Holding Up the Sky [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], the second feature-length documentary by Belgian filmmaker and climate activist Pieter Van Eecke, made in collaboration with Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Dário Vitório Kopenawa Yanomami, is set to have its world premiere in FIFDH Geneva's Focus Competition. The trailer for the movie is brought to you exclusively by Cineuropa.

Holding Up the Sky speaks of the disastrous consequences of global warming and deforestation for the Yanomami territory in the Amazon, and the battle fought by shaman, chief and spokesperson Davi Kopenawa and his son Dario, as they defend their land.

The synopsis reads: "If the shamans stop dancing and life in the rainforest loses its balance, the sky will fall and crush everything beneath it. This wisdom is passed on in the Brazilian Amazon by every generation of Yanomami. But gold diggers pollute the rivers, shamans die, the rainforest perishes and the earth warms up. Davi Kopenawa, shaman, chief and well-known spokesperson for the Yanomami, has been fighting these threats for more than 40 years. Time and again, he travels the world defending his people against an endless colonisation. Do the whites understand that the fall of the sky will not only crush the Yanomami?"

Van Eecke explains: “I had the idea of making this film with the Yanomami a long time ago. At one point, I read the book The Falling Sky, written by Davi in collaboration with French anthropologist Bruce Albert, with whom I was in contact. This book is magnificent. It made me understand the richness with which the Yanomami look at the world. When production of this film started, I made it clear from the beginning that the aim of this movie was to join their fight by making their words resonate with a European audience. What inspired me from the very beginning was to capture Davi between two worlds. I tried to put myself somewhere between these two worlds, where I could meet him. Because I can't put myself in their world. I never wanted to give Westerners an exotic or fantasised image by distorting reality, by asking them to take off their watch or not to look at their phone, for example. All of my films are driven by a common objective: trying to understand and translate the destruction of the living world that surrounds us.”

Holding Up the Sky is produced by Hanne Phlypo for Clin d'oeil films (Belgium), in collaboration with Hutukara Associação Yanomami (Brazil), in co-production with Hasse van Nunen and Renko Douze for Een van de jongens (Netherlands) alongside VRT, RTBF Télévision belge - Unité Documentaire and Rio Taruma Films.

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