March 2011
 Community leader and filmmaker Divino Tserewahú (Xavánte) is from Sangradouro village in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. His works are produced and distributed by Video nas Aldeias in Brazil. He became a videomaker in order to be able to record ceremonies for the village public, and he continues to work often with village’s elders and other community members. In 1995-96 he participated in the production team for Indian Program, the first televised indigenous program in Brazil; the series was produced by Video nas Aldeias in collaboration with the television channel of the Mato Grosso University. Tserewahú’s first individual work for a non-Xavante audience was Heparí Idub'radá/Thank You, Brother, in which he describes becoming a videomaker.
Since then Tserewahú has made numerous documentaries and traveled widely to present his work, in programs that include “Video Amazonia Indigena: A View from the Villages” in New York and Washington, D.C. in 2008 and the 2002 Skábmagovat Film Festival, a Sámi-produced film festival in Ivalo, Finland. In 2009 he was one of the leaders of a VNA workshop at the Ethnographic Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro. One of Tserewahú’s most recent works, Pi’õnhitsi: Mulheres Xavánte sem Nome/Pi'õnhitsi, Unnamed Xavánte Women, co-directed with Tiago Campos Tôrres, won Best Documentary at the 2010 Festival do Filme Etnografico do Recife in Brazil. Tsõ’rehipãri/Sangradouro, co-directed with Amandine Goisbault and Tiago Campos Tôrres, won the Cameras de la diversidad award of the 2010 First Peoples’ Festival in Montreal. Wai’a Rini, The Power of the Dream won the 2001 First Nations Film and Video Festival of Abya Yala in Ecuador and the 2002 Anaconda Award, a prize selected by people from numerous villages in the Amazon region. Tserewahú was the lead filmmaker of the team that directed Wapté Mnhono, The Xavante Initiation, which won Best Documentary at the International Festival of Ethnographic Films in Nuoro, Italy.
He lives with his family in Sangradouro, and works for the Museu das Culturas Dom Bosco at the Universidade Catolica Dom Bosco, one of Brazil’s largest universities.
Screened by NMAI
Image credit:
Divino Tserewahú - courtesy of Vídeo nas Aldeias;
Divino Tserewahú - courtesy of Vídeo nas
Aldeias
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