The Territory

The Territory is an 2022 internationally co-produced documentary film directed by Alex Pritz. It follows a young Indigenous leader of the Uru-eu-wau-wau people fighting back against farmers, colonizers and settlers who encroach on a protected area of the Amazon Rainforest. Filmed on location in Brazil from 2018 to 2020, the film utilizes almost exclusively on-the-ground, primary source material, including footage produced directly by the Uru-eu-wau-wau. Darren Aronofsky serves as a producer under his Protozoa Pictures banner. The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022. It was released in select cities in the United States and Canada on August 19, 2022, by National Geographic Documentary Films and Picturehouse with wider release to follow. Its festival run has included a number of award nominations and victories, including wins at Sundance and Telluride. Critics have praised its cinematography as well the authentic portrayal of tension between Indigenous peoples and settlers in contemporary Brazil. Synopsis The film focuses on the Uru-eu-wau-wau, an Amazonian tribe only contacted by the Brazilian government in 1980. Originally numbering in the thousands, the tribe is presented as just 200 strong at the film's outset. Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau is introduced as an 18-year-old who, despite his youth, is selected as leader of Uru-eu-wau-wau in order to coordinate their protection in the face of encroaching settlers who deploy slash-and-burn tactics to establish frontier settlements. Neidinha Bandeira, an environmental and human rights activist, is the other central cast member, working tirelessly to protect Uru-eu-wau-wau land and present their story to journalists and politicians. White seizure of Indigenous land is presented as a quasi-legal movement, tacitly encouraged after the election of populist Jair Bolsonaro.