With no space for speech at Cannes Lions 2022, the International Festival of Creativity, indigenous activist Txai Suruí, from the Paiter Suruí people, made a demonstration on the event’s stage in favor of the Amazon, this Monday (20).
At the invitation of the Africa agency, she went to Cannes to receive the Golden Lion in the Outdoor category for the play “O Jatobá Refugiado”. At the award ceremony, Suruí opened a poster with the phrase “save the Amazon”.
The idea was to take advantage of the festival’s visibility and draw attention to what is happening in the Amazon today, in addition to raising awareness of the violence faced by activists, as was the case with British journalist Dom Phillips, 57, and indigenist Bruno Pereira, 41.
“This is not an isolated case, but the reality of what activists live in the Amazon, under constant attacks and threats to defend their rights and the Amazon. People need to understand that losing the Amazon means having no more planet, which will affect the everyone”, says the indigenous woman.
Because Cannes Lions is the world’s leading advertising festival, the purpose of the event was also to raise awareness of the advertising market present at the event.
“We’re talking about the people who dictate what fashions, what will be bought. We’re talking about advertising, people who know how to sell things. It’s very important that the companies participating in the festival are also aware of this [do que acontece com a Amazônia], who feel ashamed, because many are aware of what is happening. So that we can make them uncomfortable to the point of doing something too”, says Suruí.
The activist told the report that, when going up on stage with the poster, she noticed that the presenter and whoever gave the award did not understand the demonstration. “My goal was to explain and use the poster to get a message there.”
The campaign, produced by the Africa agency for Apib (Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil), also won a Silver and a Bronze in the same category – in 2021, the agency had won a Grand Prix with a work on global warming.
The short film warns of deforestation in the Amazon, exposes the drama of the environmental threat and makes an appeal about the Jatobá, one of the endangered species in the region. In the film, the tree seeks refuge in foreign embassies because it is in danger of disappearing.
“We prohibit deforestation or in 15 years the Amazon will no longer be a tropical forest”, is one of the short’s messages.
The Amazon forest lost 3,360 km² in the first five months of 2022, the highest value recorded for the period in 15 years of monitoring.
The area corresponds to about 2,000 soccer fields of native forest deforested per day. The data are from the SAD (Deforestation Alert System) of Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia).
In May 2022, deforestation of 1,476 km² was recorded, corresponding to 44% of the total area lost in the first five months of the year. This value is the worst for that month in the last 15 years.
