous directors, the Mbya Guarani cinema is political and spiritual. At the political level, cinema has been an important tool to "talk back", correct prejudices and claim rights, especially in the demarcation of indigenous lands. In terms of spirituality, cinema finds phenomenological resonances with the ethos and shamanism of this people, namely with the aesthetic-ethical practices of commensality, corporality and conviviality (such as singing-praying, beautiful walking, xondaro) aimed at fostering the good life and supplanting death by reaching the Land Without Evil. In short, I intend to analyse how other ways of living mean other ways of feeling, knowing and making films.