- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
"I like to see persecuted groups as plants that will grow
in violent and abandoned land like nature does."
That's a quote from Uyra, the star of tonight's film,
titled Uyra: The Rising Forest.
The persecuted group referred to in the opening quote
are trans people.
Urya is an Indigenous trans artist
who travels the Amazon rainforest
while trying to educate Indigenous youth
about transphobia in Brazil.
Of all countries, Brazil has the highest murder rate
of people who are trans, Indigenous,
or environmentalists.
It is because of this fact
that Urya is passionate about bringing people together
to create acceptance, understanding,
and at the very least, tolerance.
They do this by using performance art,
ancestral messages, and exquisite transformations,
often created from materials found in the nearby forest.
And along the way, Uyra is on a journey to find themself.
Urya: The Rising Forest is directed by Juliana Curi,
who says she has a keen eye for the untold stories of the world.
She says she feels a connection to her main character
because her grandmother
and great-grandmother were both Indigenous.
Juliana says her family almost lost their identity
due to the violence toward the Indigenous
that was common during Brazilian colonialism.
That didn't stop the strong women in her life
from raising her with an Indigenous worldview.
In 2019, after years of making short films and branded content,
Curi says she knew it was time to make a feature film.
She started researching an Amazon-based project
with writer Martina Sönksen.
Within four days, they found Uyra on Instagram,
and knew immediately Uyra was her main character.
Curi calls Uyra an art educator and activist
who fights for the Amazon.
Just a fun fact before we roll,
Curi said recently she attended journalism school
because she didn't have enough money for film school,
adding that in Brazil, most people who attend film school
are from power and privilege.
She showed some real grit as she worked her way up the ranks
of the documentary feature world.
It must give her a sense of great satisfaction
that most of those privileged and powerful students
that went to film school don't have an audience this size
for their feature film debut.
Thanks to Juliana Curi, after tonight,
there will be one less untold story in the world.
Uyra: The Rising Forest starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.