By Fernanda Preto

Comebacks are always about starting over. About endless attempts to look at yourself. About reenchantments. About origin. About connecting broken parts of yourself. About nature. Comebacks are also about departures. Departure is also encounter, reunion, renewal. Image…

Choosing to come back stirred my soul, made me enter life through every recognized life of every house where I had a cup of coffee, every glance that crossed my path, in every bath in the river, every limit that I set myself, every story I heard, in the longing I felt, in the indignation of someone who wants to transform the world, in my silence, in the speech of others, in the impermanence of passing encounters, in the landscape that turned into me. 

In 2006 I got to know the Amazon, I arrived at the RDS Uacari region, still newly formed, on this Juruá river, where everything was new and already made me feel different. In 2008 I returned to the same region and had the opportunity to meet other communities during the gymkhanas of the turtle release. On that occasion, I was able to show the photographs taken in 2006 to the Comunidade do Roque. How important was this experience of seeing people notice and recognize themselves in the photos!

Returning to the Mid-Juruá has always been a wish that has been kept for years. But I felt that at some point this comeback would come true.

The sensation of entering the river again came 14 years later. Feeling the passage of time and reencountering people filled me just as the forest invades my traveler, observer, and surrendering nature.

For 27 days I was aboard the Hiléia, a boat belonging to Instituto Juruá. Together with a team of 20 people in the expedition on Gender Diagnosis of ASMAMJ – the Association of Agroextractivist Women of the Mid-Juruá.

Twenty-three communities were visited, more than 30 interviews were made to produce the short film (diagnosis video) and more than 2,000 pictures were taken. The psychosocial interventions CorpoMemória took place in 6 communities with more than 80 participants.

I heard stories, latent truths. I encountered the life of each woman who lovingly opened her intimacy, her home, her sacred space and gave away her greatest wealth: who she is. 

It is curious to walk in places already known and still not know anything.

I encountered people, asked questions, listened with my soul, and welcomed emotions, but I did not know what was waiting for me.

The investigation and the quest to look at human beings through their “feelings” has moved me and led me to unique and profound experiences that transform me intimately. The size of the impact on my life and on the lives of everyone who had the courage to expose themselves may not be measurable, but it is visible and felt in every contact, in every word, in every hug and look I receive.

The movie Seiva Bruta (Raw Sap) is a co-creation that reflects the collective strength of women that share their desires, stories, intimate experiences, and survival through the occult feeling, but not less expressed in this way of life so tangled in the earth.  

The images mirror what “being a woman” represents in the Amazon.

Fluid women in these dense waters, who inundate themselves with strength and beauty, and who live the pulse of the forest itself.