Itacoatiaras

Itacoatiara comes from the indigenous term: “i＇tá kwati＇ara”, which translates as “Ita”: stone and “quatiara”: painted, scratched. A special stone, with physical marks made by someone, by a man, by an ancient people, by a prophet, by someone very powerful who had passed that way. Itacoatiaras were magical and spiritual places for the Tupis.

“Itacoatiaras” is a sensory investigation into the ancestry of two different and distant places that share the same name and their erased past as indigenous territories, in the Amazon and in Rio de Janeiro. Collecting forgotten stories from the two places, the film offers the audience a story that rescues part of their identity.

In the midst of climate emergencies and where landscapes that have always been the protagonists of our lives may disappear, the “itacoatiaras” stones present us with worlds that create, emerge and animate universal stories of resistance.