2019 | 28' | 16mm transferred to 2K | b&w/color | 5.1 sound
"Apiyemiyekî?" was produced for the survey exhibition "Meta-Archive 1964-1985: Space for Listening and Reading on the Histories of the Military Dictatorship in Brazil" (Sesc, São Paulo), together with a series of newly commissioned works dedicated to constructing a critical cosmology of the period. The film is a cinematographic portrait that departs from Brazilian educator and indigenous rights militant Egydio Schwade's archive – Casa da Cultura de Urubuí – found in his home at Presidente Figueiredo (Amazonas), where are currently kept over 3.000 drawings made by the Waimiri- Atroari, a people native to the Brazilian Amazon, during their first literacy experience. Based on Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy, drawings became one of the first methods for reciprocal knowledge exchange and production. During these literacy exercises, the most recurrent question posed by the Waimiri-Atroari was: "why did Kamña (“the civilized”) killed Kiña (Waimiri-Atraori)? Apiyemiyekî? (Why?)". The drawings document and construct a collective visual memory from their learning experience, perspective and territory, while attesting to a series of violent attacks the Waimiri-Atroari were submitted to during the Military Dictatorship. "Apiyemiyekî?" animates and transposes their drawings to the landscapes and sights that they narrate searching to echo their recurrent question and trusting that memory really is a necessary engine to build a common future.