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Response from the indigenous community
The film was well received by the Amazonian community featured in the film. A special screening was held in the jungles of Columbia, in a makeshift cinema. With tribes people from all over the area showing up, not everyone could be seated. After the film finished, they asked for it to be shown again. Although, the film was celebrated, director Ciro Guearra did stress that the film should not be used as an attempt to share traditional knowledge of the tribes, as what you see in the film 'is an imagined Amazon because the real Amazon doesn't fit in one film'.

Production
Before production started, the director spent two and a half years researching the Colombian Amazon. They discovered a part of the jungle in the north west that had not yet been heavily affected by tourism or commerce and after gaining permission from the local community, they decided on the location. The pre-production and shooting took place over the course of three months with the help of around 40 people from outside the Amazon and 60 people from indigenous communities within the Amazon. The director extensively collaborated with the community and invited them to participate and collaborate both in front and behind the camera. To avoid any problems caused by the harsh environment, the indigenous people taught the crew how to work with the jungle and performed rituals for spiritual protection. Because of this, there were no accidents or illnesses and the shooting ran smoothly. Additionally, Guearra let the indigenous people translate the script, during which they redrafted parts to make it more accurate.

Themes
Representation and colonisation: The film explores the representation of the first people nations of the amazon. In the film multiple languages are spoken; Ocaina (which is most frequently spoken), Ticuna, Bora, Andoque, Yucuna (Jukuna), and Muinane. The indigenous peoples are shown to have suffered at the hands of colonisers, and Guerra highlights this by “shooting peripheric geographies… and bring to the centre of the narrative an unavoidable contradiction between progress and tradition”. Through time-lapse, Guerra highlights the pillaging of the Amazon rainforest by conquistadors, missionaries and rubber barons, and also the enslavement and degradation of the indigenous peoples, who were converted to Christianity - the character Manduca is both enslaved and Westernised - at the cost of their traditions and beliefs. The black and white cinematography bears similarity to the daguerreotype photography of early twentieth century explorers who initially documented the Amazon and inspired the film.