(Originally reviewed Jan. 26, 2022)
In still camera shots and hushed, monotone voiceovers, Paz Encina directs a harrowing, slow-moving ode to a disappearing culture, that of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode. The Paraguayan tribe is still struggling to salvage their lands from ruthless developers who tear down the jungle to make room for cattle farms. Now twenty co-producers from six countries have rallied to the cause and lent their support to Eami, including Argentina, France, Germany, Netherlands, Paraguay and the U.S. As the film screens at festivals around the world, it will hopefully bring the indigenous Paraguayans front stage and give their urgent plight a measure of visibility.
Encina’s 2006 drama Paraguayan Hammock, which won a FIPRESCI Award at Cannes, also dealt with loss and bereavement in its story of an elderly Paraguayan couple awaiting news of their son, who left home to fight in the bloody Chaco War (80,000 soldiers killed among Bolivian and Paraguayan troops) in the 1930s. In Eami, the director takes the story of dispossession a step further. She shot the film in that same land of El Chaco, which is still being disputed today, but now the local invaders wield excavators and chain saws to expel the indigenous people from their own lost, looted lands.
Eami, which means “forest” and “world”, is also the name of the film’s main protagonist, a girl who is also a bird and who calls out for her lost friends and animals. Paz Encina is fond of holding a shot for several minutes until we wonder if it is a still photograph we see. She has a preference for the natural twilight of dawn and dusk, as she demonstrated in Paraguayan Hammock. In Eami, she lingers on static close-ups of Ayoreo children with their eyes closed, while we hear silence, or the rustling of leaves, or the plaintive narration of off-screen voices. It takes patience and perseverance to fully appreciate the film, but the forbearing viewer is rewarded with some beautiful images, such as the fragmented reflection of a child’s face in the rippled water of a pond, or the slow walk of a turtle along human footprints in a sandy riverbed. Meanwhile Ayoreo songs are heard on the soundtrack as laments, urging us to keep the memory of their people alive.
The film obliquely references the westernized colonizers who round up the Ayoreo at gunpoint and put up fences to keep them out. We see a blond woman watching those scenes of abuse through her frilly curtains; she may be a contributor to, or captive of, the encroaching, destructive culture of exploitation. A man hands out Western clothing to the naked Ayoreo, but close to the end when the screen turns red and the moon beckons above the treetops, an Ayoreo woman takes off her blouse and returns to her defiant nudity in a silent act of rebellion.
Other filmmakers have brought the struggle of Paraguay’s indigenous tribes to the screen, including Arami Ullón’s documentary about the Ayoreo, Nothing but the Sun, that opened IDFA in 2020. Documentaries like hers and EAMI join in a growing wave of Paraguayan films that are finding their way to the festival circuit, including most notably The Heiresses by Marcelo Martinessi, which won two Silver Bear awards at the 2019 Berlinale with its sensitive, contemporary portrait of a lesbian couple seeking financial independence.
Director, screenplay: Paz Encina
Cast: Anel Picanerai, Curia Chiquejno, Ducubaide Chiquenoi, Basui Picanerai, Lucas Etacori
Producers: Paz Encina, C. and J. Hahnheiser, I. Hughan, N. Gil, E. Torres, R. van der Kaaij, Kirsi Saivosalmi, and twelve others.
Cinematography: Guillermo Saposnik
Editing: Jordana Berg
Music: Fernando Velazquez Vezzetti, Joraine Picanerai
Sound: Javier Umpierrez
Production companies: Silencio Cine, Black Forest Films, Fortuna Films, Gaman Cine, Revolver Amsterdam, MPM Film, Eaux Vives Productions, Louverture Films, Piano, Barraca Prods., Grupo LVT, Sagax Entertainment, Splendor Omnia, Sabaté Films.
World sales: MPM Premium
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Tiger Competition)
In Ayoreo
83 minutes
