For us, this is a documentary distinguished by both its aesthetic and political ambition. To tell the story of Cleonice Pankararu, To’a Kaninã, is to tell part of Brazil’s history, a profound Brazil that rarely appears on our screens. Her life offers a portrait of multiple phases of Brazilian history. It begins in the sertão of the Northeast during the military dictatorship, a harsh period that remains insufficiently addressed in our country, especially when compared to other nations that have faced similar authoritarian regimes. To this day, Brazil lacks films that portray the impact of the dictatorship on Indigenous peoples, leaving a gap in our collective memory.

Cleonice’s story crosses the period of redemocratization and reaches the present moment, marked by climate crisis and the urgent need to rethink extractive models. Her trajectory reveals the persistence of colonial structures that we must confront if we wish to continue existing in this world. When we look at the grey desert left behind by lithium mining in the Jequitinhonha Valley, sustained in the name of progress, we understand that it is not only this region that is under threat. This grey desert will spread across every territory on the planet where rare earth minerals are found. We cannot normalize a future in which everything turns grey. We all share responsibility for understanding what we consume, the lifestyle we sustain, and the price paid for it. We are all implicated.

We want to make this film because the lithium mining promoted by large multinational corporations, as portrayed in this film, is not merely an environmental issue. It is a matter of life, memory, and future.

The future is a vital force that moves us, and in this film it takes shape through Uakyrê, Cleonice’s daughter. She helps narrate this story and represents not only the present but also the tomorrow of Indigenous struggle and resistance.

When speaking about Indigenous peoples, Brazilian audiovisual narratives often focus on Amazonian communities, particularly those of the Xingu region, overlooking the fact that Brazil is a continental country with approximately 391 Indigenous peoples who speak around 295 different languages. By repeatedly portraying only Amazonian groups, we render other Indigenous cultures invisible. This film seeks to widen that lens.

It is also important to note that Cleonice’s story reached each of us at different moments, even before the film began. For Renata Tupinambá, it emerged within spaces of Indigenous political struggle and was materialized in her artistic work Tape Nhe’eng, Path of Words, at the Inhotim museum. For Fernanda, it arrived through research spaces focused on human rights, particularly on rights violations caused by mining. The fact that the same woman crossed our paths independently at different times revealed the strength of her story and awakened in us the desire to tell it.