Luiz Bolognesi's 'A Última Floresta' Closes É Tudo Verdade Festival, Portraying Yanomami Strength

Luiz Bolognesi's documentary 'A Última Floresta' concluded the 2021 É Tudo Verdade festival on April 18. The film, previously featured in the Berlinale's Panorama section, represents a deliberate counterpoint to Bolognesi's earlier work 'Ex-Pajé'. While 'Ex-Pajé' followed Perpera, a Paiter Suruí shaman stripped of power after evangelical interference, 'A Última Floresta' centers on Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa in his full shamanic authority. Kopenawa was integral to the film's creative process, insisting it avoid victim narratives and instead showcase Yanomami strength. The documentary's unique approach stems from collaborating with Kopenawa to blend Yanomami cosmology with cinematic language, particularly their non-distinction between dreams and waking reality. Filming rituals required a four-week relationship-building process with the tribe, resulting in sequences where untranslated chants are presented without subtitles to preserve their sacred nature. Cinematographer Pedro Márquez aimed for a visual poetics that respected the beauty of Yanomami life, incorporating modern elements like flip-flops and cellphones as part of their living culture. The film emerges against urgent threats from approximately 20,000 illegal miners invading Yanomami lands, causing deforestation and mercury pollution, which President Jair Bolsonaro has defended. This environmental crisis risks contaminating food sources and luring youth away from traditions, a central concern for Kopenawa.