Film Screening: The Last Forest
Key Details
Please note that this event has passed.
‘If we the people of the forest are no longer, the white people will never be able to replace us. They will perish in their turn, crushed by the falling sky’ – Davi Kopenawa
Format: Film screening (in-person)
Director and co-writer: Luiz Bolognesi
Co-writer: Davi Kopenawa
About:The Last Forest is about the long struggles of the Yanomami in Brazil to defend their land and their people in the Amazon region. It narrates, from the perspective of their leader, shaman Davi Kopenawa, the impact of global consumption of gold, timber, and other resources on the lives of that community and the land to which they belong. Mixing dramatisation and documentary, it shows the inspiring resilience and strength of Yanomami culture and ways of seeing and understanding the world.
There will be a 30-minute panel discussion before the film screening.
How to attend:The Last Forest is screened as part of the conference Contestations in Land and Agriculture: New Directions in Theology and Ethics, which will be held at Christ Church college, Oxford from 16-18 May. To learn more about the conference and to register to attend the full conference in person, please see the conference website here. To see the film in person for free in the Sir Michael Dummett Lecture Theatre, Christ Church, Oxford, please register using the eventbrite page linked below.
Creator biographies:
Luiz Bolognesi was born on January 14, 1966 in São Paulo. He is an award- winning director and screenwriter. In the 80's and 90's, he has studied Social Anthropology, and lived and worked as a teacher in the Pataxó indigenous community in Bahia.
In 2013, he wrote and directed the animation feature "Rio 2096 - A Story of Love and Fury,” winning the top prize at Annecy Animation Film Festival and Best Animation at the Brazilian Academy Awards. His second film as director was the documentary “Ex-Shaman,” a 2018 Berlin Panorama selection, winner of the Glasshütte Award and Special Mention by the Jury, and winner of the Critics Prize at the It's All True Doc Film Festival.
He wrote and directed many documentary series, such as: “Lutas.doc" (2010, TV Brasil), “Educação.doc" (2014, Globo), "Guerras do Brasil.doc” (2018, Netflix), and the still unreleased "Funk.doc".
As a fiction screenwriter, Bolognesi wrote the TV series “Elis," nominated at the International Emmy Awards for Best Miniseries, and eight feature films for Brazilian, French and Italian directors, selected in major international film festivals, including "Just Like Our Parents" which screened in 2017 Berlinale Panorama.
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami is a shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami people. For 25 years he tirelessly led the long running national and international campaign to secure Yanomami land rights for which he gained recognition around the world and in his native country, Brazil. Davi was born around 1956 in Marakana, a Yanomami community in the northern Amazon. In 1983, Davi began to fight for the recognition of the vast area inhabited by the Yanomami. The Yanomami area was officially recognised by the Brazilian government just before it hosted the UN’s first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
During the 1990s and early 2000s Davi made many trips abroad to meet with government bodies and NGOs to raise funds for vital health and education projects with the Yanomami as well as to expose the continued threats to his people from goldminers, colonists and ranchers.
In 1989 Davi won the UN Global 500 award. In 1999, Davi was awarded the Ordem do Rio Branco by Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In 2008, the jury of Spain’s Bartolomé de las Casas prize awarded Davi an Honourable Mention. In 2012 the Municipal Chamber of Boa Vista awarded Davi the Honra ao Mérito. In 2019, he received the Right Livelihood Award for his work in protecting the environment. In 2021, he became a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science.