Summary

Based on Figueiredo Report, held between 1967 and 1968, Vestigios do Brasil works with memory. The shocking charges cited in the Report and which were then aired in the national and international press seemed to have sunk into oblivion. After the Institutional Act 5, issued on December 13th, 1968, that strengthened the dictatorship, the document disappeared, and many considered it to be lost. During the work of the National Truth Commission in 2012, the seven thousand page Report was found at the Indian Museum. The series seeks to investigate what happened to these characters, if there are still survivors, and what the situation of the ethnic group is now.

Presentation

In addition to the data and facts related in Figueiredo Report, the series shows the strong statements from indigenous people, SPI (Serviço de Proteção aos Indios - Indian Protection Service) officials and even people that participated in the violence described in the process. In these statements, it is possible to feel the trivialization of violence, prejudice against the indigenous people and we can have a view upon the belief that indigenous land should be explored by the white society. Since the purpose is not to do sociological work and the boundary between documentary and fiction is considered to be blurring nowadays, we chose the actors that should transcribe these statements into the report so that we could grasp the extent of horror, pain and the callousness of the constituted powers.

In addition to the report statements, we conducted extensive iconographic research of material from the time that gives more ground to the series and shows the beauty of indigenous societies beyond the issue of violence. Finally, we went to the place where the violence occurred. We visited 11 reserves in all regions of Brazil looking for the figures mentioned in the report and trying to understand how the situation is now. There are 12 episodes, 11 made in different reserves and the last one, the twelfth, called Terra Livre, was filmed in Brasilia, in 2018, at the traditional gathering in which the various Brazilian ethnic groups are present every year.