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Eami

Name: Eami
Director: Paz Encina
Released: 2022
Duration: 85 min

Representation Score

9.4/10

Excellent

2022

Director

Paz Encina

Runtime

85 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Eami is a sophisticated blend of documentary and fiction that centers the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people. Through its mythic, non-linear narrative structure, the film challenges conventional Western storytelling methods. It elevates indigenous voices from passive subjects to the creators of their own ontological truths. The film's strength lies in its powerful critique of environmental degradation and colonial expansion. Using the deforestation of the Paraguayan Chaco, it highlights the conflict between industrial capitalism and ancestral land sovereignty. While the film excels in racial and cultural representation, it remains neutral regarding specific LGBTQ+ and disability identities. It prioritizes cosmological and communal perspectives over individual identity politics.

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Category Breakdown

Does Eami have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film does not include any explicitly LGBTQ+ identities or queer romantic relationships. Although it explores spiritual themes that suggest fluid boundaries, there are no specific representations of queer characters.

How does Eami portray gender?

Good

The film challenges traditional masculine leadership by emphasizing communal and spiritual stewardship. It highlights the ability to act of indigenous people rather than following conventional patriarchal hierarchies.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Eami?

Excellent

The film centers the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people, giving them substantial narrative depth. It successfully shifts the focus away from a Western perspective to highlight their heritage and culture.

How does Eami represent religion and culture?

Excellent

By prioritizing indigenous spirituality over Western logic, the film criticizes capitalist expansion. It portrays deforestation as a violation of ancestral and spiritual heritage.

Does Eami include disability representation?

Fair

The film presents a bird-god perspective that offers a unique mode of perception. However, it does not feature characters dealing with physical or neurodivergent disabilities in a meaningful way.

Present on Screen

Exceptional focus on the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people and their specific linguistic heritage.
Effective use of indigenous cosmology to challenge colonial, chronological documentary structures.
Strong critique of global capitalism through the lens of ancestral land preservation.

Limited or Absent

Lack of explicit representation for LGBTQ+ identities or queer character arcs.
Minimal focus on characters navigating physical or neurodivergent disabilities.

Official Synopsis

Eami means ‘forest’ in Ayoreo. It also means ‘world’. The story happens in the Paraguayan Chaco, the territory with the highest deforestation rate in the world. 25,000 hectares of forest are being deforested a month in this territory which would mean an average of 841 hectares a day or 35 hectares per hour. The forest barely lives and this only due to a reserve that the Totobiegosode people achieved in a legal manner. They call Chaidi this place which means ancestral land or the place where we always lived and it is part of the "Ayoreo Totobiegosode Natural and Cultural Heritage". Before this, they had to live through the traumatic situation of leaving the territory behind and surviving a war. It is the story of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people, told from the point of view of Asoja, a bird-god with the ability to bring an omniscient- temporal gaze, who becomes the narrator of this story developed in a crossing between documentary and fiction.

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