‘The flower of Burití’, a story of resistance of indigenous Brazilians

In 1940, a group of cowboys attacked two communities of Krahô, indigenous people who inhabit lands between the states of Maranhão, Piauí and Tocantinsen, in Brazil. They murdered almost thirty people. But that was not the first massacre they suffered. “They threw the children into the air and shot. They tore the bellies of pregnant mothers. In the end there was only blood and smoke.”

It is the description that one of them makes today, in a memory of the massacre narrated for the rest of the inhabitants of the town, in one of the sequences of the film The Buriti flowera job that directors Renée Nader Messora and João Salaviza filmed in fifteen months and after more than ten years visiting the territory of this community.

Premiered at the Cannes Festival, the film won the award for best cast in the Un Certain Regard section, rewarding the work of the Krahô who appear on screen and who participated in the creation of the script together with the directors. In addition, the film has won the Special Jury Prize at the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival and the CineVisión Award in Munich.

Collective consciousness

The Buriti flower It is an exercise in political and social denunciation and a very beautiful cinematographic work. The connection of the Krahô with their land, their way of living with the jungle and all the species that inhabit it, and the deep collective consciousness with which they live are portrayed through the eyes of a girl in this film, which highlights the capacity of resistance of these people and the determination to continue defending their land.

Bolsonaro allied with the farmers and ranchers in the area to destroy the land of the Krahô and kill them. With the arrival of Lula da Silva again and the work of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, the situation has improved for them, helped by social movements indigenous, anti-racist, LTGBIQ+of small farmers and peasants. Today 4,000 people live in this community.

“The Westerners have only brought destruction to our people. Today, non-indigenous people decide about our lives,” shouts a member of the indigenous association at a large demonstration held in Brasilia. Two of the members of the Krahô go there, ready to denounce the water contaminated with mercury, the bullets they receive from the miners, the destruction of their small crops, the theft of jungle animals that they then sell at exorbitant prices…

indigenous women

At the same time, The Buriti flower reveals the traditions of this people, who celebrate ancestral rites in Ketuwajé with paintings on their bodies and with dances and songs that celebrate nature. “Pick the flower. The buriti flower is red,” is the chorus of a song that is heard at the beginning of the film, after having entered the unknown universe of the Kraho with the sounds of the jungle.

In that world, it is Jotàt’s eyes that guide the viewer. The girl does not sleep well and cries. “Something is tormenting her,” says the shaman, a man who lives by helping his neighbors, but who also represents the part of patriarchy installed in the community. “I have heard it said that When women become shamans they are more powerful than male shamans,” says one woman to another. “We women are too ashamed, but If you become a shaman, a shaman will come and take away your power.“. And one of these women, Jotàt’s mother, will travel to the large indigenous concentration in Brasilia to meet with the community of indigenous women, “to talk about our problems.”

“Pure capitalist greed”

The Krahô have, in their own words, “another concept of territory, nothing about exploitation, destruction, profit, or making money. For us the territory is sacredwe need it to survive. Yours is pure capitalist greed“, they say, while showing the pain caused by the destruction of the planet, the consequences of climate change, another enemy of their people.

Exciting and at the same time reflective, The Buriti flower is an exercise of respect for the Krahô and for their way of life, which shows a necessary ethics in cinema when it approaches unknown universes that must be preserved. “This film is more than an artistic project,” the filmmakers said when it was presented at Cannes. “It has to make sense for them and for us too. We look for the material conditions to do it fairly.”