YANUNI

And I felt that the Amazon needed, you know, like a bigger film that can emotionally connect people to what's actually happening there.

That was the voice of Richard Ladkani, the director of Yanuni, a feature-length documentary about Juma Shipaya, an indigenous leader and activist from the Brazilian Amazon.

The film was recently released on YouTube, where it has already accumulated over 13 million views.

The film was used to help get out the vote in Brazil's recent election, in which voters rejected right-wing extremist Flavio Bolsonaro.

Richard and I have known each other since back in 2017 when we started working together on Sea of Shadows, our feature doc about the plight of the vaquita, the world's most endangered marine mammal.

It was a pleasure to catch up with Richard and hear these stories about how he brought his latest film, Yanuni, to life.

If you want to check out a video version of this interview, head over to the Wild Commons YouTube channel.

Wild Commons is a new YouTube-focused distribution channel for wildlife and nature films co-founded by the Wildlands Collective.

Love was also the parting message of our final speaker for the evening, Juma Shipaya.

As the first female indigenous chief in the middle region of Xingu in the Amazon, and Brazil's first secretary of indigenous rights, Juma is the subject of a powerful new documentary called Yanuni.

The film, which is streaming for free on YouTube and already has millions of views, follows Juma's critical work defending her territory and the Amazon from illegal mining and deforestation.

It's such dangerous work that Juma has had six assassination attempts made against her life.