The article provides an analysis of the film Rituaes and the Bororo festivities, carried out in 1917 by Major Luiz Thomaz Reis in his first film as head of the Cinematography and Photography Section of the Rondon Commission. The analysis focuses on the film narrative and its counterposition with photos published in Volume I of the indicia series of Brazil, signed by Cândiado Mariano da Silva Rondon and published in 1946. According to the author of the article, the film is part of a larger set of images of the Rondon Commission and reflects an indicious moment in constructing the image of the indium as ‘wild’ or of a culture that maintains its traditional practices. Film is now seen as a milestone in the history of the ethnographic film.