Year: 2018

Runtime: 21 minutes

Directors: Vinicius Lopes, Luciana Mazeto

By Morgan Roberts

“What is our oldest creation? Ghosts? Fear? Oppression? The world?” This is the first thing posed to audiences in Femspectives documentary short film, “Stone Engravings and the Three-Colored Chickenpox Tale” (2018). The short looks at archeological discoveries in the south of Brazil, showing the timeline of existence. We see and hear people as they work on digs for signs of life, human and earlier. We see fossils and learn about dinosaurs, life millions of years before humans arrived. We learn from anthropologists about civilization long before our time. We see the stone their lives and stories have been etched into.

In addition to capturing archeological digs and education from scientists, the film asks a number of existential questions. It forces us to examine the ephemeral nature of life. It has us confront the beauty of life and how fleeting it can be. “How long does it take for a story to die? How long will it remain as a memory?” While posing these questions, it does nothing to really answer them; it leaves us much to ponder and ruminate over. Maybe we can begin to uncover the answers to these questions. It is both a short documentary piece and an avant-garde existential film.