Landless

Over a period of four years, Camila Freitas documented the lives of a group of landless workers in the Brazilian state of Goiás. Since 2015, the workers have occupied a portion of a factory site and demanded land reform. Chão provides insights into the group’s everyday routine, which is divided up between tilling the land, political activism and talk of what a better future might look like. The film thus delves into the microstructures of local political action while also demonstrating just how dependent the Landless Workers Movement is on Brazilian politics, global capital and the agricultural industry. Occupying a space between frank realism and potent atmospherics that draw their power from poetic digressions, such as deliberately exaggerated moments on the soundtrack, impressionistic close-ups and cinematographic micro-narrations, Chão documents life in the resistance, where hope can sometimes seem like the only thing capable of countering the realities of the world. It was only recently that Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, added the landless to the list of enemies of the nation and called on landowners to take up arms to defend their property. (Berlinale)