"Bibiru: kaikuxi panema" wins international awards

The ethnographic film "Bibiru: Kaikuxi Panema" won four international awards in the first half of 2024. At the 25th International Environmental Film and Video Festival - FICA, the documentary won in the following categories: Acari Passos Award for Best Medium-Length, José Petrillo Press Trophy and Jesco Von Putkammer Award, from the Young Jury. The festival took place in the city of Goiás during the month of June and received more than a thousand entries of different film genres, which were connected to environmental themes. It was also elected in the Best Green and Environment Film category by the jury of the Cineparis Film Festival, which brought together artists and filmmakers in Paris in June focused on discovering new talents and works. In July, the film was nominated for the XV Pierre Verger Film Award, promoted by the Brazilian Anthropology Association, one of the main competitive festivals of works produced within the scope of anthropological research in Latin America.

Completed with the support of the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology at the University of São Paulo - LISA-USP, the film tells the story of the protagonist Bibiru, a kaikuxi (dog) who became panema (unlucky in hunting) and the attempt to cure his owner, Waranaré Wayana. The work is the result of video workshops taught by the researcher of the Visual Anthropology Group - GRAVI-USP, André Lopes, and all the images and sounds that make up the documentary were recorded by young Wayana and Aparai in the Bona village, located in the Tumucumaque Park, in the state of Pará. The medium-length film is part of a trilogy started in 2014 and produced in a manner that was entirely shared with the indigenous people about food production regimes in the Amazon: the first deals with fishing, the second with the collection of açaí and the third with hunting.

LISA-USP collaborated with the subtitling and color correction work, carried out by audiovisual specialist Ricardo Dionísio, and with the production by Paula Morgado. “Bibiru: kaikuxi panema” was co-directed by Latso Apalai and André Lopes and was produced by the Association of Wayana and Aparay Indigenous Peoples - APIWA, the Social Service of Commerce in São Paulo - SESC-SP, the Sawe Institute and supported by the Institute of Indigenous Research and Training - Iepé.