The Chica Pelega Film Festival — The Contestado in Focus pays tribute to Alzira Scapin, journalist, researcher and writer who passed away in July 2025, at the age of 71, and who devoted her life to preserving the memory of the Contestado War. In October 2024, she was among the moderators of the Festival’s discussion circles in Videira.
Author of about ten books on regional history, Alzira was the first to carry out systematic work to recover the history of Videira, gathered in Videira nos Caminhos de sua História. Among her works, the one that perhaps best recalls the memory of the Contestado is Religiosidade Cabocla: os ritos de fé dos sertanejos na Região do Contestado — about the faith and customs of the caboclos who lived through the conflict. She also wrote histories of neighboring municipalities, such as Salto Veloso and Pinheiro Preto, and the trajectory of the Perdigão Organizations, in addition to collaborating on a documentary series about the Contestado War.
A researcher of the Contestado in Paraná and Santa Catarina since 1976, she conducted hundreds of interviews — many with survivors of the War, who lived in localities such as São Valentim (Arroio Trinta) and Imbuial (Videira) — recording memories about religiosity, food, customs and the daily life of the caboclos. She was part of the Contestado Studies Center at the IFC in Videira.
At the Festival, she led discussions after the evening sessions at the Euclides da Cunha Library. She moderated the conversation about A Maravilha do Século, by Márcia Paraíso, at the CEJA Videira session, attended by 45 high school students, and also the open session of O Contestado – Restos Mortais, by Sylvio Back.
Alzira departs, but she is not absent. As long as there is a screen lit up telling the Contestado, a discussion circle about the caboclos and a page of hers open in a library, she will remain present — guardian of a memory she helped save from oblivion. The Chica Pelega Film Festival bids farewell with gratitude and with the certainty that Alzira Scapin will forever be part of the story we tell. To her family and friends, our solidarity.
