Causecast

by AARON HORWITZ, Contributing Writer

While at the LA Film Festival this week, I was lucky enough to catch a screening of Birdwatchers, a gripping new Brazilian feature from IFC Films. Birdwatchers tells the heartbreaking story of the Guarani Indians, a declining indigenous population in the Mato Grosso do Sul region of Brazil.

The Guarani people have long lived in extreme poverty in torrid conditions on tiny government-mandated reservations in Brazil. As they struggle to keep tradition while coping with unavoidable modernization, alcoholism has become a massive problem, and we discover within the first five minutes that suicide is a common occurrence.

After another tragic series of suicides on their reservation, a small band of Guarani decide to evacuate and head back to the land their ancestors once claimed. Obvious problems arise when they find out that the land is now owned by a wealthy white rancher. Throughout the course of the film, the two wildly different cultures clash (and on rare occasion, coexist) in ways that is heartbreaking to watch.

Birdwatchers is a narrative film and thus not a documentary. However, thanks to Marco Bechis’ restrained direction and the decision to use mostly first-time actors (and perhaps actual Guarani), everything on screen sure feels real. Bechis lets us know straight away which side he’s on, and portrays the Guarani as a proud, stubborn people. While the elders in the tribe cling ferociously to tradition, the youth inevitably find themselves unable to resist the temptations of the modern world. And who can blame them when the only way for them to travel to their jungle hunt is by catching a ride on the back of a fuel truck?

While watching the film, I couldn’t help but shudder at how eerily similar this all felt compared to how we as Americans have treated our indigenous population. In just one parallel of many, it is widely known that alcoholism is also a common problem (or perhaps symptom) on Indian reservations in the United States. Of course, that is only the beginning. Similar situations have occurred throughout the world for centuries , with no end in sight.

Birdwatchers is intent on showing us that time and resources are fast running out for the Guarani. Even with a population of only 46,000 left in Brazil, the Guarani are still the country’s most numerous tribe. For their declining population, it has become nearly impossible to avoid the influence of modernity, and their options have seemingly dwindled down to two: join in or die out.

Birdwatchers was screened at the LA Film Festival in association with the Red Nation Film Festival and is being sponsored by Human Rights Watch.

If you’d like to learn more about the Guarani or find out how you may be able to help ensure their survival, check out http://www.guarani-survival.org.

Image from Birdwatchers courtesy of IFC Films