The documentary film The Territory has won the 2023 Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Homelands Productions served as fiscal sponsor for some of the project’s early work and continues to sponsor the film’s impact campaign.
The Territory tells the story of a land conflict between settlers and the Uru-eu-wau-wau people in the Brazilian Amazon. The filmmakers had extraordinary access to both groups and received critical praise for the extent to which they allowed each side to tell its own story. The filming began shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic reached Brazil; when the virus arrived, the filmmakers provided cameras to the Indigenous group and let them document their efforts to protect their territory. Roughly one-fourth of the film was shot by a member of the group.
Producers Alex Pritz (who also directed), Will N. Miller, Txai Suruí, Darren Aronofsky, Gabriel Uchida, Sigrid Dyekjaer, and Lizzie Gillett received the award at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 7. They were joined on stage by community leader Bitate Ure-eu-wau-wau and activist Neidinha Bandeira, both of whom featured prominently in the film. Pritz and Miller (son of Homelands’ executive director Jonathan Miller) are co-founders of Documist, a small independent production house. The Territory was their first feature film.
The film has won many awards, including two Sundance awards and a Peabody. It is distributed by National Geographic and available for streaming on Disney+.