This Saturday (29), Katahirine will be launched, the first network of indigenous women dedicated to audiovisual productions. The network was created by uniting 71 women from 32 ethnic groups. Among them, Graci Guarani and Olinda Wanderley Yawar Tupinambá, director and co-director of the Falas da Terra project (TV Globo), and Patrícia Ferreira Pará Yxapy, director of films that have participated in festivals in Brazil and around the world, such as Doclisboa, in Portugal , the Berlinale, in Germany and the Margareth Mead Film Festival, in New York, in the United States. The launch of the first audiovisual network of indigenous women in Brazil is scheduled for 7 pm, in a live on the Catitu Institute YouTube channel, with the participation of the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara. The initiative takes place within the scope of Indigenous April, a month dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of the culture and history of indigenous peoples. Katahirine – Indigenous Women’s Audiovisual Network is open, collective and made up of women who work in the areas of audiovisual and communication. Its main objective is to strengthen the struggle of indigenous peoples through cinema. The network was born from the work of Instituto Catitu and began to take shape with an unprecedented mapping of indigenous filmmakers in Brazil. The first initiative to give visibility to the audiovisual production of indigenous women is the network’s website, which will also be launched this Saturday. It will work as a platform where each filmmaker will have a profile page, biography and productions. In the future, the network plans to promote meetings between filmmakers from all over the country and organize exhibitions. Katahirine will also act in the development of strategies to strengthen the indigenous audiovisual and in proposing public policies that meet the production of cinema made by indigenous women. “Audiovisual has been a tool of struggle for indigenous women. Film productions have helped them claim rights, denounce setbacks and occupy their space in indigenous and non-indigenous society”, adds filmmaker Mari Corrêa, director of Instituto Catitu and responsible for coordinating the project. She is a reference in the training of indigenous women filmmakers in Brazil. Graci Guarani Graci Guarani started her productions 15 years ago – Publicity/Network Born in Mato Grosso do Sul, from the Jaguapiru village and from the Guarani Kaiowá ethnic group, Graci Guarani is one of the indigenous filmmakers who are part of Katahirine. She is the director of TV Globo’s Falas da Terra project (2021 and 2023) and one of the directors of the Netflix series Cidade Invisível. This year she releases her feature film Horizonte Colorido. For her, the initiative to create the network can collaborate to expand the audiovisual production of indigenous people. “I believe that the initiative can be a small step for us to be able to exist statistically, as it is one of the demands, to be able to reverberate these productions also in catalogs, making the initiatives circulate and that people can come to know more about these productions and their creators . It is an initiative, albeit timid and still in its infancy, but unique in Brazil, and I hope it takes shape.” The filmmaker, who currently lives in Pernambuco, in the Pankararu territory, started her productions 15 years ago, but claims that she has only now been able to develop them in a dignified manner. “My copyright projects were produced for a long time without any incentive. Today, after a lot of struggle, I am managing to access some places where I can develop them with a little more dignity, but it is still far from being able to achieve what is actually the minimum, to place them in market/industry vehicles. However, I made progress towards co-creations at the level of political occupation in market spaces, and since then I have tried to remain in the dialogues, to be able to continue perpetuating my point of view and occupying these spaces with priority.” Find out more about Graci Guarani’s productions by clicking on the links below: Messenger of the Future trailer, My Blood is Red trailer, Tempo Circular trailer. Olinda Tupinambá Filmmaker Olinda Tupinambá (pictured in the spotlight) is from the ethnic group that signs her name. “But, I was born in Pataxó Lanh territory and entered Pataxó Lar, so I am Pataxó too”, says the 33-year-old journalist, documentarian and audiovisual producer. For her, the network comes to encourage the development of public policies and give visibility. “We filmmakers meet to publicize the work, also to gain access to public notices. I see in the network a possibility for us to be able to develop public policies for women who work with audiovisual and the network will also help to give visibility to these works.” Olinda maintains a website where she publicizes her works, but she knows that this is not the reality of other female filmmakers. “There are other directors who don’t have a website because we know it’s hard to maintain it, so the network will be able to help other indigenous women and be important to strengthen our fight.” The filmmaker was co-director of the special Falas da Terra, on TV Globo in 2021. Among documentaries, fiction and performances, she produced and directed ten independent audiovisual works. She participated in the exhibitions Atos Modernos and Véxoa: Nós Sabe, at Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Representativeness “Today indigenous women are not even considered a statistic before Ancine [Agência Nacional do Cinema]”, observes Olinda. “If within the audiovisual production chain it is already difficult to represent women, we know that most of the resource goes to white men, when we talk about women – and indigenous women – it is even less, we do not see this representation, that is why the network will strengthen our struggle and will give visibility to these women and to politicians to know that they need to make public policies for the audiovisual sector.” In the filmmaker’s opinion, it is necessary to have resources for production. “We are producing and we need resources to continue making quality films, because there comes a time when we get tired. They say: ‘he’s indigenous, he’s making guerrilla films’. No, we also want to be able to pay for direct sound, for professionals, to make original tracks for our films. Today, we absorb several functions in the audiovisual sector that if we had the resources we could pay and develop this audiovisual production chain, employing more people, but for that we need resources.” Olinda started in cinema at the end of her journalism course. “I understood that this was a good tool for people to talk about the issues that worry me. In this sense, my cinema today is an attempt to dialogue with people and bring up relevant issues such as the environmental issue, which allows me to develop the Kaapora project in my community.” Origin of the word Katahirine Katahirine is a word from the Manchineri ethnic group that means constellation. As its name suggests, Katahirine is the plurality, connection and union of diverse women who support and promote indigenous women in Brazilian audiovisual. Women from all biomes, from different regions and peoples, participate in this constellation, indigenous women who have united with the aim of strengthening the struggle of indigenous peoples through audiovisual. Board of Trustees The network has a board with the mission of ensuring indigenous participation in decision-making, promoting articulations to influence public policies that benefit the audiovisual production of indigenous women, preparing and proposing to the others the criteria for curating filmmakers and works , propose debates on topics relevant to the collective, establish guidelines for the development of network activities. The council is made up mostly of indigenous women filmmakers and researchers of different ethnicities. Currently participating are indigenous filmmakers Graciela Guarani, from the Guarani Kaiowá ethnic group, Patrícia Ferreira Pará Yxapy, from the Mbyá-Guarani ethnic group, Olinda Wanderley Yawar Tupinambá, from the Tupinambá/Pataxó Hoje-Há-Hãe ethnic group, and Vanúzia Bomfim Vieira, from the Pataxó people. Mari Corrêa, filmmaker and director of Instituto Catitu, Sophia Pinheiro, visual artist and filmmaker, and journalist Helena Corezomaé, from the Balatiponé ethnic group, also take part. Instituto Catitu The Katahirine Network was conceived by Instituto Catitu, an organization that works with indigenous peoples to strengthen the role of indigenous women and youth in defending their rights through the use of new technologies as tools to express, transmit and share knowledge to from their worldviews.
Agência Brasil
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