The Territory

A powerful and highly relevant documentary about deforestation in Brazil.

A network of settlers backed by the Brazilian government is gradually encroaching on an area of the rainforest where the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe lives. The indigenous people, who had first contact with the government in the 1980s, have had a population decline from several thousand to under 200 today. Their territory is a small island of rainforest, surrounded by deforestation and developed farms. The conflict between the deforesters and the Uru-eu-wau-wau escalates when Jair Bolsonaro is elected as president, who has a rhetoric that legitimizes the interventions in the tribe’s territory.

Alex Pritz has made a powerful and very relevant documentary following a group of activists from the tribe. With their lives at stake they try to stop the destruction of the rainforest and their homes. The Territory premiered at the film festival in Sundance earlier this year, where it received the Audience Award and the jury prize for Documentary Craft, and has since been screened at festivals throughout the world.

13. NOV – The Rainforest Foundation Norway

After the screening of THE TERRITORY NOV. 13th at 15.30 at Vega Scene the leader of The Rainforest Foundation Norway will talk about the film, the indigenous peoples' fight and his own experiences from the Amazon. Løvold has lived in the area of the Amazon where the film takes place.

18. NOV and 19. NOV – Intro, LAG

The screenings of THE TERRITORY on NOV 18th at 20.45 in Vika 4 and NOV 19th at 16.15 in Vika 3 are introduced by Larissa Avelar from the Latin America Solidarity Organisation in Norway.

Director

Alex Pritz is a documentary filmmaker based in New York. He has studied environmental studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Pritz is the co-owner of the production company Documist. In 2016 he made his first short documentary, Blue Nile, and has since made Parallel Lives (2017) and My Dear Kyrgyztan (2019). The Territory is his first feature length documentary.

This film is part of