Synopsis
Three brothers embark on a great adventure. Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo Villas Boas enlist in the Roncador-Xingu Expedition and head out on a trailblazing mission through Central Brazil. Their saga begins on the banks of the “Mortes River” where the brothers are promoted to expedition leaders and soon become involved in protecting Indians and their culture, all of which is taken down in a diary entitled “The March West”. On a journey unlike any other seen before, the brothers face Indian skirmishes, 1,500 kilometers of forest trails, 19 airstrips cleared, 43 villages and cities founded and 14 tribes contacted, besides the more than 200 malaria attacks. On their way the Villas Boas brothers founded the Xingu National Park – an ecological park and Indian reservation that, at the time, was the largest in the world and the size of Belgium. Their journey takes them initially through the Xavante Indian territory, Indians known for their courageous warrior-like ways, with both sides coming out unscathed. They then have to face the infamous Kalapalos, feared for having killed English explorer Colonel Fawcett. But, despite their apprehension and against all odds, they become friends with Chief Izaquiri and are enchanted by the Indians’ culture and local customs. They could never have foreseen that it was there that they would suffer through the first big tragedy in their lives: an epidemic of the flu, which they themselves had forced onto the Indians, and one that almost wiped out the whole tribe. In recounting the brother’s saga, we will accompany them as they struggle to create the Indian park and save whole tribes, transforming the Villas Boas into Brazilian heroes.