On October 31, 2024, Indigenous filmmaker Pat-I Kayapó and Cacique Krwyt Kayapó, both from the village of A'Ukre in Pará, Brazilian Amazon, visited the undergraduate seminar Literatures from the Forest: Amazonian Storytelling, Activism, and Art. Glenn Shepard, Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton, facilitated the exchange.

Taught by Rodrigo Simon de Moraes (PIIRS/HMEI Postdoctoral Fellow), the course is sponsored by the Brazil LAB, cross-listed with the Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS), and offered by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (SPO).

Participating via Zoom, Pat-I Kayapó shared insights from his film Nhakpoti: Star Girl, which tells the legendary story of a Kayapó boy's love for a celestial being who, after marriage, returns to the sky to bring crops to the village. The students then engaged with Pat-I Kayapó and Cacique Krwyt Kayapó by asking questions about their motivations for creating the film, the importance of such initiatives, the challenges they faced during the filmmaking process, and their plans for future projects.

In his remarks, Glenn Shepard highlighted that by interweaving the mythic past with contemporary narratives, the film remains true to the Kayapó's deep sense of time, temporality, and history. Their rituals and aesthetics highlight the continuing presence of ancient forms and values in the modern world.

This filmmaking initiative builds on the Kayapó's pioneering role in the global indigenous media movement, which began in the early 1990s as a means of documenting and defending their culture. Until recently, Kayapó filmmaking focused primarily on documenting traditional ceremonies and political events in real time. However, through training workshops and connections with other Indigenous directors and artists, Kayapó filmmakers have begun to explore different storytelling genres beyond documentary.

The course Literatures of the Forest: Amazonian Storytelling, Activism, and Art critically examines how writers, travelers, and visual artists have imagined and reimagined the Amazon rainforest for nearly 500 years.