Abstract
In Brazil, since the early 2000s, different documentaries have raised awareness about the problematic issues that tree plantations, especially eucalyptus, provoke, as they are propagated across the country. By means of interviews and a mix of investigative and expository styles, these films address and denounce the controversial role and power of the timber industry. However, in the last few years, other works have approached the relationships between planted forests and local ecosystems, offering an alternative perspective. This essay analyzes two recent films on the issue, the short film Gerais, and the 78 min long Do pó da terra, released in 2015 and 2016, respectively, while looking at another short documentary, Desertos verdes: plantações de eucaliptos, agrotóxicos e água, released in 2017, a straightforward documentary that advocates against eucalyptus plantations, interviews specialists and activists, and shows data that work as a report about the situation. In Gerais and Do pó da terra, forest plantations are not central narratives, rather, the focus is on specific communities and their customs. Through testimonial, observational, and poetic modes, they discuss the challenges faced by local inhabitants as their unique lifestyles and sociocultural expressions are threatened. Thus, this essay explains how, instead of images of destruction and the specificities of eucalyptus environmental effects, these documentaries choose to show the connection of local people and their art with the land, their daily life, and the changes they face. By crucially emphasizing the different timelines in play, that of western modernity, and that of alternative understandings of life–nature, they differ from other approaches towards filming environmental conflict that stress the immediacy of the situation. These two films offer a more intimate perspective of human beings, in interplay with their ecosystem, which allows for reflection on how they cohabitate and look forward.
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