Evandro Carreira

August, 1980. Evandro Carreira, a Brazilian senator leaves his party's office in Manaus to visit his constituents in the state of Amazonas. Interviews with farmhands, loggers, explorer Paulo Lucena, Brazilian and Peruvian Indians and a representative of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) were recorded from the city of Benjamin Constant to the village of Cavalo Cocho. A visit to the indigenous village of the Ticunas and the lands of the Maiuruna people culminate with an interview and the actions of José Francisco da Cruz, a member of the Order of the Holy Cross. Throughout the trip, the economic potential of the Amazon and its problems (corruption in the indigenous policies and the pollution produced by factories) are shown.

During the height of the military dictatorship, Jorge Bodanzky documented the construction of the Humboldt University [research station] in Mato Grosso. While flying over the surrounding area—amidst the dense, unbroken forest—he captured an intriguing image: a large maloca (communal indigenous dwelling) where the inhabitants were attempting to strike the plane with arrows. Half a century later, the filmmaker uses this moment as a starting point to revisit—without a script—his long-standing connection to the Amazon and the story behind that image, through an approach that is both spontaneous and intimate.

Documentary filmed in the Jari Project area – multinational enclave, located between Pará and the then Federal Territory of Amapá, on the occasion of the visit made to the Project by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry about the devastation of the Amazon. Jari is the largest known land occupation in the Amazon, and probably the largest in the world, to belong to a single owner, the American millionaire Daniel Keith Ludwig.