Uýra – The Rising Forest (A Retomada da Floresta)

Brazil/USA, 2022. Director Juliana Curi. 72min.

In a journey through their native Amazon Forest, Uýra, a transgender Indigenous artist, uses performance art to unite LGBTQIAP+ and environmental movements. Inspired by the knowledge of plants and their ecological cycles, Uýra's performances emerge as resistance against structural racism and environmental crimes. The documentary establishes a dialogue between Uýra's use of organic and inorganic materials in creating their costumes and makeup – from plants, seeds, flowers, and wood to fabric, plastic, waste, and paint – and their pedagogical and activist work with Indigenous youth in preserving ancestral knowledge. Embodying the forest itself, Uýra's transformations reclaim the body as sacred territory – a living metaphor for lands under threat. Their queer ecology weaves together ancestral wisdom with contemporary queer resistance, creating a radical reimagining of human relationships with nature. By dissolving boundaries between body and environment, Uýra's performances germinate trans-specific alliances and offer a powerful alternative to extractive practices that exploit Amazon territories and marginalized bodies. 

Past screenings

Grounded: Fashion’s Entanglements with Nature – London
Thursday 22 May 2025, 18:30 | Regent Street Cinema
With an introduction by Mariana Cunha (CREAM, University of Westminster).