Sweden, Denmark, France
2026 | 95 min. | Documentary

Digging into the Swedish journalist’s unreleased archives, documentarian Nathan Grossman flips a ‘White Saviour’ narrative on its head by juxtaposing extraordinary but deeply uncomfortable original footage with an alarming 2023 reunion, in which the Korubo finally get to speak for themselves. AMAZOMANIA is a fierce deconstruction of the camera’s gaze and a reckoning on who really owns Indigenous stories.

Directed by: Nathan Grossman
Produced by: Cecilia Nessen, Sidsel Siersted, Antoine Disle
Cinematography: Nathan Grossman, Diego Lajst, Erling Söderström
Editing: Nathan Grossman, Jordana Berg
Original Score: Josefine Skov

Statement of the director:
In the autumn of 1996, a group of journalists accompanied one of the most sensitive expeditions in modern Brazilian history. The government had decided to initiate contact with a fraction of the Korubo group after a long history of deadly encounters between the Indigenous community and intruders in the Javari region.
One of the embedded journalists is a countryman of mine, Swedish filmmaker, Erling Söderström. He will document the entire expedition and the first contact in great detail.
Thirty years after the contact, I am given the opportunity to view the raw footage filmed by Erling, as well as documentaries he did with the material. Watching the rushes it is clear to me that the material is more extensive than what I saw in his portrayals of the events. My view leaves me with questions about the ramifications of the expedition.
Why was a Swedish filmmaker present in this tense moment, and what
consequences did it have for the Korubo people to, on the first day of their contact, be filmed and photographed?
With AMAZOMANIA, I allow the viewer to share Erling’s gaze upon the Korubo — and the Korubo’s gaze back at him thirty years later. The film is an uncommented journey through the times, with stops at 1996, 2003 and 2023. It is my examination of the complex relationship between the Swede, the media, and the Korubo, from the well documented October day in 1996 when the Korubo exited their isolation, until today.
Who owns the right to a story of contact? What does the power of holding the
camera entail? Where is it aimed? And how does it feel to be in its sight?
In 1996, the Korubo people thought “the camera was a gun.” Amazomania
investigates what scars remain, and gives the next generation of Korubo a window toward restitution in relation to the person that today owns the intellectual property rights to their history.

THE 1996 ARCHIVE
For me, cinema is the last room where audiences can enter a microcosmos and
understand intellectual ideas in a visceral way; in this case highly important
questions around reparation and restitution.
Together with members of the Korubo group, the 1996 archive material has been
vetted, and images have been redacted. We show the images again as the archive, in its current from, plays an important role to make sure wrongdoings are minimized in the future.
Lifting questions around risks, benefits, and practices of contact with
groups in voluntary isolation up the agenda. Not the least the media’s behavior in relation to such sensitive events.

There are still around 200 groups of Indigenous Peoples living in isolation or initial contact, according to the UN. Just as with the Korubo, who began their official contact journey in 1996, with latter contact events in 2014, 2015 and 2019, these groups are under tremendous pressure from the outside world.
The Korubo are only one of many examples of peoples whose lives are at risk due to the climate crisis. For example, streams in the Ituí region are drying up more frequently, resulting in the group being forced to consume water from unsafe sources. If we don't rapidly change our practices around environmental protection and climate change, the lives of many more indigenous groups in isolation will collapse, resulting in more contact situations. Amazomania stands as an important reminder of how the media, and governments, should behave when those future events happen.

Production:
B-Reel Films
https://b-reelfilms.com/film-tv/

World Sales:
Autlook Filmsales
https://www.autlookfilms.com