North American Premiere
Recently winning the International Grand Jury Award at the Sheffield DocFest, director Jose Cardoso’s deeply personal and mesmerizing tapestry of internet and news footage is collected and absorbed, consciously and unconsciously, woven together–– indicative of the stuff that fuels our daily web feeds. He streams disparate details of a war in Ukraine “justified” by a string of seemingly unconnected events, as an ethnocide perpetrated by Brazil’s extreme right-wing unfolds in the Amazon. The duties of parenthood routinely interrupt the onslaught of tense imagery, granting gentle moments in the garden with his young son. All the while, the popular Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh offers ancient teachings to embrace one’s enemy as the object of our collective compassion.
Community Partner
Vladímir Putin, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Seydú Cardoso, María García Freire, Wynn Alan Bruce, Jair Bolsonaro
Ecuador/South Africa
2024
In Spanish, English, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Tupí with English subtitles
Graphic violence, self harm
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits & Director
Producer
Adrian Van Wyk, María Fernanda García
Editor
José Cardoso
Original Music
Boris Vian
José Cardoso
His previous works such as Iwianch, The Devil Deer (2021) and What the Soil Remembers (2023) was awarded at Ann Arbor Film Festival, IFFR Rotterdam, Regina, CSFF and Ningbo China, among others and selected at Sitges, La Habana, Oberhausen, e-flux, Kurzfilm Hamburg, BlackStar Film Festival, ImagineNative, among others.
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