Eami

Eami means “forest” in Ayoreo. It also means “world.” The Indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people do not make a distinction: the trees, animals, and plants that have surrounded them for centuries are all that they know. They now live in an area experiencing the fastest deforestation on the planet. Paraguayan director Paz Encina traveled to the Paraguayan Chaco for this film. She immersed herself in Ayoreo-Totobiegosode mythology and listened to heartrending stories about how the people are being chased off their land. Based on the knowledge she acquired, she made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a little girl called Eami. After her village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She is the bird god—she explains in the poetic voice-over, in her own language—looking for whoever may be left. . . . Eami is an indictment yet, perhaps even more so, an attempt to record something that may be lost.