Apiyemiyekî? (Ana Vaz, 2020) (Patreon)

Ana Vaz's latest film begins with black and white footage that tracks around the empty square outside of an imposing government building. It could be a civic office, or a museum. But we see numerous large sculptures in the quad, shot from odd angles. We are then driven up a highway and into the Amazonian jungle. This is the BR-174, a major road that was built through the land of the Waimiri-Atroari people during Brazil's military dictatorship. Thousands of Waimiri-Atroari people were slaughtered by the military during this campaign, as they were perceived as "uncivilized" and an impediment to progress.

The opening segments of Apiyemiyekî? display Vaz's skill and making her nation seem utterly alien, like an abandoned ruin. This is a prelude for the primary portion of the film, which consists of an examination of the archives of Egydio Schwade, an indigenous rights activist who has helped the Waimiri-Atroari people construct an archive of the drawings and writings they produced during the genocide. Schwade, a literacy instructor who helped the people learn Portuguese and transcribe their own spoken language, has worked to show how above all, the drawings made by various members of the Waimiri-Atroari tribe represent concrete testimony of the displacement, violence, and murder they experienced at the hands of the Brazilian government.

In some respects, Apiyemiyekî? is the most straightforward documentary style work I have yet seen from Vaz, whose films tend toward the elliptical. This may well have to do with both the desire to present the testimony in a direct form, to use cinema as a tool for expanding the reach of Schwade's archival work. It could also be a decision based on political kairos, since the rise of Jair Bolsonaro means that Brazil's indigenous people now face their biggest threat since the end of the dictatorship in 1985. 

However, as one watches Apiyemiyekî?, one is struck by Vaz's use of superimposition, layering the drawings -- some simple lines, others vividly colored -- over photographed reality, often with an additional, palimpsestic scrim of multiple written languages. This approach takes the past and demands that we confront it, as if the spirits of the dead are restless and asserting their presence because we still have not answered their full-throated demand: Why?