Yanuni
- Cynthia Litman
- Jun 17
- 5 min read
By: Cynthia Litman
Pearl of the film: Home Turf Heart
The 26th Tribeca Festival's closing nights world premiere event of the documentary film Yanuni, served as a powerful plea to protect the Amazon in its battle against ecocide.
Producer Leonardo DiCaprio introduced the film with pearls stringing the vital role the Amazon plays in the Earth's natural order. In Leo's words, “the Amazon holds more biodiversity than any place on Earth and sustains life far beyond its borders, it survives only because of people like Juma, who refuse to let it disappear.”
Jumo Xipaia, an environmental warrior, the first female and youngest Chief of her people, and Secretary to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, is on the global battlefront on behalf of the Amazon’s indigenous peoples.
The film begins with an intimately long raw intimidating look into Juma’s eyes to see her, completely. A young woman, mother and wife, in her fight to be heard and effectuate action that respects the balance of nature vs. human's exploitative needs and greed.
Her life’s task was anointed by the times we live in. She's survived six assassination attempts.
The Amazon Rainforest is one of the Earth’s oldest and largest living ecosystem. Estimated to be at least 55 million years old, with some regions estimated at over 100 million years. It is home to millions of life forms, diversity of species, organisms, flora and fauna.
The Amazon acts as the lungs of the earth.
As the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon regulates the Earth’s carbon cycle. It absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen at a massive scale which regulates the global climate.
Juma lives amongst the 400 tribes indigenous to the Amazon and serves as its guardian. The indigenous herald from ancient civilizations tracing 11,000 - 13,000 years. The wisdom of the forest and how to live in balance with nature travels with its descendants who are one and the same with the forest - their home.
Juma says, “The forest is our mother, she feeds us even when we forget to thank her.”
The forest is a sacred, living working eco-system. It’s rich and plentiful with bio-diverse resources attracting outside profit motivated folk like moths to the flame. There are testimonies within the film from indigenous people detailing the exploiters mistreatment and direct effects upon their villages.
The activities leave a wake of destruction, disruption and contaminants in its path to harvest timber/wood, medicinal and pharmaceutical properties, fish, deforestation for cattle ranching, hydro energy and mining for gold. These require heavy equipment, clearing areas to create air strips, cargo planes, rigs, workers, work sites, camps, etc.
Jumo's husband Hugo, a real life Jake Sully (Avatar), and his Special Teams Unit, IBAMA, tread deep into the Amazon to snuff out illegal activities. IBAMA’s operations spans across nine countries in South America.
The film depicts a few such operations discovering and eradicating mining sites.
Rivaling the Nile in size, 20% of Earth’s fresh water flows from the Amazon River. Amongst the contaminants is mercury spilling into the Amazon River from illegal gold mining.
Gold miners use mercury to bind with and extract gold from soil and sediment. It is then evaporated to leave pure gold behind. They mix mercury right into the deluge. Mercury threatens the ecosystem and health of the inhabitants. Hugo’s team confiscated plastic bottles of the highly toxic contaminant.
Those who pan for gold miss the true value of the Amazon.
Forest protection is a delicate balance of interests of nature, the indigenous people’s with interested parties. The environmentally detrimental effects of deforestation, mining, logging and climate change are happening at unsustainable rates.
The effects trickle down to us, let's not let our lungs collapse.
There’s little enforcement or resources to protect, regulate, dismantle and more mindfully remove the sites. Except for IBAMA, which just blows and burns it all up.
Juma fights to be heard and move the needle to halt the wanton destruction of the Amazon and trend towards global stewardship. The Amazon is simply too great a resource to ignore. Advocates request stringent regulations be implemented on projects and practices that lead to forest and biodiversity loss.
Lest we forget, mother nature sustains human kind.
More personally, I'd like to save the chocolate and save the coffee produced in the upper Amazon Basin.
Juma had spiritual fatigue from fighting in the concrete jungles. That was so incredibly relatable. She returns with her pregnant belly back to the forest and village life with her mother, elders and tribe to rest and recover.
The film ends with Juma bathing her newborn daughter in the Amazon waters, a reminder of the future(s) at stake.
During the post-film discussion, Juma highlighted the ancestral value of the forest to her people saying, “they (my ancestors) did not leave me gold, buildings or money… they left me the forest, its clean water, medicine and healing abilities…”
She'd like to do the same for her children.
Returning to Tribeca, NY, where I attended New York Law School, for an evening that talks the laws of nature felt like home.
***
Yanuni, documentary film, 1hour 52 minutes
Directed by Richard Ladkani
Produced by Juma Xipaia, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anita Ladkani, Richard Ladkani, Jennifer Davisson, Phillip Watson
Insta: @yanunifilm
The Juma Institute https://institutojuma.org/
Juma Xipaia, Secretary of Articulation and Promotion of Indigenous Rights at Ministry of Ingenious Peoples https://www.gov.br/povosindigenas/pt-br
Leonardo DiCaprio's Yanuni Film Intro at Tribeca Festival, June 14, 2025 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK57SJFxz0-/?igsh=MXd1cWZrenBxbjkxMQ==
The Tribeca Festival, founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of Lower Manhattan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. The Festival evolved from The Tribeca Film Festival to include Tribeca Films, Tribeca Studios and Tribeca Channel. https://tribecafilm.com/
Resources:
Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (Portuguese: Ministério dos Povos Indígenas, MPI) is a cabinet-level federal ministry in Brazil. The ministry was established on January 11, 2023 under the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to advance and protect the interests of the Indigenous people of Brazil. https://www.gov.br/povosindigenas/pt-br
Cop30 in Brazil, November 10-21, 2025 in Belém, Brazil
COP30 is the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, an international event with world leaders, scientists, and other stakeholders to discuss and negotiate actions to address the climate crisis.
On the table are the two initiatives Leo mentions in the film’s introduction (link ).
Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) is a proposed fund to incentivize tropical forest conservation and decrease deforestation by paying (developing) nations to maintain their existing forest cover. It aims to raise $125 billion, with the goal of generating $4 billion annually towards these countries Brazil, Congo. that maintain or reduce deforestation namely, in developing countries.
Rewild Founded by a group of renowned conservation scientists together with Leonardo DiCaprio and combining more than 35 years of conservation impact https://www.rewild.org/about-us
Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF) additional context leading up to COP 30 via Global Forest Coalition
‘A war society doesn’t see’: the Brazilian force driving out mining gangs from Indigenous lands’ by Tom Phillips, The Guardian, Feb. 28, 2023
Smithsonian Institution, “Amazon Rainforest,” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, accessed June 7, 2025, https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/life-science/amazon-rainforest. See also: Thomas E. Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre, “Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance for Action,” Science Advances 5, no. 12 (2019): eaaw8861. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw8861.
Avatar, directed by James Cameron (Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, 2009), film.
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