Culture and identity in contemporary Brazil

Synopsis

The silence, invisibility and underdevelopment imposed on the caboclo people after the war. The overcoming of shame, the rebirth of hope and belief in happiness through the rescue of history and the appreciation of the memory of a people.

The documentary “Contested – Memory and Hope” presents to the viewer the memories transmitted secularly by the oral history of the contested sertão, stage of the Contestado War that took place between 1912 and 1916 in the interior of the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, in the South of Brazil.

According to official historiography, the Contested War killed ten thousand people. Considering the ethnic cleansing promoted by the militia jagunços at the time, the death toll could exceed thirty thousand people, making Contested one of the greatest crimes against humanity recorded in the Americas.

The documentary “Contested – Memory and Hope” was produced by TV UEL in partnership with the Observatory of the Region and the Contested War. The team traveled 1,600 kilometers with the Research and Extension Project of the State University of Londrina “Vivenciar e Agir Sobre Terras (un)contestable” that develops in the region a work to rescue the memories of Contested

Throughout the documentary, the public will pass through the paths of the prophet João Maria and see his close connection, until today, with the customs, culture and caboclo resistance. And they will have the opportunity to understand how the rescue of a people’s identity and history can help a population, with one of the lowest human development rates in Brazil, to glimpse a better future.

To see the documentary in its entirety, click here.

Technical sheet

Title: Contestado: memory and hope

Year of production: 2019

Directed by: Celio Costa, Marco Antonio Barros and Soraia Barros

Premiere: August 12, 2019 ( Brazil )

Duration: 52 minutes

Classification: Free

Genre: Documentary

Countries of Origin: Brazil

Producers: Celio Costa, Marco Antonio Barros, Nilson Cesar Fraga and Soraia Barros
We thank the researcher Nilson Fraga and Tv Uel for allowing us to edit the documentary, use the cuts considered most important for our goal and for sending us the synopsis. In this way, we hope to bring this beautiful work to a larger number of people, thus valuing the history of Contestado, so important for the residents of the Contestado Valley region in the Serra Catarinense.
Edition and subtitles by Alexandre Lima de Oliveira, Francine Soares de Almeida and Karen Wesseler Jung.