Bem-te-vi Produções
Projects & Living Experiences into Films
Lara Jacoski and Patrick Belem co-direct Bem-te-vi Produções, an independent Brazilian film production house. Their journey as nomadic filmmakers, spanning continents since 2012, centers on crafting ethnographic documentaries that capture ancestral cultures and diverse perspectives on the world. Their focus lies in producing multicultural projects that transcend language barriers, revealing the intrinsic beauty and authenticity of human cultures and individuals embracing their genuine narratives.
Their portfolio includes global impactful works like "Balansophy" (2012 – honored at the Festival Passion For Freedom - London/UK), Progress,2012 in Morocco for an art residency (And'Art Casablanca), the collaboration with NGOs in Bolivia for Projeto Perfil, 2013), in Brazil supporting artists with their art work (2014), Watch Your Waste, 2015 initiative in Thailand, promoting recycling and cinema in schools, Social Entrepreneurs, 2016 as an art residency in Cambodia, nd the production of Better Days, 2016 in India, a six-episode series featured on platforms like Better India, Times Now, and Facebook, amassing over 500+k views.
Strengthening their focus in 2017, the duo concentrated on ethnographic projects across Latin America, spotlighting alternative lifestyles rooted in ancestral wisdom. They immersed themselves in the lives of various indigenous communities in Brazil, including the Guarani, Yawalapiti, Xavante, Kuikuro, Karajá, and most recently, the Huni Kui people. Their crowning achievement is the completion of their inaugural feature, a seven-year endeavor titled Eskawata Kayawai (2017-2023) chronicling the cultural journey of the Huni Kuin. A film co-produced with Norway, premiering at the epic MAPS PS23 science conference in Denver, US following by a 3-month tour in the US with 30 screenings and 1 month in EU with 15 screenings (UK, AT, RC, ES, PO, PT). It premiered at several international festivals, receiving the Best Documentary Award at Festival LatinoAmericano TX and Special Mention at the Cine Construir ARG festival.
Now the company is focus to produce and fund their second feature and multi-product project entitled Kuka Saruy (PE) in pre-production (2024-2025) to share the story of the ancestrality of the coca leaf by the Q'ero Nation, the descendants of the great Inka empire; Besides several other projects in development, all belonging to the Living Libraries - Wisdom Series umbrella, searching for partnerships and ways to bring it into a global movement.
During their transformative journey, the seeds of Bem-te-vi Produções were sown, sprouting from a mission to traverse diverse landscapes and forge connections between marginalized communities and society at large. The company's ethos centers on a deeply human and immersive approach, utilizing audiovisual tools, photography, sound, and various communication mediums. Their multifaceted projects extend across cultural, social, environmental, and educational realms, fostering comprehensive initiatives that resonate on multiple fronts. At the core of Bem-te-vi's cinematic offerings lies an invitation for audiences to engage with reality in a profoundly beautiful and empathetic manner. Their films transcend mere words, reaching into the recesses of memory, evoking emotions that often remain unspoken yet deeply felt. They aim to stir audiences, encouraging a tactile and emotional connection with narratives that linger long after the screen fades to black.
Bem-te-vi Produções
Projetos / Filmes / Fotografia / Ativismo
LARA JACOSKI
Director and Producer
Bem-te-vi Produções
Lara is a woman in her power, bridging the gap between different worlds, conducting experiences and multi-cultural projects, raising awareness, approaching and awakening the other.
Born in South Brazil but since 2008 on the world road, doing projects as a producer, marketing (graduated in 2010) and filmmaker (director, screenwriter, producer, director of photography and editor). She lived in London 2010-2012 studying and making movies, but what really changed his life was going to India at the end of 2012, opening horizons of her path, initegrating mind-body-soul. Lara has always sought to go beyond what was presented, leading her to nomadism, living, knowing and producing, with the Berbers of Morocco, the stolen women from India, the healers of Bolivia, and the original people from the Amazon, the ones who listen to nature from Peru... Being on the move in other spaces has always helped to expanded horizons, discovering other worlds, ways of seeing and living. In this way of living, Lara understood the ease of entering the most diverse universes, and thus serves her mission of creating multicultural projects, showcasing the beauty and the simplicity of traditional/ancestral true culture and people living their truth, which have always opened the most beautiful doors to know and learn from remarkable beings, materializing projects of relevance to themselves and each other.
Lara's main work is as a director/producer of films and cultural projects, writting articles and books on how to bridge ancestral wisdom into modern life.
Patrick Belem is a free spirit. A medicine musician, photographer, filmmaker, illustrator and journalist (graduated in 2009 in Curitiba).
His main work, besides composing and singing medicine songs, is as director and director of photography for documentary films, seeking to connect people as one. The content as always a pluricultural message that reaches everyone's heart as one. The goal is to shorten the line in between different people and their diverse point of view.
All Bem-te-vi projects have always been mixed in their wanderings meeting people wherever they fly to, mixing as well the professional and the spiritual path, connecting everything altogether.
Patrick has a spiritual path that started very young, as his family owns a Kardecist Spiritual Center. At age 15, he had contemplated many different spiritual paths to practice self-knowledge, participating in the studies of Gurdjieff, the work of Trigueirinho and Santo Daime, until he met the Huni Kuin and drank the sacred ayahuasca medicine with them. The spiritual path have opened his personal and professional paths, which reverberate in the heart and is used as fuel for Patrick's movement, as above bellow, as outside inside.
PATRICK BELEM
Director
Bem-te-vi Produções
Selections and Prizes
Award
Honorable
Mention
Selected
Project
CTLPFX Earth Day Festival, Portland 2016
Winner at "Best Film" - Hope Section -
with Profile Project - “Freddy Candia” (BO)
Honorable Mention at the educational section with
“Rescue Me” from the project Watch Your Waste (THAI)
II Festival O Cubo, Rio de Janeiro 2015
Honorable Mention - Profile Project
with the short film "Freddy Candia" (BO)
I Festival O Cubo, Rio de Janeiro 2014
"It's Better"de The Yuya (UK) Best Music Video
by the official jury, entertainment category
Passion For Freedom, Londres 2013
“Special Award” / Honorable Mention
for the video art “Balansophy” (NY)
Public Notice Selection, Paraná 2017-2020
Banamel Project, of agroforestry teaching itinerancy at Paraná state with the production of a documentary.
Artistic Residency, Cambodja 2016
Selected to the Mad Monkey Artist Residency, a month
making films with minorities and their social solutions.
Artistic Residency, Thailand 2015
Residency following the project "Tropikos" in Bangkok
making a documentary to be premiered at the exhibition.
Public Notice Selection MINC, BR 2014
A 3 months itinerancy project at Bolívia making the 3 short film series "Profile Project"
Artistic Residency, Morocco 2012
A month discovering Morocco in order to create a video art questioning what one loses and gain with "progress".