Tiago Campos
2013 | 85 min | Spain, Brazil, Xavante
New York Premiere | Director in Attendance
Adalberto is an eccentric German missionary with a passion for film. Divino (Xavante) is a young indigenous Amazonian filmmaker in his Brazilian village of Sangradouro, Mato Grosso where Adalberto has lived for over 50 years. Both have been devoted to filming everyday life among the Xavante; the film reveals their congenial and sometimes fractious relationship, shaped by humor, competition, criticism, and ultimately mutual affection. It’s the story of a dynamic duo with different histories and equally different personalities, with lives brought together in this Amazonian village, all captured by yet a third filmmaker, Tiago Campos, who works with the well-known film collective Video nas Aldeias along with Divino. In the whirlwind of cameras, Campos weaves together archival footage—humorous and serious—and the long relationship between these two men and the cultural worlds they represent. Step into the Amazon valley for an absorbing and whimsical look at the intertwined histories of Catholic missionaries and indigenous activists.