Based on the powerful words of shaman and Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa, The Falling Sky portrays the Indigenous community of Watoriki- as it engages in a vital funeral rite known as a Reahu – a collective effort to hold up the sky. The film stands as a trenchant shamanic critique of illegal gold mining, the deadly mix of epidemics brought by outsiders the Yanomami call “xawara”, and those Davi calls the “merchandise people.” Showcasing the beauty of Yanomami cosmology and its xapiri spirits while also highlighting this people’s geopolitical importance, The Falling Sky invites us to dream far.

Cannes Film Festival - Directors' Fortnight

Eryk Rocha, born in Brazil in 1978, graduated in Los Baños, Cuba. His first film Rocha que Voa (2002) was selected in Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno and other important festivals. In his extensive filmography, the highlights are Sunday Ball (2014), Burning Night (2019) and Edna (2021) which received several awards and were screened at renowned festivals in the world, like CPH:DOX, Telluride, Sundance, MoMa New Directors, Visions du Réel. Cinema Novo (2016) received the L'Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary at Cannes in 2016.

Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, Brazilian filmmaker, theater director, researcher and environmental artistic activist. She is a partner at Aruac Films and creator of “Margins project - about Rivers, Buiúnas and Fireflies”, through which she developed the plays Guerrilla (2015), Altamira 2042 (2019) and Tapajós(2025), and the films Edna (2021) and The Falling Sky (2024), which is her first film as director. Her work has been presented at Wiener Festwochen, Festival D'automne and Centre Georges Pompidou.