Avatar director James Cameron told Folha de S.Paulo (via AFP) on Sunday that he will return to Brazil this year to make a 3D film on indigenous people of the Amazon who oppose construction of a dam for fear it could flood tribal lands.
“I want to return to meet some of the leaders of the Xikrin-Kayapo tribe who invited me,” Cameron said. “I want to take a 3D camera to film how they live, their culture.”
The filmmaker has already come to the Amazon twice in a show of support for the indigenous tribe and to film a short piece on their resistance to the damming project on the Xingu River, which will be included on the upcoming Avatar Blu-ray and DVD.
Cameron added that when he was asked to help “the Brazilian Indians, who were desperate, I could not turn away.”
Work on the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant is set to begin either late this year or early 2011. Opponents of the dam project say it is not economically viable and would cause the displacement of 16,000 people because it would create a flood zone of 500 square kilometers along the banks of the Xingu.
The government says no indigenous land would be threatened and that it has spent millions on reducing the social and environmental impact of the dam.
