Birdwatchers

Despite threats and intimidation from landowners, Nadio - chief of a Guarani-Kaiowá tribe in Brazil - decides to set up camp on land owned by white people. This is done as a means to demand what the tribe is entitled to, whatever it takes. Two worlds collide, without ever letting each other out of sight.

When a love affair between the daughter of a rich land-owner and Osvalod, a young shaman apprentice,becomes public, white hostility reaches break point. A confrontation seems inevitable. Rich Brazilian landowners provide tours around Mato Grosso do Sul to foreign tourists who come to see exotic animals. They also come to catch a glimpse of the half naked Indians with painted faces who stare at them from a distance. So Indians who have not adapted to modern times do still exist! Once the tourists move on, however, the Indians return to the forest - to a pick-up truck where a tour operator waits for them with their T-shirts and money. The scene is very telling of the social status of Guarani-Kaiowá people in Brazil. Following the suicide of some members of the tribe, chief Nadio decides to set up camp on land owned by white people. For him and the shaman it is a matter of settling a terrible injustice: they are taking back the land, which was stolen from them. Despite threats and intimidation from landowners, the Indians decide to stay where they are, as a means of demanding, at all costs, that which they are entitled to. Two worlds collide, without ever letting each other out of sight. When a love affair between the daughter of a wealthy landowner and Osvaldo, a young shaman apprentice, becomes public, white hostility reaches break point.