A wounded world, born of the wind.

There's a Brazilian touch (or rather, ten touches) in the winning film from the Rotterdam Film Festival that ended yesterday (February 6th). EAMIThe play, by Paraguayan author Paz Encina, was edited by Jordana Berg. It was a meticulous undertaking to structure the mythopoetics of an indigenous tribe invaded by white people from the fictional perspective of a five-year-old girl and the documentary memories of older people. See Jordana's statement at the end of the article.

Little Eami (Anel Picanerai) bears a name that also means "mountain" (where her people live) and "world." She survives the invasion of the cuñones ("insensitive") and goes out into the forest in search of two little friends – without whom, she claims, she wouldn't know how to live. Eami also has a mythological dimension. She embodies the bird-woman Asojá, a creator deity of the world for the Ayoreo Totobiegosode, one of the most isolated communities in the Paraguayan Chaco. 

As in his previous films, the prestigious Hamaca Paraguaya and the documentary Memory ExercisesPaz Encina weaves an intricate web of times and points of view in EAMI to provide a perception that is supposedly closer to indigenous cosmogony than to our own. Hence, times blend together, voices intertwine, and the narrative spreads across various statements. 

We hear Eami's voice sometimes as a child, sometimes as an adult. There are also off-screen accounts from possible real witnesses to the events narrated: the arrival of the white people, the capture of the indigenous people, the imposition of clothing and food, the transmission of diseases. None of this, however, is explicitly shown in the illustrations. cuñonesThe indigenous people, led by a woman, are only glimpsed and remain distant from any action. Paz Encina seems to abdicate the role of omniscient narrator to try to simulate the indigenous apprehension of things.

The words seem to slowly emerge from the memories of characters positioned in frontal close-ups, with their eyes closed or their backs turned. The rhythm is slow and hypnotic, starting from the initial shot which lasts eight minutes. The images of the Chaco, always very well composed, are impregnated by an almost omnipresent soundscape, which includes voices, shouts, birds, insects, barks and above all the wind. According to the Ayoreo, from a breath the wind was born, from the wind a song was born and from that song the inhabitants of Nature were born.

The films of this Paraguayan director demand a profound readjustment of our expectations and requirements. Not only because it is a slow cinemabut by almost entirely abandoning a "white" diegesis in exchange for a decentralized fabulation that floats between reality and myth.

Exclusive testimony from Jordana Berg: 

"To assemble EAMI It was immersing myself in Paz Encina's universe. We had a profound professional, artistic, and loving encounter. Our senses of humor merged, and we laughed and cried together, sometimes all at once. The process of creating EAMI was unlike anything I've ever done. We assembled a visual story, built a sound world, and then discovered together the story of this girl, goddess, bird, woman. It was a very intense process, where Paz and I lived with a constant sense of risk.

We had a starting point, the invasion of the white people, but we didn't know where we were going, or even if we were going to get there. The desire was to offer a journey to another world, a journey between pain and magic. The original title was "La Memoria del Monte," with "Monte" being the Paraguayan Chaco. But EAMI seemed to compress the entire experience of this tragedy that the Ayoreo indigenous people went through. 

As a Brazilian, and living through the times we are living through with the violations of indigenous rights, for me it was also like speaking about my Brazil. The Paraguayan pain of Paz was also my Brazilian pain. 

The making of this film was affected by the pandemic, and it seems that this disease also invaded the film frames. Everything was contaminated by this feeling of being in an era of chaos. A sick era. Without salvation. It was difficult and intense.

EAMI does not yet have a release date in Brazil.