Bozeman Magazine

On Sunday, May 29th, at 7pm at the Emerson, the Bozeman Doc Series wraps up its seventh season with the Montana premiere of the Sundance award-winning documentary, The Territory. The Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people of the Brazilian Amazon have seen their population dwindle and their culture threatened since coming into contact with non-Native Brazilians. Though promised dominion over their own rainforest territory, they have faced illegal incursions from environmentally destructive logging and mining, and, most recently, land-grabbing invasions spurred on by far right-wing politicians like President Jair Bolsonaro. With deforestation escalating as a result, the stakes have become global. With unprecedented access, and co-produced by the Uru-eu-wau-wau community, The Territory drops the audience into the center of this conflict. Young Indigenous leaders like Bitate and Ari, along with their mentor, environmental activist Neidinha, risk their very lives to defend the rainforest. On the other side, Sergio leads an association of indigent farmers eager to establish a settlement, while others like Martin, impatient and entitled, strike out on their own, clear-cutting the forest to establish a homestead. With the government unwilling to stop this brazen encroachment, the Uru-eu-wau-wau set up their own media team, using technology to expose the truth and fight back. The Territory world premiered at this January’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award for Documentary Craft in the World Cinema Documentary competition. “Set at the explosive intersection of technology, politics, and indigenous persecution, the film is gorgeously and sometimes ingeniously conceived, painting an intimate first-hand portrait of joy, pain, and community, before bursting with rip-roaring intensity as it captures a high-stakes struggle for survival unfolding in the moment.” Indiewire “Both sumptuous and enraging, [The Territory] reminds viewers how film can be for remembering and preserving as much as for rebellion and art.” Rogerebert.com “Urgent...this sharply crafted Sundance premiere makes an impact with both its bleak, blunt messaging and its muscular formal construction, as the turf war in question takes on the heated urgency of a thriller.” Variety Masks are now optional in the theater. Tickets are available at the door or before the show online at www.bozemandocseries.org, where you can also learn more about the series, and view trailers for upcoming films. Masks are now optional in the theater. The series will wrap up its seventh season on Sunday, May 29th.