How the deep friendship between an Amazon chief and Belgian filmmaker devolved into accusations

rewrite this content and keep HTML tags RIO DE JANEIRO — It was considered to be among the world’s most productive partnerships between an Indigenous chief and a Westerner.For five decades, the Amazonian tribal leader and Belgian film director enlisted presidents and royals, even Pope Francis, to improve the lives of Brazil’s Indigenous peoples and protect their lands. The pair befriended celebrities and movie stars. Sting, the musical legend, was one of their greatest champions.Just a few months ago, their bond seemed as strong as ever. Chief Raoni Metuktire, sporting his iconic lip plate and an emerald feathered crown, and tuxedo-clad filmmaker Jean-Pierre Dutilleux were at the Cannes Film Festival to promote the Belgian’s latest documentary: “Raoni: An Unusual Friendship.” Standing on the red carpet, amid a flurry of camera flashes, the two clasped hands, as if old friends.Behind the scenes, however, the relationship was nearing its end. Not long after returning to Brazil in May, the chief of the Kayapo severed ties with his Belgian acolyte.Raoni and those closest to him told The Associated Press they had long distrusted Dutilleux, suspecting the filmmaker of failing to deliver funds raised for the Kayapo. They also accused Dutilleux of exploiting the chief’s image and reputation to enhance his influence and film career.“My name is used to raise money,” Raoni said in an interview with AP in Brasilia. “But Jean-Pierre doesn’t give me much.”The tribal leader, two other members of his non-profit group, the Raoni Institute, and Raoni’s successor all said Dutilleux repeatedly pledged to give them large sums of money to fund social projects but only delivered a fraction of it. They said he also refused to be transparent about money raised in Raoni’s name on their tours of Europe, or from his books and films about the Kayapo.Dutilleux denied any wrongdoing, repeating that he never had access to the money.“He can sometimes say things like that, it has to do with age. Maybe it’ll happen to me too, to say stupid things,” Dutilleux, now 74, told the AP in an interview in Paris, adding that money “doesn’t interest me. I’m a filmmaker, I’m an artist. I’m not an accountant.”Despite the Kayapo’s long-running suspicions, which stretch back nearly 20 years, Raoni’s inner circle believed he could not abandon Dutilleux. It was a decision, they said, rooted in the centuries-old power imbalance that exists when an Indigenous tribe partners with an influential “kuben,” the Kayapo word for white man.Raoni was born sometime in the 1930s — nobody knows the precise year — in the Metuktire branch of the Kayapo tribe. By then, the first Amazon rubber boom had ended after nearly three decades of often brutal exploitation of Indigenous populations.His family and tribe members were semi-nomadic and spent their days hunting and fishing in the basin of the Amazon’s Xingu River, an area the size of France and home to dozens of Indigenous groups.Their first contact with kubens was in 1954. By then, Raoni was a charismatic warrior and shaman, respected for his political acumen and bravery in combat against rival tribes and those seeking to exploit their resources.He learned to speak Portuguese — but not to read or write — and became his tribe’s main interlocutor with the outside world, as well as a leading voice in the protection of Indigenous rights in Brazil.By the 1970s, Indigenous peoples were under increasing pressure from Brazil’s military dictatorship, which in an effort to develop the Amazon constructed highways, sponsored colonization programs and offered generous subsidies to farmers. Raoni and others were doing everything they could to halt the destruction of their ancestral lands.That’s also about when Raoni saved Dutilleux’s life.Born into a bourgeois family in a provincial town in Belgium, Dutilleux dreamed of distant landscapes, and at 22 took off for Brazil, where he would direct an ethnographic film about Indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest.There, a group of Kayapo tribesmen mistook him for a highway construction worker who typically brought death and disease to the region and threatened to kill him. Raoni stepped in to prevent any violence, and the two men became friends.A few years later, Dutilleux returned to the Xingu to shoot a documentary focusing on the shaman. Dutilleux convinced Marlon Brando to narrate the American version, which was a 1979 Oscar nominee. The film’s success turned Raoni into one of the leading figures among Indigenous peoples, and Dutilleux became his gatekeeper.Almost right away, some advocates and Kayapo leaders were concerned that Dutilleux was more interested in profiting off Raoni than in helping the Indigenous cause.One of those who was suspicious of Dutilleux is Alexis de Vilar, a Spanish photographer who founded the Tribal Life Fund, a non-profit group dedicated to the protection of Indigenous peoples.The Tribal Life Fund sponsored the documentary’s U.S. premiere with a gala at Mann’s Chinese Theatre, a landmark Hollywood venue. The black-tie ceremony was hosted by Jon Voight and Will Sampson, who starred in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and it drew an A-list crowd.“All Hollywood was there,” de Vilar recalled. With some guests spending several thousand dollars for a ticket, de Vilar expected his non-profit to collect at least $50,000, which the Tribal Life Fund had said would finance various social projects.But the Tribal Life Fund didn’t receive any of that money. Dutilleux had been in charge of collecting payments for tickets but never turned over any it, de Vilar said. “There was no money, not even to build a school,” de Vilar said. Dutilleux maintains that the gala did not generate any profit. A decade later, Dutilleux introduced the Indigenous chief to Sting, the former lead singer of The Police — an encounter that would turn Raoni into an even greater celebrity. After playing a concert in Rio de Janeiro, Sting traveled to the Amazon and became a passionate ally of Raoni and the Kayapo. He and Dutilleux launched Rainforest Foundation, a non-profit group that to this day promotes forest protection worldwide.In 1989, Sting put down his guitar to travel the world with Raoni and Dutilleux to spotlight the plight of Indigenous people. Their efforts largely contributed to the Brazilian government’s recognition -– and, theoretically, protection -– of the Menkragnoti Indigenous Territory, an area of 5 million hectares (19,000 square miles).Despite the victory, the trio had already fallen out.Dutilleux was pushed out of Rainforest Foundation after Sting accused the filmmaker of trying to profit off the charity by keeping royalties from a book about their tour. According to the book’s cover, those royalties were supposed to go toward Indigenous peoples.In his interview with the AP, Dutilleux said his relationship with Sting had broken down due to their “different visions.”Dutilleux continued to raise money in Raoni’s name through Association Forêt Vierge, one of the several non-profit groups created to receive donations during his world tour with Sting. Dutilleux served as its president from 1989 to 1999 and as “honorary president” since then.In 1991, Dutilleux organized a campaign in Europe to raise $5 million to create a vast Brazilian national park and protect an area three times the size of Belgium.The project, he told a Belgian newspaper, had been conceived by a director at Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency.But the Brazilian official, Sydney Possuelo, denied any involvement in the effort. He called Dutilleux’s plans for the park “stupid” and described the calculations as “absurd.”Possuelo, 83, a globally respected expert on isolated tribes, told the AP he believed Dutilleux was “harmful to Indigenous peoples.”“He is a freeloader,” he added. “To him, the Indigenous question is a business. Every time he shows up, it’s to somehow take advantage of people like Raoni.”Raoni skipped the tour, and it’s unclear how much money Dutilleux raised. Dutilleux told the AP the campaign was called off and blamed Possuelo’s criticism for its demise.Despite the setback, Dutilleux returned to the Xingu — “my tribal heart,” as he has described it. On his visits to Raoni and other Indigenous tribes, Dutilleux tried to engage them in new fund-raising proposals, whether a book, movie or tour.“He’s always using him,” said Raoni’s nephew, chief Megaron Txucarramãe.Megaron, who is likely to be Raoni’s successor, says he has repeatedly advised his uncle against teaming up with Dutilleux. “This lack of clarity, of transparency with money happens every time he travels with him,” Megaron said.Raoni has confronted Dutilleux about the absence of payments on many occasions. In 2002, following a tour during which then-French President Jacques Chirac committed…

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