"I’m trying to explore the influence of non-indigenous cultures on others": the director Bruno Jorge about the film Amazon Opera

The director Bruno Jorge introduced the film Amazon Opera, which is part of the Documentary Film Competition of the 48th Moscow International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of how Brazil’s main folklore festival takes place every year on the island of Parintins, in the heart of the Amazon jungle. In the run-up to the festival, faith, rituals and religious syncretism begin to manifest as invisible forces that shape this celebration. Blending reality and myth, the film gradually turns into a documentary fairy tale, where reality begins to acquire mythological traits. The plot focuses on the mythical image of the Bumba ox, a symbol born from the deep coexistence of different peoples – indigenous communities, Black Africans and Europeans – whose traditions blend in the Amazon region to form a unique Brazilian cosmology.

Bruno Jorge: "This film is a trilogy: the first two parts saw their screening at this festival in previous years. I call it a trilogy of contact. I’m trying to explore the influence of non-indigenous cultures on indigenous cultures, and how they interact. The first film was about peoples who live in isolation: there are about a hundred such groups in Brazil. They fully refuse any contacts with civilization. The second film tells the story of tribes that did engage in a contact, but then returned to the forest. And the third film, which is set in the same region, shows Indian tribes that maintain a full contact with civilized peoples. Gradually, we see how their culture dissolves into the culture of the peoples who came to their land".