Los Angeles Film Festival

Secrets of the Tribe

(Brazil, United Kingdom, 2009, 94 mins, HDCam — Frame Rate 23.98)

US premiere

Executive Producers: Nick Fraser, Dan Cogan, Diana Barrett, Abigail Disney, Jim Swartz, Susan Swartz, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Emily Pottruck, David Pottruck, Julia Parker Benello, Juliette Timsit, Caroleen Feeney
Producers: Mike Chamberlain, Marcos Prado, Carol Nahra
Cinematographers: Lula Carvalho, Reinaldo Zangrandi
Editor: Felipe Lacerda

For anthropologists the world over, the discovery of the “primitive” Yanomami tribe in the Amazon Basin—a tribe previously untouched by contact with the outside world—was a landmark event, causing a swarm of professional rivals to descend upon the unsuspecting natives. But simple disagreements over incongruous data quickly snowballed into a maelstrom of escalating jealousy and irreconcilable hatred. Instead of academic breakthroughs, what actually resulted were numerous hidden and horrifying scandals, bitter infighting, unethical manipulation, and criminal abuse, as irreparable damage was done to an entire culture, all in the name of scientific research.

Acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha journeys back through the debris, mercilessly opening each and every old wound as rival anthropologists offer competing versions of what really happened in the jungle. Making an attempt at objectivity, coupled with the gift of hindsight, he has carefully assembled accounts from the alleged victimizers, deftly revealing each secret one at a time. Padilha elegantly allows all parties involved a chance to defend and accuse in their own words, including the Yanomami themselves, unearthing a shockingly layered rat’s nest of anthropological atrocities.

Landon Zakheim

Expected to attend: Jose Padilha.

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