Land means power – the Landless Workers’ Movement
Grandma and P. C. are fighting for a small parcel of land where they can settle down, farm organic crops, live off the fruits of their labour, and be part of a tight-knit farmer community – at least that’s the dream. Grandma, a 70-year-old former baker, recently left the city to join the Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra, MST), who have occupied the premises of an insolvent sugar processing plant. More than 600 families have settled on the occupied property, where they now cultivate the land. Grandma has become a central, beloved figure amongst them. P. C. is a middle-aged former worker of the occupied plant. Together with his family, he joined the movement 15 years ago and is now involved in researching organic farming methods. The film’s starting point is Grandma and P. C.’s at once particular and universal dream of leading a self-determined life and of laying the foundations for the collective pursuit of the higher goal of land reform, which the MST has tirelessly fought for since its founding.
The protagonists’ needs and desires are the same as those of many other Brazilians who live in extreme poverty in urban peripheries or rural areas and are also unable to acquire their own piece of land. To this day, the fundamental right to land and the guarantee that every landed property will fulfil its social function, prescribed by the constitution since 1988, remain far from enforced.
A highly capitalist division of territory
“Land is power, and redistributing income requires land reform,” says one of the movement’s coordinators in the film. The concentration of land ownership is firmly anchored in Brazilian history. The former oligarchical structure has given way to a highly capitalist division of territory, with most of the arable land in the hands of a few: less than 3% of the population owns more than half of the farmland, while two thirds of the country’s arable land is not farmed at all. And while almost 80% of the food for national consumption is produced by small enterprises, the owners of the large agro-industrial enterprises mainly produce goods for export, often without regard for labour and environmental laws.
The MST is one of the major farmers’ movements in Latin America, which is committed to pressuring the Brazilian government into implementing land reform. In its 35 years of existence, the movement has helped 1.5 million people acquire 17 million acres of land, in the process suffering setbacks and repressive measures on behalf of the state and the media, ranging from constant defamation to police massacres.
The film portrays a unique community of farm workers from different backgrounds, united by the common struggle for land reform to which they have dedicated their lives. The occupied land is an enclave on the territory of an agro-industrial enterprise; the occupiers share the land according to political prescriptions and their personal needs. Their time is shared between tending crops, the occupation of the land, participating in court hearings and their rural day-to-day. Through this lifestyle, they are reinventing themselves, as well as the notion of a rural resistance movement.
The landscape as central narrative element
CHÃO is my first feature-length documentary, and it’s the result of four years of deep immersion into the life of the Brazilian land reform movement. I spent a long time with the members of the community in Goiás, in central Brazil, where I developed a strong relationship with some of the activists. Work on the film began in a familiar context, in the place where I grew up and where part of my family still practises organic farming.
The structure of the film reflects my experiences with the members of the movement. As a result, the land issue is approached through their perspective, which they shared with me over the years. The mise en scène is built around a highly visual approach, somewhere between an observational documentary and an essay film, in which the landscape is one of the central narrative elements. The film is also marked by the collaboration with the protagonists and the generous insight they gave us into their private lives, and into the movement’s plans and actions.
The film was completed at a time when the country is experiencing an unprecedented level of political division. With Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration as the new Brazilian president, the country’s conservative forces, which have historically had an intimate relationship with the big landowners, will gain more leverage than ever before. During his time as a delegate of the Brazilian National Congress and member of a rural affairs committee, as well as during his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro repeatedly promised to bring down the MST, to use all means at his disposal to suppress their struggle, and to classify and prosecute all MST members as terrorists. The reason why the ruling class of big landowners feels so threatened by the Landless Workers’ Movement and other human rights activists is that they are not only campaigning for the expropriation of vast, unused plots of land, but have also made the necessary development towards more sustainable lifestyles one of their key demands. (Camila Freitas)
