Holding Up the Sky
If the shamans stop dancing and life in the rainforest loses its balance, the sky will fall and crush everything beneath it. This wisdom has been passed down for generations among the Yanomami in the Brazilian Amazon. Yet gold miners pollute the rivers, shamans die, the rainforest perishes, and Earth heats up. Davi Kopenawa – shaman, chief and well-known spokesperson for the Yanomami – has been fighting these threats for more than 40 years. Time and again, he travels the world defending his people against colonization. Do the Whites not understand that the sky will also crush them when it falls?
Pieter Van Eecke is a filmmaker and climate activist based in Brussels. His first feature-length documentary, Samule in the Clouds (2016), was awarded at festivals across the world and won, among others, the Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival, the Gold Gentiano at the Trento Film Festival, and the Full Frame Environmental Award. His second feature, Holding Up the Sky, premiered at FIFDH Geneva 2023, and was theatrically released later that year in both Belgium and the Netherlands. His third feature, Planet B, about two young climate activists and members of Extinction Rebellion, premiered at Visions du Réel 2023.
