“Há terra ! is an encounter, a hunt, a diachronic tale of looking and becoming. As in a game, as in a chase, the film errs between character and land, land and character, predator and prey.” (Ana Vaz)
Made three years after A Idade da Pedra and featuring the same young protagonist, Ivonete dos Santos Moraes, who Vaz had met on location, Há Terra ! is a much more collaborative project that destabilises and questions the hierarchical gaze of ethnographic cinema. The traditional power dynamics between filmmaker, camera and filmed subject — and between sound and image — are subverted by giving Ivonete control over the microphone for most of the film. A cat and mouse game follows, between Ivonete and the camera, and between Ivonete’s sonic presence and her environment.
Portuguese spoken, English subtitles
