VENICE: The “Birdwatchers” of the Chilean-born Marco Bechis’s in-competition film are the well-heeled seekers after exotic flora and fauna, who come on visits to a comfortable ranch in Amazonia on the edge of a tract of “virgin” forest, through which a river lazily meanders, the natives appearing picturesquely on the banks.

The tourists are themselves mere birds of passage, disinclined to look too closely at the havoc created in the region by the more sustained intrusion of outsiders. The members of the Guaraní-Kaiowá tribe glimpsed from the tourist motorboat are a handful of the few thousand of their people who survive, of the estimated 1.5 million that once inhabited this region.

Such is the relentless appropriation of their lands that the token remaining parcels of forest can no longer support their traditional way of life, which was once renewably sustained by hunting and fishing. Just about the only work available to the indigenous people here is the scandalously underpaid cutting of cane, increasingly used for Brazil’s supposedly supergreen biofuels industry - and in this respect the film is as much about us as it is about them.

A brilliant and subtle example of filmmaking that paints a powerful, although not exactly optimistic, picture of human resilience and dignity, “Birdwatchers” emerged as a front-runner for the Golden Lion midway through Venice’s film festival (which ends on Saturday). Made mostly in the Guaraní language, it puts the Guaraní - all of them amateur actors - center stage, the white professional performers being always on the periphery, always the interlopers in this paradise lost.

Neither sanitizing nor romanticizing its subject, the story is set against the background of the chronic problem of suicide among the Guaraní - more than 500 have killed themselves in the last two decades. When two more young people hang themselves, the chief of the group, Nádio (Ambrósio Vilhalva), takes the decision to leave their squalid “reservation” and reoccupy ancestral land on the nearby ranch. We follow them, gradually drawn into their lives and remarkable culture, and begin to understand what is being irrevocably lost.

A devastated culture and its refusal to be eradicated is also at the heart of “Kabuli Kid,” by Barmak Akram (shown in the International Film Critics’ Week section). Born in Kabul in 1966, Akram became a refugee in Paris in 1981. An artist, composer and filmmaker, this is his debut feature, made in his birthplace, a daunting challenge considering the continuing violence there.

Khaled (Hadji Gul) is a kindly taxi driver, who gives a woman enshrouded in the traditional Afghan chador a discounted ride. When she gets out he discovers she has left her baby boy (Messi Gul) on the back seat. Having failed to find anyone else to take responsibility for the child, he is eventually forced by the onset of the security curfew to drive the baby home with him to the outskirts of town, where he struggles to feed his wife, four daughters and father. The hunt resumes the next morning for the infant’s mother, or an alternative home for the baby.

This low-budget film has an almost documentary feel, but with a telling comic edge. The talk on the “Afghan street” is wry, forthright and irreverent, Pakistan now referred to as just the latest, after the Russians, of a disastrous succession of imperial invaders. U.S. forces have killed enough people by mistake not to be entirely popular, but when an earnest young French aid worker tips Khaled in euros, telling him patriotically “they are much better than dollars,” Khaled is not so sure.

A baby is also the trigger of the maverick U.S. independent documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee’s “In Paraguay.” She is the 3-month-old girl that McElwee and his wife decide to adopt. The procedures for legal adoption there prove suitably tortuous, and the family ends up spending many weeks there.

The director compiles a sympathetic, sensitive and sometimes delicately droll film about the tragic history of the country and the travails of its overwhelmingly poor, touchingly cheerful inhabitants.

The falling out of the Mexican film director Alejandro González Iñárritu with his fellow-countryman Guillermo Arriaga, the novelist and screenwriter, was closely followed in film circles. Their productive collaboration ended with the triumph of “Babel.”

Arriaga’s in-competition “The Burning Plain,” the first feature written and directed by Arriaga alone, was an early favorite for the top prize here, although the critics’ responses were not uniform.

At the outset of the film, we see a blazing trailer-home on a wide plain of scrub surrounded by mountains. We subsequently learn that the bodies of a man and a woman have been found in the wreckage, both married, but not to each other. The woman, Gina (Kim Basinger) is Caucasian, the man, Nick (Joaquim De Almeida), Hispanic. Separate family funerals are held. At Nick’s, Gina’s husband turns up with his four children, and shouts abuse at Nick’s sons. Yet in the coming days one of these two young men, Carlos (José María Yazpik), makes contact with Gina’s teenage daughter (Jennifer Lawrence) and a relationship develops.

Solid, sympathetic filmmaking with a terrific opening, a powerful closer and good but not extraordinary stuff in between marks “BirdWatchers,” helmer Marco Bechis’ ode to Indian rights in Brazil. Largely cast with Guarani natives whose fine thesping talents belie their inexperience, pic looks great, but emotional involvement falters in the midsection, and some subtlety in scripting the baddies would have allowed the film to retain its proper sympathies while offering more nuance. Though not as strong as Bechis’ previous two features, “BirdWatchers” should see decent Euro arthouse play given its PC subject, with possibly a very limited Stateside run.

Bechis is especially keen on delimiting what does and doesn’t belong, what has a place on the land and what (and who) doesn’t. His opening nicely upends expectation, as an overhead shot of Brazil’s central Mato Grosso do Sul forest leads to a river where motoring tourists glide past naked, painted Indians, staring with a mild sense of threat from the shore. Once the tourists pass, the Indians collect their wages for providing tourist thrills.

The Indians live on an official government reservation, cut off from ancestral territory. Osvaldo (Abrisio da Silva Pedro) and his friend Ireneu (Ademilson Concianza Verga) discover the hanging bodies of a couple young tribeswomen (auds unaware of the suicide epidemic coursing through Guarani ranks may find the motivation here unclear).

Fed up with their officially imposed financial and spiritual impoverishment, tribal leader Nadio (Ambrosio Vilhalva) organizes a squat on former Guarani property owned by deeply unsympathetic farmer Moreira (Leonardo Medeiros) and his bitchy wife (Chiara Caselli). Naturally, tensions escalate, even within the tribe, thanks to the alcoholic Nadio’s compromised leadership.

Pic’s emotional heart is Osvaldo, recently subject to visionary dreams. Bechis signals Osvaldo’s sense of being haunted byusing an encircling p.o.v. camera, a horror-movie device that does little to promote a sense of dread.

Far more effective are the frequent contrasts: Moreira’s house is decorated with Indian artefacts, yet his bigotry is undisguised. There’s a great shot of the Indians going to the river to get the water they need, while the farmer’s bikini-clad daughter (Fabiane Pereira da Silva) and her friend just go wading.

However, pic’s narrative trajectory is too inevitable to leave a deep mark, except for the very end — Bechis’ films are always notable for their punch-in-the-gut finales. Though auds will be swept up by its defiant cry of optimism, few will believe that such hopefulness is remotely sustainable.

Bechis spent considerable time rehearsing his performers, and it shows in their naturalness and ease before the camera. Especially praiseworthy is Alicelia Batista Cabreira as Osvaldo’s strong, playful mother, who has a firmer understanding of the tribe’s needs than the menfolk do.

Visuals are often striking, underlining the contrast between the artificially cleared fields and the naturally forested riverbanks. Always an idiosyncratic employer of music, Bechis beautifully inserts motets by Domenico Zipoli, a Jesuit composer who worked with the Guarani in the early 18th century.

“We just want a chance to survive”. Eliane Juca da Silva didn’t hold back the tears before journalists who had just applauded Marco Bechis’s film Birdwatchers [trailer]. Eliane stars in the film and belongs to the Guarani Kaiowà people from Mato Grosso do Sul, in central-western Brazil.

For Eliane the international showcase of the Venice Film Festival represents the greatest opportunity to draw the world’s attention to the suffering of his people, who have lost almost all their own land, as it is deforested and usurped by breeders and cultivators of transgenic produce. According to Eliane, the natives are crowded into cramped reserves and cases of suicide among the young are on the rise.

Starting out from the universal “problem of the other” (as defined by Tzvetan Todorov), the Italian/Chilean director – best known for his two films about the Chilean dictatorship and “i desaparecidos” (Garage Olimpo and Sons and Daughters) – discovered the concrete case of the Guarani Kaiowà people, whom he learned about through the campaigns of the international association Survival, which defends indigenous populations. “I didn’t need to invent much about this situation, after my numerous travels and encounters in Mato Grosso”, explained Bechis. “But I had to construct the film and draw the subtle line between documentary and fiction”.

For this reason, alongside professional actors (Italy’s Claudio Santamaria and Chiara Caselli, Brazil’s Matheus Nachtergaele and Leonardo Medeiros) Bechis cast local natives. Reversing the approach used in Roland Joffé’s The Mission, in which the Guarani played background roles alongside Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, the director brings the natives to the foreground of the film, making them protagonists.

His decision paid off: Abrisio Da Silva Pedro, who plays the young man destined to become a shaman and combat the evil embodied by the spirit Anguè; and Ambrosio Vilhalva, the leader of the group of natives who decide to occupy a piece of land that once belonged to them and who is murdered by the fazendero killers, both give, along with the other natives, a performance that effectively highlights the sharp clash between the New World, often based on tyranny, and a profound spirituality and ancient culture connected to nature.

The film was produced by Amedeo Pagani, who won the David di Donatello award for Best Producer in 2000 for Bechis’ Garage Olimpo; and Brazil’s Gullane, in association with Rai Cinema. Birdwatchers will be released in Italy tomorrow by 01 and is set to hit Brazilian screens in December.

Read Cineuropa’s article

After several days in which the competition selection of the Venice Film Festival looked in danger of being overshadowed by the rather more rewarding sidebars, a serious contender for the Golden Lion has emerged. Even before Birdwatchers screened to the press, the Lido was saturated by rumours that the film was something special. This technically impressive tale didn’t disappoint.

The director and co-writer Marco Bechis sets his story in the lush plantation country of Mato Grosso do Sul, in contemporary Brazil. These fertile lands have been farmed by generations of wealthy fazenderos who play host to overseas tourists eager to spot wildlife increasingly endangered by rapacious agriculture. Occasionally, a boatload of particularly fortunate birdwatchers will catch a glimpse of the indigenous Indian tribal people, sullenly semi-clothed and staring from the riverbank wearing body paint and blank expressions. The film’s elegant opening shows just such an encounter, but rather than remain on the boat with the tourists and their expensive optical equipment, the camera follows the Indians as they trudge back through the woods to where a pickup truck waits with their T-shirts and a derisory payment from the tour operator.

Forced away from their ancestral lands into zoo-like reservations, the Guarani-Kaiowa people have been short-changed by a deal with the fazenderos that they never voluntarily entered into. The malaise of relentless poverty, lack of opportunity and disenfranchisement eats at the community; the malign spirit Angue seeks vulnerable souls to enter. Suicide among the young is at epidemic proportions. At the behest of the tribal elder Nadio, a group of native Indians sets up camp on the border of a plantation to campaign for the restitution of the land in which their forefathers are buried.

The film bears certain similarities with Ten Canoes, the fable set in an Australian indigenous community directed by Rolf De Heer. Both films are underscored by an earthy humour; both have a refreshingly prosaic approach to the mystical – the sound design is especially well used to convey the presence of an evil spirit. Like Ten Canoes, the strength of the storytelling and the rich character detail mean that Birdwatchers is unlikely to be dismissed as an ethnographic curiosity. Both address the pressures inherent in life in a tribal community without becoming didactic. But while Ten Canoes had a timeless, mythic quality, Birdwatchers’ contemporary setting gives it an added urgency.

The film is particularly effective in capturing the uneasy fascination and rumbling antipathy between two vastly different cultures forced to live side by side. Osvaldo, a teenage shaman in training, is drawn to the daughter of the landowner whose farm the Guarani-Kaiowa are camped near; the Indian women raucously mock the genitals of the ineffectual white man employed to keep them off the farmland. The tension between the two sides explodes at the film’s conclusion in a howl of rage and defiance that chills the blood.

Read Time’s article

VENICE (Reuters) - A new Italian film brings to the screen the clash between Amazon Indians and wealthy Brazilian ranchers, exploring the collision of two worlds against a backdrop of land disputes, shrinking forests and poverty.

“Birdwatchers”, which is in competition at the Venice film festival, was warmly applauded at a press screening on Monday, lifting domestic hopes that one of four Italian movies in the main competition may scoop the Golden Lion top award.

Set in Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil’s bread basket, the film focuses on a group of indigenous Guarani-Kaiowa with no prospect other than working in slave-like conditions for rich farmers and posing for tourists’ cameras for a little cash.

Pushed by hunger and recurring suicides in their community, the natives decide to leave their reserve and camp outside a sugar-beet plantation to claim their ancestral land back.

Half documentary and half fiction, the film features 230 Guarani people on their first outing as actors, alongside an Italian and Brazilian cast in supporting roles. The actors speak local languages with subtitles.

Italian director Marco Bechis, who has a Chilean mother and grew up in Brazil, said his was a film about the “survivors of one the greatest genocides in history”.

The Indian population numbered an estimated 5 million when Portuguese explorers first landed in 1500 in what would become Brazil. Over the centuries, they have suffered enslavement, extermination campaigns, disease and neglect.

They now number about 460,000 in about 230 tribes, according to campaign group Survival International.

SUICIDES

The main Guarani characters, who traveled to Venice for the premiere of the film, described their plight at an emotional press conference.

“It makes me cry to know that so many children are dying, that so many of us are dying … We are all human beings, we are not just Indians, we have thoughts and ideas and culture and our language, we just want a possibility to continue to live,” said Eliane Juca da Silva, fighting back tears.

“You white people, we wear your clothes, we eat like you, and why is that? Because our land, our forest which was full of trees is no longer there,” she added, speaking through an interpreter. “We just want a piece of land to be able to plant our crops and hunt.”

The film shows the ravages of alcohol and depression on the indigenous community, with a growing number of suicides among youths frustrated at living in special reserves, unable to feed their families and confused by the different world around them.

“Suicides occur because there is no justice, the only justice is for entrepreneurs who invest billions,” said Ambrosio Vilhalva, who plays Nadio — the Guarani chief heading the revolt over land — in the film.

Bechis said his film showed the natives’ culture had not yet disappeared, even if they often dressed as Westerners.

“Maybe we are too used to seeing them with feathers and arrows, when they are only dressing like that for us to take a picture. I think the intensity of their religious, spiritual and cultural traditions has remained almost intact.”

The film is one of four Italian titles in the main competition. The two which have screened so far, Pupi Avati’s “Giovanna’s Father” and Ferzan Ozpetek’s “A Perfect Day”, have received mixed reviews.

Read Reuter’s article

read the article on Variety site

Celluloid Dreams nabs Venice duo

Pair tackle social ills in Brazil

By John Hopewell

Birdwatchers

Celluloid Dreams has inked to handle international sales on ‘Birdwatchers.’

Celluloid Dreams has inked to handle international sales on a pair of Venice competition films that focus on contempo social ills in Brazil.

The pics, “Birdwatchers” and “Plastic City,” are co-produced by Sao Paulo-based Gullane Filmes, one of Brazil’s top production companies.

“Birdwatchers,” helmed by Italy’s Marco Bechis, charts the confrontation between native inhabitants of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul and wealthy farmers.

“Birdwatchers” is majority produced by Amadeo Pagani’s Classic Film. RAI Cinema and Bechis’ Karta Films co-produced the pic, which Ocean will distribute in France.

“Plastic City,” helmed by Hong Kong-based Yu Lik-wai, unfolds in Sao Paulo’s Liberdade district, seen as a futuristic multiethnic neighborhood seething with gang warfare, video piracy rackets, corrupt politicians and erotic dancers.

Pic follows the building faceoff between a Chinese racketeer and his adopted son.

Yu’s XStream Pics label produced the movie alongside Gullane, with Japan’s Bitters End and Hong Kong’s Sundream Motion Pictures taking co-producer credits.

London- and Paris-based Celluloid Dreams’ has handled Brazilian titles before, including the early Walter Salles-Daniela Thomas collaboration “Foreign Land.”

For Gullane, the deal is a coup as Brazilian producers, backed by their government, seek to consolidate their export drive.

“It’s really important for us to have a big sales agent representing these films,” said producer Fabiano Gullane, who runs the company alongside Ciao Gullane.

Celluloid Dreams reps a third Venice Competition player, “Achilles and the Tortoise,” from Japan’s Takeshi Kitano.

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

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Celluloid Dreams picks up Birdwatchers, Plastic City

Liz Shackleton in Hong Kong

18 Aug 2008 11:21

Celluloid Dreams has added two Venice competition titles to its autumn slate – Yu Lik-wai’s Plastic City and Marco Bechis’ Birdwatchers – both of which are set in Brazil and are co-productions with Brazil’s Gullane Filmes.

Produced by Italy’s Classic Film, Karta Film and Rai Cinema with Fabiano and Caio Gullane, Birdwatchers follows the confrontation between a group of wealthy farmers and the natives who are the legitimate inhabitants of their land.

The film will be released in Italy by 01 Distribution on September 2 following its Venice premiere. Ocean will release the film in France.

Meanwhile, Plastic City, produced by Gullane and China’s Xstream Pictures, revolves around the son of an Asian gangster in the Liberdade barrio of Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan.

Japanese star Joe Odagiri (Shinobi, Bright Future) heads the cast which also include Hong Kong’s Anthony Wong (The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor) and upcoming Chinese actress Huang Yi.

Plastic City was co-produced by Japan’s Bitters End and Hong Kong’s Sundream Motion Pictures, marking the first ever Brazilian, Chinese and Japanese co-production.

Celluloid Dreams is also handling international sales on a third Venice competition title – Takeshi Kitano’s Achilles And The Tortoise.

INDIEWIRE

read the article on IndieWire site

iW NEWS | Celluloid Takes Rights to Venice’s “Plastic City” and “Birdwatchers”

Rights to Venice competition titles “Plastic City” by Yu Lik-wai and Marco Bechis’ “Birdwatchers” have been picked up by Celluloid Dreams. Set in Liberdade, Sao Paulo, Brazil, “Plastic City” recounts a futuristic multi-ethnic neighbourhood with the largest Japanese immigrant community in the world. “Birdwatchers” revolves around the conflict between Brazil’s landed wealthy and mostly landless natives who exist on the periphery. Both films join Takeshi Kitano’s “Achilles and the Tortoise” to make three films on Celluloid Dreams’ Venice festival slate. [Brian Brooks]

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

read the article on Hollywood Reporter site

Celluloid Dreams grabs Venice titles

Both Venice competition films set in Brazil

By Charles Masters

Aug 18, 2008, 10:27 AM ET

PARIS - Celluloid Dreams has added two Venice competition titles to its slate: “Birdwatchers,” from Italian helmer Marco Bechis, and Yu Lik-Wai’s “Plastic City,” the first Brazilian/Chinese/Japanese co-production, the Paris-based sales company said Monday.

Set in Brazil, “Birdwatchers” tells of a rebellion by natives against wealthy landowners. “Plastic” — also set in Brazil, this time Sao Paulo — involves gangsters in a futuristic multiethnic neighborhood with the world’s largest Japanese immigrant community.

The films join Takeshi Kitano’s “Achilles and the Tortoise” on Celluloid Dreams’ Venice slate.