"In 1984 and 85, when I was doing some work for BBC television in London, with an English crew, for a series of documentaries about Brazil, we travelled throughout the whole country. And something that impressed me greatly at that time was the fact in almost all the places we visited away from the capital we came up against land conflicts.
(...)
It was then that I began to realize that I wanted to make a film, a Brazilian documentary on the question of the land, and I decided too that I wanted to relate woman and land given that the presence of women in all such situations was very strong, very powerful, and woman is very tied to the question of keeping people alive, on a daily basis, feeding them... that too is a characteristic of the earth-mother.
(...)
I then undertook a project called Mulheres da Terra (Women of the Land) that was commended in an EMBRAFILME competition. I was preparing to film when, suddenly, I began to notice in the newspapers, in October 1985, some very impressive photos of the Fazenda Annoni encampment, the result of the first occupation of an unproductive latifundium by the MST. Here was a completely different image. I resolved to go and see for myself what was happening there. My first real contact was very impressive, though it was just a visit I made to the encampment with an American journalist with whom I was working at the time. From that visit then was born, really, the conviction that I had to film there because it was a completely new story, and it was very difficult for me to imagine that there was such poverty, so many dispossessed landless people. It was then that I abandoned the idea of filming in the North-East or the North of Brazil, in order to prepare for filming in Rio Grande do Sul.
(...)
Almost ten years after having made the first film, Terra para Rose (Land for Rose), I began to think that it was time to take up the story again. Why? I felt the desire, evidently, to meet those people again and to know what had actually happened to them after they had been settled. And, of course, I knew vaguely what was happening. I had some contacts eventually with the persons who were coordinating the Sem Terra Movement. And also the landless movement had been transformed in the intervening ten years into a national movement, attaining a great political importance in the country as a whole.
(...)
Terra para Rose is a very epic film, full of movement, treks, struggles, but even so I tried to ensure that the story was also told through the feelings, the emotions, taking the camera always as close to the intimacy, the heart of the story's protagonists. In O Sonho de Rose, I reflected too on making a film about the everyday rhythms of the settlements, the farms. In truth, a life on such farms is a monotonous business - the people wake up, go out into the fields, milk the cows, look after the animals, plant, reap. I attempted to make the main focus in O Sonho de Rose be exactly the feelings, the emotions, of the characters and of the passing of time... indeed I find that change is the focus of O Sonho de Rose. For that reason I also used a lot of flash-back to show the changes which had taken place not only in the situations but also in the people themselves, internal changes, feelings, emotions, ways of looking at the world".

About the Author
Tetê Morais. Brazilian film director and producer. Pioneer and innovative work on the land conflicts and the woman. Several national and international prizes. The woman in the struggle for land. Genesis of the documentary Land for Rose: Mulheres da Terra (Women of theLand). A new history emerging with the encampment on the Annoni Farm, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Rose's Dream, ten yeras later, in the settlements, focuses on the shifting situations and perceptions of the world.

Credits
Extract from the statement of Tetê Moraes on DVD da Terra, that contains the films Terra para Rose/ Land for Rose and O Sonho de Rose/ Rose's Dream and various other statements of critics, the film-crew, of Chico Buarque, Sebastião Salgado, etc., launched in August 2002 and distributed by VERSÁTIL HOME VÍDEO (www.dvdversatil.com.br). Reproduction authorized by the author.