São Paulo – Brazil will be represented at the Berlin Festival by the film The Last Forest (2020), by Luiz Bolognesi. The feature was selected for the Panorama exhibition of this which is one of the most important events in world cinema. The film portrays the daily life of a Yanomami settlement that has lived in isolation on the border between Brazil and Venezuela for over a thousand years.

Bolognesi signs the script for the feature in partnership with Davi Kopenawa, who is a shaman, writer and leader of the Yanomami people. In portraying the day-to-day life of this village, the indigenous resistance against the advance of prospectors on their lands comes into focus. The work portrays all the evils brought about by the invasions, repeating Bolognesi’s experience with the film Ex-Shaman (2018), who also received an honorable mention at the Berlinale.

Brazilian cinema will be represented by three more works at the Berlin Festival. Compared to previous years, it is a reduced share. To have an idea, in 2019, the country had 12 films competing in different exhibitions and in 2020 there were 18; including the race for the main prize, the Silver Bear. This year, no Brazilian production competes for the highest podium.

Bolsonarista dismantle

Among the culprits for the drastic reduction are low production in times of pandemic and, especially, the asphyxiation experienced by the audiovisual sector. Since taking office, President Jair Bolsonaro has made his aversion to Brazilian culture clear. Public announcements were interrupted, as well as incentive programs, making access to the Audiovisual Sectorial Fund more difficult and, as a consequence, suffocating the industry.

“President Bolsonaro has achieved his goal, which is to kill national cinema, because he is killing. This is yet another testament to the political and cultural decay that affects all sectors of the country ”, summarizes journalist Rui Martins, in an article in Brasil de Fato.

Among the attacks is also the rigging of the National Cinema Agency (Ancine), which in practice became a phantom organ. “Since his election campaign, Bolsonaro has threatened Ancine, first promising to create filters or censorship. Soon after, he spoke clearly of closing the regulatory agency for cinema, created in 2001 by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a few years after Embrafilme was closed. Ancine’s objective was to foster, create and supervise the film industry, being linked to the Ministry of Culture ”, adds Martins.

The festival

This year’s Berlinale takes place in a hybrid format, online and limited in person. The festival will feature an exhibition of the Berlinale Serie productions between March 1st and 5th for professionals in the sector. And a second period will be highlighted in June for the general public. Among the highlights of the edition are 15 films made during the covid-19 pandemic, with all the challenges and reflexes of humanity’s greatest health crisis in more than 100 years.

“Although only a few directly show the new world in which we live, they all integrate the times of uncertainty that we are going through,” he said in a video about the program. “The feeling of apprehension is everywhere,” said Berlinale artistic director Carlo Chatrian.