Small Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms 3031320182, 9783031320187

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Small Cinemas of the Andes New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms Edited by Diana Coryat · Christian León Noah Zweig

Small Cinemas of the Andes

Diana Coryat · Christian León · Noah Zweig Editors

Small Cinemas of the Andes New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms

Editors Diana Coryat Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar Quito, Ecuador

Christian León Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar Quito, Ecuador

Noah Zweig Universidad International del Ecuador Quito, Ecuador

ISBN 978-3-031-32017-0 ISBN 978-3-031-32018-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Laguna Negra. Candy Sotomayor, Colectivo Maizal This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This collection of essays has been several years in the making. We are very grateful for everyone who made this ambitious undertaking possible. It all began in the mid-2010s, when the three of us were having lengthy conversations in Quito about “small cinema” theory in the Ecuadorian and Andean contexts. This resulted in Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig publishing their article “New Ecuadorian Cinema: Small, Glocal and Plurinational” in the journal The International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics in 2017, which was followed by its Spanish-language version in Universidad San Francisco de Quito’s academic journal post(s) two years later. In 2019, after many conversations, Diana Coryat, Christian León and Noah Zweig organized a panel at the LASA (Latin American Studies Association) annual congress around this theme in Boston. That experience resulted in the book project becoming a reality. The global pandemic slowed the project down, as the editors and many of the authors had to readjust to the new reality of lockdowns, working at home, and caring for family and friends. It has been within this context that all of our contributors have been steadfast in their commitment to the volume. The editorial team would like to thank Shaun Vigil at Palgrave Macmillan, who helped us in the early stages of this process, and later on, editor Camille (Millie) Davies, and Shreenidhi Natarajan, who have been a very supportive team through the volume’s publication. We also v

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want to extend our gratitude to Cristina Venegas, an earlier reader of the completed manuscript. We would like to thank Cheryl Martens for advising us with the editing process. Finally, we would especially like to thank all of the contributors for their tireless work for this volume, as well as the film collectives and filmmakers who are the protagonists of these chapters.

Translators’ Notes

The majority of these sixteen chapters were originally written in Spanish, except for “Notes Towards a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil” by Libertad Gills, “Rethinking Subaltern ‘Modernities:’ El cine chonero popular, 1994–2015” by Noah Zweig and “Popular Digital Colombian Cinema: Expressions from and about Violence” by Luisa González. Two of the editors, Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig, translated all of the other chapters into English. This work was both arduous and a labor of love for the volume, compelled by an enormous respect for each of the authors, whose work we tried to capture to the best of our ability in American English. Most readers know that translation is difficult at the best of times. About our process: Coryat and Zweig worked as a team, each one reading and correcting the translations multiple times until we were satisfied that we had captured the meaning in English of each and every sentence originally conceived of in Latin American Spanish. This required multiple rounds of back and forth, what we called “tag team.” In all cases, the authors were able to review the English language translation of their chapters, and in some cases, we exchanged multiple emails about the desired meaning. It should be pointed out, of course, that these translations are not word by word, but rather they seek to do justice to the authors’ meaning.

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We sought to honor the authors’ conceptualizations, and also how they spelled certain words. For example, the spelling of the language of the Inca Empire that is still spoken by some 8 million people in the Andes varies. Some of our authors prefer Quechua, while others use Kichwa. We respected their stylistic choices in our translation work. Likewise, we made an editorial decision to capitalize identitarian terms such as Afro, Indigenous and Mestizo–terms that recur throughout the volume. We take responsibility for any errors or misunderstandings.

Contents

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Introduction: Theorizing and Contextualizing Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes Diana Coryat, Christian León, and Noah Zweig

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Part I Filming Smaller Nations 2

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Filming the Andes: Contemporary Aesthetic Configurations of the Andean World Karolina Romero

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Technological Appropriation and Audiovisual Sovereignty in an Indigenous Key Pablo Mora Calderón

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Indigenous Audiovisual Producers of Ecuador: An Integral Practice of “Cosmovivencia” Eliana Champutiz

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Indigenous Audiovisual Practices, Post-National Discourses and Poetics of the Small Christian León

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Audiovisual Practices and Production of the Commons Luz Estrello and Julio César Gonzales Oviedo

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Part II Images of the Small Community 7

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Recovering One’s Own Voice to Redefine What is Visible, Desirable and Possible: La Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde Ana Lucia Ramírez Mateus Ojo Semilla: Weaving Feminisms Through Community Cinema Diana Coryat, Carolina Dorado Lozano, and Karla Valeri Morales Aguayo From the Festival-as-Event to the Festival-as-Process: A Journey Through Community Film Festivals in Colombia Natalia López Cerquera

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Eco-Territorial Cinema: An Intercultural, Translocal, and Expanded Community Process Yadis Vanessa Vanegas-Toala

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Notes Toward a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil Libertad Gills

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Ay De Mí Que Ardiendo,…¡Puedo! An Extensive Note on María Galindo’s Bastard Cinema Viola Varotto

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Part III Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinema 13

Rethinking Subaltern “Modernities:”El Cine Chonero Popular, 1994–2015 Noah Zweig

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Peruvian Regional Cinema Emilio Bustamante and Jaime Luna-Victoria

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Minor Cinemas, Major Issues: Horror Films and the Traces of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru Diana Cuéllar Ledesma

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Colombian Popular Cinemas: Expressions from and About Violence Luisa González Images of Difference in Bolivian Cinema Sergio Zapata

Index

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325 347

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Notes on Editors

Diana Coryat is an educator, researcher and community media practitioner. She has collaborated with youth, women and diverse communities on media projects since 1988. Her recent research and media is focused on feminist filmmaking, audiovisual defense of territories and oral history podcasts. She collaborates with Ojo Semilla, a feminist film collective in Ecuador, and co-produces MendoLatino, a Spanish-language public affairs program on KZYX public radio in Northern California. From 2014 to 2020, she was a Research Professor at the School of Cinema at Universidad de las Américas (Ecuador). She co-founded and directed Global Action Project, a youth media organization based in New York. She is affiliated with the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito, (Ecuador), and Mendocino College, California. She holds a Masters Degree and PhD in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University. Christian León is a professor and cultural critic. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies with a mention in Communication from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. His research areas are visuality, coloniality and ethnicity; contemporary art and cultural difference; and media, memory and popular culture. He is the author of the following books: La pulsión documental. Audiovisual, subjetividad y memoria (2022), El oficio de la mirada. La crítica y sus dilemas en la era postcine (2021), El museo

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desbordado. Debates contemporáneos sobre musealidad (2015), Reinventando al otro. El documental indigenista en el Ecuador (2010), Ecuador Bajo Tierra. Videografías en circulación paralela (2009), and El cine de la marginalidad: realismo sucio y violencia urbana (2005). He is the Director of Communication and a Research Professor at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. He is also a visiting professor in several graduate programs at various universities in Latin America. Noah Zweig received his PhD in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to that, he earned a Masters Degree in Moving Image Archive Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Originally from California, he is now a permanent resident of Ecuador. From 2014 to 2020, he was a Research Professor at the School of Cinema at Universidad de las Américas (Ecuador). He is currently a Professor of Communication at Universidad Internacional del Ecuador and a Faculty Associate in the Film and Media Studies program at Arizona State University Online. His writings have appeared in a variety of international peer-reviewed Spanish- and English-language journals. He reviews books for The International Journal of Communication. His current research interests include the New Ecuadorian cinema, guerrilla cinemas in the America and media populisms.

Notes on Contributors

Karla Valeri Morales Aguayo is a communication scholar, audiovisual producer and popular educator. She received a Masters Degree in Communication from the Universidad Andina Simon Bolívar (Ecuador). Emilio Bustamante has a Masters Degree in Peruvian and Latin American Literature from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Peru) and a Bachelors Degree in Communication Sciences from Universidad de Lima. He is a Professor of Communication Sciences and Arts at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and faculty member of the Communication program at Universidad de Lima. He has worked as a film critic and is author of the books La radio en el Perú, Las miradas múltiples: el cine regional peruano (co-authored with Jaime Luna), and La batalla por el buen cine: textos críticos de Armando Robles Godoy. Pablo Mora Calderón is a filmmaker and broadcast documentarian. He holds a Masters Degree in Anthropology. He is a pioneer of Visual Anthropology in Colombia. His research areas include media, Indigenous cinema, identities, cultural memory, art and conflict. A professor of cinema and the real, he teaches at various universities in Colombia. Among his audiovisual works: Cultura, conflicto y convivencia, Señales particulares, Crónica de un baile de muñeco, Sey Arimaku o la otra oscuridad and El buen vivir. His books include Máquinas de la visión y espíritu de indios and Territorio y memoria sin fronteras: nuevas estrategias para pensar lo real, which he co-edited. xv

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Natalia López Cerquera is an anthropologist with an Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology with a focus on the culture of peace and intercultural dialogue from Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Ecuador). She has experience working in human rights, social management of knowledge and international cooperation. Her research interests focus on community cinema, collective audiovisual processes, communication technology appropriation processes and film festivals in Latin America. Eliana Champutiz is a communication scholar, audiovisual producer and cultural organizer of the binational Pasto people (Colombia/Ecuador). She is founder of the Corporation of Audiovisual Producers and the Association of Audiovisual Creators of Nationalities and Peoples (CORPANP). She is part of the Latin American Coordinator of Cinema and Communication of Indigenous Peoples (CLACPI). She was Coordinator of the XIV International Film and Communication Festival of Indigenous Peoples (Ecuador, 2022). In her audiovisual experience, she has done notable work as executive producer and producer of short and feature films, as well as for Ecuadorian television. Luz Estrello received her Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology and Anthropological Documentary from Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Ecuador). She studied Sociology at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She is a member of Maizal, an itinerant audiovisual research and production collective, where since 2013 she has been working as a researcher, project coordinator, workshop facilitator and producer in Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. She is an editor of La Otra Cosecha, a community communication journal in Latin America. She is a member of Vivas y Grabando, an audiovisual, community and feminist group. Libertad Gills is a filmmaker, researcher and Professor of Film at Universidad de las Artes (Ecuador). She received her PhD in Art, Literature and Culture Studies from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, her Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology from FLACSO (Ecuador) and her Bachelors Degree in Film Studies from Wesleyan University. She is co-editor of Fuera de Campo and associate editor of [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies. In 2022, she published La crítica es una escuela, a book of conversations with Latin American film critics about film criticism today.

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Julio César Gonzales Oviedo holds a PhD in Rural Development from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco (Mexico). He received an Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology and Anthropological Documentary at FLACSO (Ecuador). He received a Bachelors Degree in Social Communication from Universidad de Lima. Since 2013, he has worked on projects in Peru, Ecuador and Mexico for Maizal. He edits La Otra Cosecha and has worked with the “Chawpi” Intercultural Creation Laboratory and the collective “YAMA” (Ecuador). He is currently working on a Masters Degree in Film and Audiovisual Archiving at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (Spain). Luisa González is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation at the University of Amsterdam, where she is developing her research on popular Colombian cinemas. Within this scope, she analyzes pornography, viral videos and feature films, as those presented in her chapter. By studying these autonomous practices, she is able to situate Colombian film and culture in their historical and sociopolitical contexts. In addition to her PhD research, she also works as a filmmaker and film curator. Diana Cuéllar Ledesma has a doctorate in Artistic, Literary and Cultural Studies from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Since 2020, she has taught in the Department of Architecture, Art and Design at Universidad Iberoamericana de Puebla (Mexico). In addition to focusing on symbolic production in Latin America, her main areas of research are cinema and contemporary art in the region. She is a member of the network of researchers at the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku in Finland, and she combines her academic life with curatorship and art criticism. Carolina Dorado Lozano is a popular educator with over two decades of experience. Her main focus is on designing pedagogical tools for the construction of collective knowledge in popular education, feminism and community cinema. In 2019, she co-founded La Partida Feminista, a collective which works at the intersection of audiovisual creation and feminism. She is a cultural organizer, producer and audiovisual director. She is obtaining a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies with an emphasis on Gender and Culture from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Ecuador), and is licensed in Primary Education with an emphasis in the Social Sciences.

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Jaime Luna-Victoria has worked as a film critic for media outlets. He has taught audiovisual language in various education centers. He is the screenwriter of two documentaries produced by domiciliary companies in Lima and of three fiction feature films that were produced in the provinces. For twelve years, he directed a film club in one of the cultural centers in Lima. He is co-author (with Emilio Bustamante) of Las miradas múltiples: El cine regional peruano. He is currently writing two screenplays for feature films to be made by production companies in Ayacucho and Puno. Ana Lucia Ramírez Mateus is a transfeminist artivist and community filmmaker. She studied audiovisual production at Universidad Nacional de Colombia and holds an Masters Degree in Gender and Cultural Studies from Universidad de Chile. Ramírez is co-founder of Mujeres Al Borde, a transfeminist collective that develops community artivism processes based on sexual and gender dissidence. She coordinates Al Borde Productions and directs Al Borde Audiovisual School and the Transfeminist International Film Festival. She has a long history of involvement with sex-dissident communities in Latin America, designing pedagogical processes, artivism, community cinema, collective memory and self-care among activists. Karolina Romero is a researcher of Latin American cinema. She holds a doctorate in Political and Social Sciences from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She is a professor at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Ecuador). She is the author of the books El barroco en el cine de los años ochenta en América Latina: Imágenes disidentes (FCE—CCE, 2019); and El cine de los otros: La representación de “lo indígena” en el cine documental ecuatoriano (FLACSO-Ecuador, 2011). She collaborated on the research project Reinventando al otro: El documental indigenista en el Ecuador (Consejo Nacional de Cine del Ecuador, 2010). She currently works as a researcher at the Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador. Yadis Vanessa Vanegas-Toala is a Research Professor of Communication at Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Ecuador). She has a doctorate in Communication from Universidad Pompeu Fabra (Spain), where she was a Carolina Foundation fellow. She earned a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Ecuador) and a Bachelors Degree in Communication from the Pontificia Universidad Católica

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del Ecuador. Her research combines communication, social movements and activism in ecoterritorial struggles against extractive activities. Viola Varotto founded the production company Isole in 2020. She is currently working on distribution in Peru of the book Feminismo bastardo by María Galindo. She was the chief coordinator of the contemporary art research area at Escuela Nacional Superior Autónoma de Bellas Artes del Perú and is editor of Ui, the art research journal of that institution. She has published in various Peruvian and international journals. Between 2018 and 2022, she co-directed a project about contemporary Peruvian cinema, No ficción, redefinir desde la negación, or Transcinema Peruano. Nonfiction, redefine from denial (Peruvian transcinema). Sergio Zapata is the co-founder of the Radical Film Festival (Bolivia), the Popular Free Film School and the online platform Imagen Docs. He has been writing film criticism in print and digital media since 2005. He hosts the radio program La mirada incendiaria (The Incendiary Gaze) and is a university professor, cultural researcher, curator and programmer. He is a member of the Visual Insurrections research team.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Theorizing and Contextualizing Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes Diana Coryat, Christian León, and Noah Zweig

This edited volume examines the emergence of small(er) cinemas of the Andes, covering independent, grassroots and largely off-the-radar, lowbudget audiovisual sectors in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. The contributors of this volume’s sixteen chapters were invited to critically examine the heterogeneous audiovisual practices, emergent discourses and subaltern agents that they study through the concept of “small(er) cinemas,” as elaborated in Coryat and Zweig (2017).

D. Coryat (B) · C. León Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] C. León e-mail: [email protected] N. Zweig Universidad International del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_1

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These local, regional and “minor” practices and products elucidate existing tensions, contradictions and resistances with respect to established cinematic norms. There are three reasons these small cinematic sectors are of interest. First, the film markets of the aforementioned countries are often eclipsed by the filmmaking giants of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, which Jeffrey Middents and Tamara Falicov (2012) refer to as “the Big Three.” Second, within these four Andean countries, these small cinemas are overshadowed by cinemas supported by the film sector and other financing mechanisms, whose products are likely to represent these countries in international film festivals and markets. Third, since small cinemas are often excluded from consideration by national cinema screens, these minor audiovisualities have generated plural and alternative models of production, distribution and circulation. Emerging in the maelstrom of the crisis of national cinemas in the era of globalization, small cinemas of the Andes share core characteristics: they proliferate with the increasing accessibility of new digital technologies; they are often produced by non-professional, amateur makers or artists whose perspectives are not welcomed by the state; they represent popular aesthetics that draw from a mix of local and global cinematic vernaculars and genres; they are produced in non-hegemonic sectors of these countries; and their productions are rooted in and respond to very specific localities, cultures, histories and contexts. Each Andean small cinemas project analyzed here has different origins and objectives, and therefore targets distinct publics; some are profitdriven and have had great success with DVD sales at the local level,1 and others have the objective of projecting voices of marginalized communities. What they have in common, though, is that they all push beyond the idea of who or what should represent a nation, culture, class, gender and ethnicity and in doing so reveal localized notions of identity that are often absent from the national and international registers. Their relationship to the mainstream cinema sector varies. Many are self-funded, and their practitioners find novel and innovative ways to finance their productions. For example, in the chapter “Rethinking Subaltern ‘Modernities:’ El cine chonero popular, 1994–2015” by Noah Zweig, we see that a common 1 While originally many of the films that comprise these small cinemas were exhibited via pirated DVDs or USB drives, this is changing. Starting in the mid-2010s, an increasing number of these films now circulate on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

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practice in Chone is to have cast and crew pitch in to share production costs. With some clear exceptions, these localized films are rarely valued by the culture industries of these countries, which often instead seek to promote high-profile, auteur films that have a transnational appeal, target international festivals and are poised to win awards. However, this volume takes these overlooked modes of filmmaking and the films themselves seriously in all their diversity and complexity. It should be pointed out that in the Latin American and the Caribbean region, production of small cinemas is not exclusive to the Andes. Elsewhere, similar phenomena exist. This has especially been the case in Cuba, where an entire generation of millennials became artists outside of the state gaze of the Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry (ICAIC) (Venegas 2010, 148). Likewise, other Cuba scholars write about the practice of “submerged cinema” (Duno-Gottberg and Horswell 2013), or “cine joven” (Coryat 2015), which refers to filmmaking done at the “margins of the state.” These small cinemas have antecedents in the Brazilian udigrudi, a movement that took place in the 1970s when some filmmakers clashed with both auteur cinema and militant or “third” cinema and the contemporaneous Argentine underground cinema (Oubiña 2019; Wolkowicz 2014). Finally, another precursor is the so-called Mexican “narco cinema,” which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. This practice consisted of making low-budget films (both on celluloid and later as home movies) about the cultural effects of the first appearance of cartels in Mexican society (Vincenot 2010). Likewise, as we have observed elsewhere (Coryat and Zweig 2017), the notion of small cinemas has roots in the twentieth century when ideas of “minor” cinemas were anchored to national liberation movements, as was the case with the aforementioned “third cinema.” By contrast, in the twenty-first-century Andean context, “small cinemas” tend to be translocal and transnational (Coryat and Zweig 2017, 30). Writing in the late 1980s and reflecting on avant-garde movements, Tom Gunning (1991) reconsidered this notion of minor or smallness. For him, minor cinemas were to be defined in contingent, relational terms, consisting of any audiovisual sector overshadowed by a larger one, not just Hollywood. There are even those producers that prefer to downplay their local or national origins. David Martin-Jones and María Soledad Montañez (2013) use the concept of “auto-erasure” to analyze the ways in which

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Uruguayan directors minimize the “Uruguayness” of their films to make them marketable on the international film festival circuit. Contemporary scholars ground their theorizations of “small cinemas” in globalization literature (Neira 2021; Ebrahim 2020; Peirano 2018; Castanheira et al. 2014; Martin-Jones and Montañez 2013). Each of these academics understands the concept in a distinct manner and defines the term differently. In our own work (Coryat and Zweig 2017, 8), we draw on Deleuze and Guattari’s (1986) conception of Kafka’s writings as a “minor literature,” as well as Deleuze’s subsequent notion of a “minor cinema” (1989) designed to protagonize subaltern populations. We have opted to use parentheses in the title Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes to underscore that these audiovisual sectors are situated within nations whose film industries already comprise “small cinemas” compared to those of larger industries. Thus, for example, Ecuador’s Quito-centric film sector is a “small cinema” compared to larger Latin American audiovisual markets or the Hollywood behemoth. The Andean country’s lesser-known audiovisual movements, which are scattered throughout Ecuador’s regions (Alvear and León 2009), comprise a smaller cinema compared to the aforementioned professional cinema whose films are a constitutive part of the film sector. In focusing on the emergent audiovisualities in the Andean region, which for our case we have chosen the countries of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, a geocultural logic explained below, this book offers an important contribution to this growing subfield in film and media studies.

Contemporary Notions of “Small Cinemas” and “The Andes” There is a dearth of literature on Andean cinema in any language. As mentioned, most writings about Latin American cinema, particularly those published in English, focus on the larger or more well-known audiovisual industries such as those of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. This tendency is evidenced by John King’s influential Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (2000) and more recently in The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema (D’Lugo et al. 2018), which highlights national cinema mainly from those countries. Although academic inquiry on Andean cinema is sparse, scholarly research on emergent cinemas from smaller nations is fast becoming an important subject of study. One example is the Palgrave volume The

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Precarious in the Cinema of the Americas (Burucúa and Sitnisky 2018), which uses various theorizations of “the precarious” to look at emergent cinematic sectors in the region. Our volume dovetails with that book’s look at current trends in Latin American cinema. However, while the earlier volume addresses both small cinemas and the cinematic sectors that are funded by state institutions, our focus is for the most part on regional, peripheral and popular cinemas that exist outside of national film industries and funding streams. We position our theorization of small cinemas in conversation with Mette Hjort and Duncan Petrie’s text The Cinema of Small Nations (2007) whose case studies posit various queries about what constitutes a “small nation” and if “national cinemas” can survive in the digital age? Despite the deregulation of global markets, new forms of the distribution of culture through social networks and global migration, those editors insist on the persistence of the nation-state in various transnational clusters. Likewise, our book considers various subnational, small cinema flows within these four countries, as our authors consider, among other themes, guerrilla, Indigenous, community and amateur film history. Thus, our conception of “small cinemas” is an open and fluid one attuned to transnational media flows. They not only circulate within nations but also operate at local and transnational registers such as Indigenous and LGBTQI cinema. As Hjort and Petrie observe: By virtue of an ecology that is specific to various measures of size, small national cinemas pay careful attention at a time when film scholars are looking for positive definitions of world cinema, for evidence of the diverse ways in which global forces affect local cinematic contexts, and for conceptual models that acknowledge that cinema is caught up in a web of international relations and not merely in an ongoing drama with Hollywood. (18)

What unites all of these “minor” or “small” audiovisual sectors is that an appreciation of them requires attention to the current complexities of global media. We situate our theorization of small cinemas of the four countries under study here as imbricated in cross-border film and media flows that are enveloped in historical power asymmetries with “bigger” audiovisualities. We also position our definition of “small cinemas” within the critique of the simplistic and binarizing notions of “global cinema” (Nagib 2006),

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which in academic and journalistic discourse is usually used in reference to any non-Hollywood cinema. As Lúcia Nagib (2006) observes, Hollywood cinema is not the be-all and end-all, nor does a Tinseltowncentric view help with analyzing many cinemas and cinematic movements of the world. Of third cinema, for example, she writes, “[I]f you just think of Glauber Rocha, whose films combine a multiplicity of influences from Sergei Eisenstein to Luchino Visconti, with the central aim of re-elaborating local (or national) myths and storytelling traditions. Hollywood could contribute little to the understanding of such an oeuvre” (27). By the same token, while some of the cinemas that comprise the studies of this book are in dialogue with the codes and conventions of Hollywood cinema, either rejecting or reworking them, they are also working with various non-US cultural forms. Another particularity of Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes is its examination of these emergent small cinemas as hybridities. While the study of Indigenous film and media has been perhaps a predominant and popular topic for film scholars, as evidenced by Richard Pace’s edited volume From Filmmaker Warriors to Flash Drive Shamans (2018), among many others, our book, while not ignoring Indigenous production, looks beyond certain reified genres to include groups and identities that have not been studied much outside of regional, Spanish-language publications. In doing so, we explore these fluid and dynamic pluricultural and plurinational hybridities and their enunciations as cinematic sectors. While our chapters examine specific identitarian categories of cinema production (“Indigenous,” “Montubio,” “Afro,” “feminist,” “community” and “activist”), we also look at new generic hybridized clusters beyond the predictable kind of audiovisual productions these groups are expected to make. To name a few examples, the films analyzed as “peripheral” or “marginal” in Sergio Zapata’s chapter “Images of Difference in Bolivian Cinema” are also produced by Aymara makers, but they are not registered as Indigenous cinema. The digital popular films analyzed by Luisa González in her chapter “Colombian Popular Cinemas: Expressions from and about Violence” are often produced by Afro-descendant makers, but they don’t necessarily position their work as “Afro.” In their chapter “Audiovisual practices and production of the commons,” the Maizal collective’s construction of a cinematic commons includes Indigenous, non-Indigenous and intercultural collaborative productions. Although the conceptualizations of small cinemas have for the most part taken place in English-language literature (Hjort 2011), mainly

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dealing with turn-of-the-millennium North American and European cinemas, the historiography of small cinemas has been reconsidered, and this implicates cinemas from multiple languages and cultures. Janelle Blankenship and Tobias Nagl (2015) take the long view of history to argue that discourses of European small cinemas began in the silent era. The authors situate their pre-history in the context of the early-twentiethcentury colonialist mentality in which superpowers looked down on the cultural productions of “smaller nations” (15). Writing on European cinemas after the Cold War, Luisa Rivi observes, “Identification with ‘Europe’ would not be as much about a common past as about the shaping of a common future, however elusive and frail this might appear” (2007, 38). Similarly, it could be said these small(er) cinemas of the Andes imagine a future in which subaltern peoples have greater representation and agency. It should be pointed out that the predominance of English-language literature on small cinemas has been changing in the last two decades, as there has been an increasing amount of scholarship on the subject coming out of non-Anglo European countries. For instance, Amaia Nerekan Umaran and Iratxe Fresneda Delgado (2017) consider two Basquelanguage films as enunciative of small cinemas. Their study is emblematic of other cases in the continent, where directors are increasingly drawing attention to issues of cultural policy that exclude films made in nonhegemonic languages. Thus, for example, at the 63rd edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival (2015), various filmmakers from fifteen European regions signed the Glocal Cinemas: Big Stories, Small Countries manifesto (2015), an initiative organized by the Basque government.2 The text points to the ways in which the European film market privileges productions in French, Italian, German, English and Spanish over the sixty regional languages, including Basque, that comprise the European Union (Nerekan Umaran and Fresneda Delgado 2017, 268). Signatories of the text note that insofar as the films made in these “major” languages tend to do the best at the box office, they call for these regional filmmakers operating in minority languages to work together with the goal of changing that dynamic. In the small(er) cinemas of the Andes, we can observe comparable linguistic inequalities in that state film boards, 2 The signatories were from Wales, Sweden, Slovenia, Finland, Poland, Norway, Latvia, Ireland, Iceland, Hungary, Italy, Friuli-Venice Giulia, Estonia, Denmark and the Basque Country. See Nerekan Umaran and Fresneda Delgado (2017, 268).

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and other financing streams in Latin America tend to privilege Spanishlanguage productions and linear narrative structures over projects shot in Indigenous languages, and films in which the forms of storytelling arise from other worldviews (though there has been a notable increase in linguistic and narrative diversity in the past decade). While there has not yet been an Andean small cinemas manifesto, we hope that one can glean from the chapters of our volume commonalities with the European counterparts among our sixteen cases. Another sign of small cinemas’ growth beyond the English-speaking world can be found in the international Conference on Small Cinemas: Diversity in Glocal Cinemas: Language, Culture, Identity. The gathering, organized by Spanish academics from the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of the Basque Country, had its first edition in 2010, in London.3 Since then, it has had annual gatherings on three continents. Its yearly call for papers is aimed at policymakers, scholars, as well as professionals working in the film industry. The conferences are organized around themes that affect small cinemas. For example, their last congress, entitled “From Celluloid to Streaming: Conservation and Circulation of Small Cinemas” (2021), had panels that dealt with the ways in which the media ecology’s shift to streaming will shape small cinemas across the globe. Panelists came from all over the world, including Latin America. Currently, in the Latin American context, there is an abundant literature of theorizations about stories and aesthetics rooted in local contexts at the margin of “national” cinemas, created mostly by so-called nonprofessionals, a problematic term that can imply the valoration of certain kinds of study and forms of knowledge over others. These academic texts, which are mostly in Spanish and whose authors do not use the term “small cinemas,” have emerged in the context of reflections on Indigenous cinema and video, community cinema and regional cinema, genres that are represented in the three main sections that comprise this volume. For example, the research on Indigenous video in Bolivia (Zamorano 2009; Schiwy 2005), Colombia (Mateus Mora 2013; Mora 2014, 2018) and Ecuador (Muenala 2018; León 2016) provides foundational antecedents for the reflections on small cinemas presented here.

3 For information on past editions of the conference, see its website: https://www.ehu. eus/ehusfera/smallcinemasconference2017/_castellano/ediciones-anteriores/.

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Moreover, the production of video by Indigenous peoples and nationalities made in Latin America paved the way for the study of the use of audiovisual technologies, cinematographic stories and the democratization of communication from a cultural and intercultural approach. In the same way, studies of community cinema have shed light on practical audiovisual experiences of groups and communities that are not guided by industrial or market values. The volume Cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe, edited by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron (2014), makes visible a set of experiences and processes of production, distribution and exhibition of audiovisual works realized without the mediation of professionals and aimed at strengthening cultural identity and the organization of grassroots communities. In this regard, scholarly texts in Andean countries have emphasized modes of collective production (Aimaretti 2018), platforms that enable circulation and exhibition (Cervantes 2020; López 2019), and the need to establish public policies (Aguilera and Polanco 2011). Finally, films produced in distinct peripheral territories have been described as “marginal” in Bolivia (Zapata 2020 and the present volume), “regional” in Peru (Bustamante and Luna 2017 and the present volume) and “underground” (Alvear and León 2009) or “guerrilla cinema” (Acosta Muñoz 2018) in Ecuador. These academic works have generated important reflections on existing cinematographic subcultures on the margins of the national cinema of the Andean countries. This literature includes consideration of amateurism and local production, highlighting the creative capacity of subaltern filmmakers to connect with popular audiences excluded from national film production and consumption. Finally, to conclude this section and to situate our framework geoculturally, what follows are some brief remarks on the thematic threads that unite Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia that are the subjects of the sixteen case studies that make up this volume. We have chosen these four South American Andean nations given their connecting issues of interculturality, pluriculturality and plurinationality. What also gives these four countries cultural commonalities is that they are currently the only members of the trade bloc the Andean Community (although such membership did not enter into our criteria). Geographically, all four countries under study form part of the Cordillera of the Andes. This gigantic mountain system traverses approximately 7000 kilometers of South America, spanning territories from the Caribbean to Patagonia and comprising parts of Colombia, Ecuador,

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Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. The Andean area is divided into three regions: the Southern Andes (Argentina and Chile), the Central Andes (Peru and Bolivia) and the Northern Andes (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). The Andean countries consist of various plateaus, where some of the major South American cities are found, including Quito (Ecuador) and Juliaca (Peru). Beyond this literal geographical definition, as the book’s chapters indicate, our conception of “the Andes” evokes cross-border imaginaries in which filmmakers from these four countries have shared experiences of what it means to undertake a small cinemas endeavor in the era of globalization.

Organization of This Volume The organizational architecture of this book consists of three parts: Filming Smaller Nations, Emergent Forms of Community Cinema and Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinemas. The first section suggests that the crisis in national cinemas has shaped notions of small cinemas in the Andes. The second part’s broad theme is the reconsideration of “community cinema” in these countries in the context of the pluralization of identities, communities and the digitization of audiovisual sectors. The third group of chapters suggests new ways in which we can consider “the regional”, “the peripheral” and “guerrilla cinema”—all of them twentieth-century concepts—for the new millennium in the small cinemas, Andean context. It should be emphasized that the three categories undergirding these sections are to be understood broadly, and there is crossover and often a blurring of them.

Part I: Filming Smaller Nations The first section, Filming Smaller Nations, suggests that we reflect on the crisis of so-called national cinemas and the turn toward emergent heterogeneous audiovisual communities that are not recognized in the modern nation and its institutions. A particular case of the filmmaking of minor nations is the audiovisual production of Abya Yala4 peoples and cultural and subcultural groups. This type of audiovisuality, described 4 Abya Yala is a term that originated with the Cuna People, in what is now Panama and Colombia, used to denominate the entire American as a territory-continent. It is an ancestral term that, depending on the context, could mean “land in full maturity,” “land

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by Amalia Córdova as a “rooted aesthetic” (2011), suggests that cinema is a submerged process in cultural frameworks that modulate and transform it. Thus, features such as language, values, cosmovisiones and other aspects of the symbolic production of communities and peoples constitute the material with which the audiovisual account is built. Some scholars refer to these productions as “fourth world cinemas” (Shohat and Stam 2002); others refer to “cinema belonging to nations without a state” (Ledo Andión et al. 2016). Inspired by the call for “dissemination,” proposed by Homi Bhabha (1994), this section aims to collect a set of diverse audiovisual experiences that propose counter-narratives of the nation based on cultural decolonization, audiovisual sovereignty and the right to communication. Minority communities within the nation, Indigenous, community, alternative cinemas that live on the edges of national cinema, small audiovisual subcultures that do not correspond to the homogenizing logics of the national film industry are the subjects of analysis in this part of the book through experiences from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. This section opens with Karolina Romero’s chapter “Filming the Andes: Contemporary Aesthetic Configurations of the Andean World,” which explores the different aesthetic and narrative paths through which the Andean world has been represented in contemporary Andean cinema. Through the analysis of the films Wiñaypacha (Peru, 2018) by Óscar Catacora, Killa (Ecuador, 2018) by Alberto Muenala, Retablo (Peru, 2017) by Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio and La sinfónica de los Andes (Colombia, 2018) by Marta Rodríguez, the author revitalizes the notion of “Andean realism.” Features of this contemporary Andean realism are present in the visibilization of Indigenous peoples, the representations of community spaces and identities, the struggle for cultural and territorial rights and the incorporation of the highlands and the Andes in the visual space. According to Romero, these characteristics bring Andean cinema closer to small cinemas, because they interrupt the hegemonic visuality of urban cinema and the racism of national cinemas and the audiovisual industry. Pablo Mora Calderón’s chapter “Technological Appropriation and Audiovisual Sovereignty in an Indigenous Key” reflects on the dialogue between visual studies and indigeneity, analyzing the tensions brought of life,” “land in full” and “good living.” Contemporary use of the term often indicates support for Indigenous rights and ontologies.

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about by the appropriation of audiovisual technologies by Indigenous peoples in Colombia. According to Mora, several Indigenous peoples made the decision to “domesticate” video and photography cameras through a process of technological appropriation and cultural translation that entailed assigning a use and a meaning of their own to audiovisual technologies. From their spiritual and cultural conceptions, native peoples such as the Arhuaco, Kogui, Wiwa, Embera, Makuna and Nasa established new uses of technology in order to appropriate their rights to communication and in defense of audiovisual sovereignty. It is for this reason that, the author maintains, the struggle for public communication policies and audiovisual creation have become relevant in recent years, as a mechanism for strengthening the autonomy of Indigenous groups and organizations. Eliana Champutiz, member of the binational Pasto people, director, producer, communication scholar and cultural organizer, begins her chapter “The Indigenous Audiovisual Producers of Ecuador: An Integral Practice of ‘Cosmovivencia’” with an autobiographical reflection to recount the struggles of Indigenous women within the audiovisual field in Ecuador. From her personal experience, which is at the same time a collective vision, Champutiz narrates the emergence of organizations such as the Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Nationalities and Peoples (CORPANP) in 2008, which gave rise to the Association of Audiovisual Creators of Peoples and Nationalities (ACAPANA) in 2014. In her firstperson testimony, she discusses how women have utilized concepts such as cosmovivencia to understand the life system of Indigenous communities and runa, which refers to a particular Amerindian humanism. Using these ideas, Champutiz argues that the cinema of native peoples can be understood in the context of the struggles for decolonization and the right to communication. In his chapter entitled “Indigenous Audiovisual Practices, PostNational Discourses and Poetics of the Small,” Christian León analyzes the work and thought of two Indigenous artists whose use of video in the artistic field are precursors to the contemporary Indigenous video movement: Alberto Muenala (filmmaker) and Amaru Cholango (contemporary artist). Through his analysis of these two Kichwa creators, León develops the concept of “Indigenous audiovisual practices,” understood through the use of audiovisual technologies by Indigenous subjects who think, act and create from alternative cosmovisiones and epistemologies. According to León, these practices are audiovisual expressions that operate from an intercultural conception, a language of the minor and the poetics of the

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small, which expresses the coexistence of multiple visual cultures, as well as forms of production and consumption that function outside of the film industry and the national arts system. In the final chapter of this section, “Audiovisual Practices and Production of the Commons,” Luz Estrello and Julio César Gonzales, members of the audiovisual collective Maizal, analyze the participatory, collaborative and community-centered audiovisual experiences that take place in Peru. Taking as examples the Escuela de Cine Amazónico (Amazonian Film School), Docuperú, the Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual (Traveling Audiovisual Training Workshop), Videos Creados con Dibujos (Videos Created with Drawings) and Minkaprod or Cuyay Wasi, the text proposes assessing various forms of audiovisual production using the notion of the commons and being in conversation with popular education, the processes of defense of territory and struggles for human rights. Based on these experiences, Maizal puts forward the provocative thesis that audiovisual practices are a privileged form of constructing the commons, not only because groups and communities are capable of producing audiovisuals collaboratively, but also because audiovisual language allows shared stories to be created. This text, which could well belong to the second section of this book, shows an example of the plurality of symbolic and cultural communities that inhabit the space of hegemonic cinema.

Part II: Emergent Forms of Community Cinema The second section of this volume includes six chapters from Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia, with each one offering a distinct way to expand the notion of community in the context of audiovisual creation. Five of them analyze emergent and contemporary experiences, while one provides a twenty-first century reflection on hidden histories of twentieth-century filmic practices. The production of community-based cinema increased as media technologies became more accessible and affordable. In Latin America, this cinematic genre grew to be more widespread in the 1980s and 1990s, although the expertise and equipment, largely analog and linear, often remained in the hands of individual filmmakers and nonprofit organizations. During this time period, the concept of “community” mostly referred to filmmaking processes in geographically defined spaces (urban, rural or Indigenous territories). Once the use of digital equipment and

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smartphones became more ubiquitous, this began to shift. Individuals and collectives located within communities began to procure digital tools and teach themselves to create and distribute their own media. Additionally, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the concept of “community” began to assume more specificity with respect to identities related to gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality. For women, feminists, LGBTQI+ communities and independent artists, the need to carve out their own spaces was necessary, in part because they were excluded from or were uncomfortable in geographically defined community cinema, as well as in commercial contexts. Thus, this section brings together a diverse set of texts that provide rich theorizations, situated perspectives and compelling case studies about diverse kinds of communities and their audiovisual practices. Ana Lucia Ramírez Mateus, author of the chapter “Recovering One’s Voice to Redefine What is Visible, Desirable and Possible: La Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde (at the Edge),” presents the work of an itinerant school that fosters the creation of autobiographical documentaries made by transgender, lesbians, queer, non-binary, pansexual and other sexual and gender dissidents. This school, which has organized intensive residencies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and elsewhere, works with participants to make films that honor their stories, which might include recounting the multiple forms of violence they have confronted, to exploring the sense of freedom, joy and pleasure they encounter. Its pedagogy is based on the idea that autobiographical storytelling can powerfully reconfigure life possibilities for its authors and others. Ramírez also analyzes the representational impacts and personal risks when LBGTQI+ films are distributed, from those produced by cisgender directors in dominant culture industries to the difficulties that transgender directors face when they release their highly personal films. Ramírez underscores the need for creating a filmic room of one’s own, as even some community spaces hesitate to screen their work. For this reason, this author prefers the term “small(er) cinemas al borde (at the edge),” as films from the Andes receive less funds and opportunities than countries such as Argentina and Mexico, and far less so for those produced by those makers outside of the industry, and even further reduced for gender non-conforming makers. The chapter “Ojo Semilla: Weaving Feminisms Through Community Cinema,” collectively authored by scholar-practitioners Diana Coryat, Carolina Dorado Lozano and Karla Valeri Morales Aguayo, also highlights

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a gender-focused filmmaking practice born in part out of the frustrating experiences they encountered in patriarchal relations in community cinema. The chapter analyzes how their pedagogical practices, and ultimately, audiovisual creations, are imbricated with feminist theories, concepts and principles. Similar to Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, Ojo Semilla is itinerant. Indeed, it is interesting that these two schools are mobile. In that sense, they affirm the need to bring their practices to different geographies, each with its own particularities and challenges. The intersectional and intercultural work carried out in Afro-Ecuadorian territories are at the center of this chapter, with the acknowledgment that these territories and the Afro-descendent population have been underrepresented even in community cinema. A focus on the body as one’s first territory in need of defense, and as a site for pain, joy and many emotions, is a key feature of their pedagogy. Like Escuela Audiovisual al Borde, this laboratory’s focus on gendered experiences, the body and emotions, provides spaces that might have been lacking in other community filmmaking experiences. Based in Ecuador, Ojo Semilla builds on the networks and relationships that have been cultivated over the years during community film festivals, retreats and productions throughout the Andes and beyond. Now, feminists that have worked within these organizations have started their own colectivas and continue to collaborate across geographies. Natalia López Cerquera’s chapter, “From the Festival-as-Event to the Festival-as-Process: A Journey Through Community Film Festivals in Colombia,” analyzes the impact of community-based film festivals. López examines the growth of these festivals, with the first one appearing in 2007, to the establishment of six more festivals across regions by 2021 (and counting). Colombia’s community film sector is quite vibrant, due in part to the support many of the self-taught collectives have received from national film and cultural institutions. López argues that these festivals are long-term, territorialized processes, not just temporal events. In most cases, they operate not from city centers but from districts that are marginalized, criminalized and marked as dangerous peripheries. These festival-processes seek to make visible and reclaim the beauty, humanity, voices and images of these places and their inhabitants. López also proposes that community film festivals provide opportunities to rebuild and strengthen the social fabric, which has been eroded due to the decades-long armed conflict. The festivals also provide opportunities for community filmmakers from across Latin America to meet and exchange

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their practices. In fact, many of the social actors highlighted in several chapters of this section have met and built their relationships during these festivals. In “Eco-Territorial Cinema: An Intercultural, Translocal, and Expanded Community Process,” Yadis Vanessa Vanegas Toala proposes that Indigenous and community audiovisual production in Ecuador, and in the Amazon in particular, have been profoundly shaped by the urgent need to defend territory. She elucidates this in her multisited ethnography about the filmmaking and exhibition practices of the collective, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar. This project forms part of the defense of the Shuar’s territory against open-pit mega-mining practices that have had devastating effects on communities and nature alike. Vanegas focuses, too, on the hybrid composition of the collective, which is led by Indigenous and non-Indigenous members. Its intercultural character has helped to generate an expanded notion of territory for filmmakers, land defenders and audiences alike. Through descriptions and analysis that capture nuanced details of the profoundly political dimension of audiovisual defense of territory, Vanegas transports us to different sites to listen in on filmmaker-audience dialogues in the Amazon and in the capital city of Quito. Libertad Gills’ chapter, “Notes Towards a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil,” provides a fresh, updated take on an underexplored and underappreciated genre. Gills argues that these early and mid-twentieth-century films are small cinemas in several ways: as an overlooked genre; having been produced in Ecuador; and because its filmmakers worked in the small formats of their day like 8 mm film. She sheds light on some of the multidisciplinary artists behind this genre, the films that transcend what is thought of as the home movie, and the early twentieth-century communities and transnational linkages that came together to view and discuss the work. Gills also proposes that Ecuadorian film history, still in process of recovery, needs to account for these films, the artists and their desire to experiment with the new art form independently of the emerging cultural industries of the time. With this chapter, Gills helps put Ecuador and Latin America on the map now that amateur cinema is attracting the interest of contemporary film scholars. Finally, Viola Varotto’s chapter, “Ay de mi que ardiendo, …¡puedo! An Extensive Note on María Galindo’s Bastard Cinema,” explores the friction produced at the intersection of art, activism and anarcho feminism. Varotto provides us with a multifaceted analysis of the oeuvre of María

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Galindo. This Bolivian artist cocreated the anarcho-feminist movement Mujeres Creando (Women Creating). She and the collectives with whom she works are best known (and notorious) for the political performances that unfold on the streets, in public sites and private spaces. The author has carefully researched María Galindo’s large body of artistic creation that also includes painting, sculpture, graffiti, poetry, prose, theater, radio, television and multimedia. She highlights the artist’s lesser-known audiovisual work. A bold, controversial figure who does not avoid confronting the power of patriarchy, the state, the church or other repressive powers, Galindo has been ignored, censored or otherwise rendered invisible not just by these institutions but by local cultural elites and gatekeepers. Varotto argues that rather than a small cinema, Galindo’s audiovisual work is “formless, dispersed, able to be pirated, accessible always and everywhere, without name or exact date, without homeland or parents; in short, bastardized.”

Part III: Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinemas In the section Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinema, the five chapters problematize these three categories in the context of this book’s proposed small cinemas framework. Guerrilla, regional and peripheral cinemas are terms that date back to the twentieth century. But in the new millennium, and in the Andean context, they require reconsideration. During the era of New Latin American Cinema and “third cinema,” two strong currents during the 1960s and 1970s, the era of the Cold War and revolutionary armed struggle, the term “guerrilla cinema” had political connotations, as it was ideologically and aesthetically opposed to Hollywood hegemony, as well as the “bourgeois” values of Europe’s “second cinemas.” But well into the twenty-first century, the world is no longer bipolar, a reality that challenges such reductionist accounts of the global cinemascape. Rather, in the current multipolar order, insofar as there are multiple media and cinema flows, as well as many “centers” and “peripheries,” the term “guerrilla cinema” signifies new audiovisual assemblages. The editors of this volume concur with Mauricio Acosta Muñoz who defines guerrilla cinema in ecumenical terms when he writes that it is “a

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space in which differences and otherness are expressed within a civilizational regime labeled as: modernity” (Acosta Muñoz 2018, 12).5 Acosta (2018) notes that twenty-first-century guerrilla cinemas are not overtly “political” (even though they have their own political dimensions), but rather are to be considered “guerrilla” in the ways they operate, and he specifically points to three practices that comprise this “guerrillaness:” inexpensive technology used for the production of content that becomes palatable for local audiences, and which articulates an alternative vision of the experience of globalization; the development of cinematographic practices that depart in narrative, aesthetic and distributive terms from those of “official” national cinemas; and the fact that these new guerrilla filmmakers have epistemologically and ontologically contested the cinematographic field itself (Acosta Muñoz 2018, 12). In each of these five chapters, we see all three of these “guerrilla” characteristics delineated by Acosta in that all of these small cinemas were made possible by the digital revolution, they challenge preceding methods of storytelling and they defy the cultural gatekeepers. The term regional cinema has various meanings and is contingent on a host of geographical and linguistic contexts (Caillé 2016; Radhakrishnan 2015; Joseph 2011; Lev 1986). Generally, it is used in reference to low-budget filmmaking that takes place outside of the major urban centers (Bustamante and Luna 2014; Middents 2013). The idea is to oppose hegemonic “national” representations of professional cinemas, but this does not necessarily mean that these regional audiovisual movements redefine “the national” (Dobrée 2018). As Ignacio Dobrée (2018) observes in his study of micro cinemas produced in the Alto Valle region of Patagonia during the 1980s, regional cinemas are often linked to discourses of new technologies. In his case, Dobrée analyzes how different social groups used Super 8 film to meet their needs in terms of challenging hegemonic nationalist ideas. We see similar dynamics in the following five chapters in which filmmakers use digital technology to reflect on what it means to inhabit these Andean nations in the era of globalization. Peripheral cinemas are audiovisual sectors in the Global South that “appeal to geopolitical categories in vogue (although not exempt from controversy) and have the virtue of defining their kind of cinema in opposition to the great Euro-North American nucleus that has historically 5 All final translations from Spanish to English are by authors Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig.

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been decisive in the development of filmmaking” (Alberto Elena, cited in Azevedo Luindia 2017, 14). The idea of “peripheral cinemas” emerged in the 1990s, when proposals for a tricontinental bloc, consisting of Africa, Latin America and Asia, crystalized as an alternative to the Europe-North American hegemony (Campos 2016). Starting in the 1990s and early 2000s, as digital technologies enabled new audiovisual spheres in parts of the world that are considered “peripheral,” including in non-urban parts of the Andes, new kinds of cinema started to be produced. This is the case in the studies that comprise this section, as we see turn-of-the-millennium examples of emergent Andean small cinemas in coastal Ecuador, the Peruvian Amazon and highlands, rural Bolivia and the South Pacific region of Colombia. In “Rethinking Subaltern ‘Modernities:’ El cine chonero popular, 1994–2015,” Noah Zweig analyzes a small cinema produced in the coastal Ecuadorian town Chone, situating it in the context of the country’s pronounced regional divides. This stratification is felt textually, inasmuch as the professionally made films, whose productions tend to receive funding, often feature urban, light-skinned and mainly quiteño protagonists. Zweig argues that it is precisely this regionalism, which is informed by racial and class politics, that has given rise to “Chonewood.” This small cinema responds to Ecuador’s enduring regionalism through identitarian means, by projecting images of the Montubio (coastal peasant) in defiance of the quicentrismo (the privileging of Quito) that dominates Ecuador’s “professional” film sector. In “Peruvian Regional Cinema,” Emilio Bustamante and Jaime Luna place Peru’s “regional” audiovisual culture in dialogue with the idea of small cinemas insofar as filmmakers who fall into that category resist the Lima elite’s ideas of moviemaking at the levels of production, exhibition and distribution. The two authors broadly define Peruvian Regional Cinema as low-budget filmmaking that takes place outside of the capital, principally in the country’s interior departments in the Amazon and highlands. Unlike the case with Chonewood, Peruvian Regional films have been shown in some of the country’s multiplexes. A point of convergence between Peruvian Regional Cinema and the Ecuadorian guerrilla cinema is the fact that emergent digital media were propitious for filmmakers from the Andean and Amazonian regions of both countries. Since many of these filmmakers come from communities that have roots in oral traditions, the accessibility and user-friendliness of lo digital has provided

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these artists with a seamless means of expressing themselves, something that was notoriously difficult in the analog era of cinema. In her chapter “Minor Cinemas, Major Issues: Horror Films and the Traces of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru,” Diana Cuéllar Ledesma zeroes in on a genre of Peruvian Regional Cinema delineated by Bustamante and Luna, namely horror cinema that draws on Andean mythological characters made in the departments of Puno and Ayacucho. In Cuéllar’s reading, these films are enunciative of the processes of the country’s “social symbolization” following the conflict with the Shining Path in the 1980s and 1990s. As with the chapters by Zweig and Bustamante and Luna, Cuéllar is interested in how the non-written traditions of communities outside of the country’s capital gaze lend themselves to digital productions. One of the noteworthy aspects of Luisa F. González Valencia’s chapter “Popular Digital Colombian Cinema: Expressions from and about Violence” is that she does not use the term “guerrilla cinema.” When many people think of Colombia, the term “guerrilla” often comes to mind. Rather, of all of the chapters in this section, Zweig is the only author to use that term. González analyzes that country’s popular digital cinema from various angles, considering the unique media ecology in cities often overlooked by elite tastemakers. She looks at DVD sales on the streets of Santiago de Cali in 2016 to examine a small cinema that dialectically situates the local and the global and the subaltern and the hegemonic. González also does audience analysis, based on comments on social media platforms, where many of these films have been uploaded. As with the case with Peruvian Regional Cinema and Chonewood, this popular Colombian cinema was made possible by the digital revolution. Finally, in the chapter “Images of Difference in Bolivian Cinema,” Sergio Zapata analyzes the audiovisual sector under the government of the political party Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism) (2005-present), many of whose films focus on lo indígena. Zapata draws on Brooke Larson’s (1992) concept “beyond the nation state,” which has to do with internal colonialism, namely the ways that Creole elites brought “modernity” to Indigenous societies. By recovering and rethinking the notion of “beyond the nation state,” Zapata considers the ways in which the makers of “marginal cinema” and “peripheral cinema” negotiate statecraft through their films. Zapata’s use of Larson helps us think beyond the rural–urban dichotomy, as these films deal with both neglected parts of the city and abandoned parts of the country.

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Conclusion Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes seeks to contribute to the study of a diverse and under-researched array of films produced in the Andes, and particularly to the emergent literature on small cinemas. The idea of small cinemas has been theorized throughout the world, but much less so in Latin America. Not only does the volume consider audiovisual sectors overlooked by these countries’ cultural industries, in putting the chapters together, we are inviting readers to draw parallels between these cases from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, despite the immense diversity of these Andean countries. The book brings the voices of academics who are esteemed in Latin America, but not widely accessible to Anglophone readerships. With several of our authors, this is the first time their work has been translated into English. Well into the twenty-first century, one can observe that ossified and now facile twentieth-century metrics that are used to analyze cinema and media flows, such as discourses of Hollywood imperialism, become increasingly useless. The global mediascape is more complicated than “Hollywood and the rest.” And what we see from this volume is that these small(er) cinemas of the Andes do not define themselves in opposition to the dream factory of Los Angeles. Rather, they are simply interested in the daily lives, struggles and narratives of the peoples in these Andean countries. The coeditors and authors hope that this volume will result in an increase in small cinemas studies, focused on parts of the world, in Latin America and elsewhere, that are underexplored in film scholarship. What the following sixteen chapters reveal is the enormous accessibility of small cinemas from around the world, as so many of these makers use social media platforms to share their work. Such easy access is a dream for small cinema research. Finally, it is worth pointing out the ways in which as editors, the process of doing this book has changed our notion of small cinemas. When we started the collection, we knew that the notion of small cinemas was a fluid one. Having finished the volume, we can offer the following reflections on the subject, based on the book’s three sections. In the first collection of essays, Filming Smaller Nations, we observe some ways that small cinemas theory results in our rethinking of visual anthropology, Indigenous film and media studies and studies of the commons. Likewise, in the second part entitled Images of the Small Community, it is

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through a lens of small cinemas that our understanding of grassroots film festivals and film schools, as well as the work of the artivists who make up these events, is enriched. This section’s chapter “Guayaquil’s Amateur Film History” offers important historiographical considerations in which amateur filmmakers should be written as the creators of small cinemas. Lastly, as suggested in the chapters that form the section Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinema, small cinemas can be seen as cultural tools to challenge the hegemony of the state capital whose audiovisual sectors often abandon non-urban peripheries.

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———. “El cine regional en el Perú.” Contratexto 22 (2014): 189–212. https:/ /revistas.ulima.edu.pe/index.php/contratexto/article/view/95. Caillé, Patricia. “Mapping the Circulation of Films by Women Filmmakers with Maghrebi Funding in the Digital Age.” In The State of Post-Cinema: Tracing the Moving Image in the Age of Digital Dissemination, edited by Malte Hagener, Vinzenz Hediger, Alena Strohmaier, 71–86. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Campos, Minerva. “Presentación: Alberto Elena y las miradas a los cine periféricos.” Secuencias: revista de historia del cine, 2016. https://reposi torio.uam.es/bitstream/handle/10486/678926/Secuen_43_44_1.pdf?seq uence=1. Castanheira, José Cláudio Siqueira, Desser, David, Douillet and Catherine Douillet, et al. Eds. Small Cinemas in Global Markets: Genres, Identities, Narratives. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Lexington Books, 2014. Cervantes, Katherine Díaz. “Análisis de las experiencias de la Red de Microcines de Chaski (Perú) y Wordbytes de Worldwrite de Londres, en el desarrollo del sector audiovisual.” Luciérnaga Comunicación 12 (2020): 85–100. https:// revistas.elpoli.edu.co/index.php/luc/article/view/1821. Córdova, Amalia. “Estéticas enraizadas: aproximaciones al video indígena en América Latina.” Comunicación y medios (Instituto de Comunicación e Imagen/Universidad de Chile) 24 (2011): 81–107. https://1library.co/doc ument/q2ex63pq-esteticas-enraizadas-aproximaciones-video-indigena-ame rica-latina.html. Coryat, Diana. “Historicizing Cine Jóven and Cuba’s Audiovisual Landscape: New Paradigms in Digital Media Production and Circulation.” International Journal of Communication 9, no 18 (2015). https://ijoc.org/index.php/ ijoc/article/view/2427. Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. “New Ecuadorian Cinema: Small, Glocal and Plurinational.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 13, no. 3 (2017): 265–285. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321247715_ New_Ecuadorian_cinema_Small_glocal_and_plurinational. D’Lugo, Marvin López, Ana López and Laura Podalsky. Eds. The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2018. Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Caleta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1989. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Dobrée, Ignacio. “El cine regional como experiencia: realizadores, espectadores y espacios de exhibición en la Norpatagonia de los ochenta.” AURA. Revista de Historia y Teoría del Arte 8 (2018): 89–107. http://www.ojs.arte.unicen. edu.ar/index.php/aura/article/view/588.

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Ebrahim, Haseenah. “Cinematic Sidestreams: A Political Economy of Small Cinemas in South Africa.” Communicatio 46, no. 3 (2020): 20–42. https:// www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02500167.2020.1818597. Duno-Gottberg, Luis and Michael Horswell. Sumergido. Cine alternativo cubano. Houston: Literal Publishing, 2013. Glocal Cinema. “Big Stories, Small Countries.” https://ced-slovenia.eu/wp-con tent/uploads/2015/10/Glocal_Cinema_manifest_SI.pdf. Gumucio Dagron, Alfonso. Ed. El cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe. Bogotá: FES, 2014. Gunning Tom. “Towards a Minor Cinema.” Motion Picture 4 (1991): 2–5. Hjort, Mette. “Small Cinemas: How They Thrive and Why They Matter.” Mediascape: UCLA’s Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 29 (2011). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mette-Hjort/publication/301282 929_Small_Cinemas_How_They_Thrive_and_Why_They_Matter/links/570 ed63b08aed4bec6fded71/Small-Cinemas-How-They-Thrive-and-Why-TheyMatter.pdf. ———. “Introduction.” In Cinema of Small Nations, edited by Mette and Petrie, 1–22. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Joseph, Jenson. “‘Regional’ Cinema or Products of Bricolage? An Introduction to Malayalam Studio Film of the Early 1950s.” BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 4, no. 1 (2011): 31–49. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10. 1177/097492761200483058. King, John. Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America. London: Verso, 2000. Larson, Brooke. “Explotación y economía moral en los Andes del sur: Haciauna reconsideración crítica.” Historia Crítica 6 (1992): 75–97. https://revistas. uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/10.7440/histcrit6.1992.05. Ledo Andión, Margarita y otros. “Cine europeo en lenguas de naciones sin estado y pequeñas naciones.” Revista Latina de Comunicación Social 71 (2016): 309–331. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/071/paper/1097/17es. html. León, Christian. “Video Indígena, Autoridad Etnográfica y Alter-antropología.” Maguaré 30, no. 2 (2016). Lev, Peter. “Regional Cinema and the Films of Texas.” Journal of Film and Video (1986): 60–65. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687708. López, Nathalia. “Configuración de los festivales de cine comunitario en Colombia: un análisis desde sus prácticas, trayectorias y sentidos. Estudio de caso Festival Nacional de Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca en Cali y Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario Ojo al Sancocho en Bogotá.” Master’s Thesis, FLACSO (Ecuador), 2019. https://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/handle/ 10469/15608.

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Martin-Jones, David and María Soledad Montañez. “Uruguay Disappears: Small Cinemas, Control Z Films, and the Aesthetics and Politics of Auto-Erasure.” Cinema Journal 53 (2013): 34–35. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2013.0064. Mateus Mora, Angélica. “El indígena en el cine y el audiovisual colombianos: imágenes y conflictos.” Medellín: La Carreta Cinematográfica, 2013. http:/ /www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0486-652520140002 00011. Middents, Jeffrey. “The First Rule of Latin American Cinema Is You Do Not Talk About Latin American Cinema: Notes on Discussing a Sense of Place in Contemporary Cinema.” Transnational Cinemas 4, no. 2 (2013): 147–164. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/trac.4.2.147_1. ———. “Voices from the Small Cinemas: Beyond ‘the Remaining Countries,’” 2012. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/15018/Fal icov_Small_Cinemas.pdf;sequence=1. Mora, Pablo. “Máquinas de visión y espíritu de indios. Seis ensayos de antropología visual.” Bogotá: Instituto Distrital de las Artes, 2018. ———. “Lo propio y lo ageno del otro cine otro. Un panorama de la producción audiovisual indígena de Colombia.” In El documental en la era de la complejidad, edited by Christian León, 57–79. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Cinememoria, 2014. Muenala, Alberto. “Experiencias y propuestas audiovisuales desde los pueblos y nacionalidades del Ecuador: Casos de estudio; Rupai, Kinde y Selva Producciones.” Master’s thesis, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/handle/10644/6180. Nagib, Lúcia. “Towards a positive definition of world cinema.” In Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film, edited by Stephanie Dennison and Song Hwee Lim, 30–37. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Neira, Fernando Redondo. “Novo Cinema Galego: Recepción crítica y presencia en festivales.” Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento 8, no. 1 (2021): 193–218. Nerekan Umaran, Amaia and Fresneda Delgado. “Glocal Cinema: The Film Loreak as Ambassador of Cinema in the Basque Language.” Area Abierta 17, no. 3 (2017): 267–289. Oubiña, David. “Un cine fuera de sí: Terrorismo estilístico en el udigrudi brasileño.” Catedral Tomada: Revista de Crítica Literaria latinoamericana 7, no. 12 (2019): 338–358. http://catedraltomada.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ catedraltomada/article/view/382. Pace, Richard. Ed. From Filmmaker Warriors to Flash Drive Shamans: Indigenous Media Production and Engagement in Latin America. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2018.

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Peirano, María Paz. “Festivales de cine y procesos de internacionalización del cine chileno reciente.” Cuadernos. info 43 (2018): 57–69. http://ojs.uc.cl/ index.php/cdi/article/view/22811. Radhakrishnan, Ratheesh. “Thiruvithamkoor, Malabar, Kerala: Speculations on the regions in ‘Regional Cinema.’” BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 6, no. 2 (2015): 126–144. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/ 0974927615600622?journalCode=bioa. Rivi, Luisa. European Cinema After 1989: Cultural Identity and Transnational Production. New York: Palgrave, 2007. Schiwy, Freya. 2005. “Entre el multiculturalismo e interculturalidad: video indigena y descolonización del pensar.” In Construcción y poética del imaginario boliviano, edited by Josefa Salomón. La Paz: Asociación de Estudios Bolivianos. Shohat, Ella, y Robert Stam. Multiculturalismo, cine y medios de comunicación. Translated by Ignacio Rodríguez Sánchez. Barcelona: Paidós, 2002. Venegas, Cristina. Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010. Vincenot, Emmanuel. “Narcocine: la descente aux enfers du cinéma populaire mexicain.” L’Ordinaire des Amériques 213 (2010): 31–54. https://journals. openedition.org/orda/2409. Wolkowicz, Paula. “El héroe ausente. La figura del líder, del pueblo y del intelectual en el cine marginal brasileño y en el cine underground argentino.” In Cine y revolución en América Latina: Una perspectiva comparada de las cinematografías de la región, edited by Ana Laura Lusnich et al., 161–176. Buenos Aires: Imago Mundi, 2014. Zamorano, Gabriela. “Intervenir la realidad: los usos políticos del video indígena en Bolivia.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología 45, no. 2 (259–285): 2009. http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext& pid=S0486-65252009000200002. Zapata, Sergio. “Imágenes de la diferencia. Análisis cinematográfico de tres películas bolivianas en tiempos del Estado Plurinacional.” Master’s Thesis, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador. https://repositorio.uasb. edu.ec/bitstream/10644/7414/1/T3223-MEC-Zapata-Imagenes.pdf.

PART I

Filming Smaller Nations

CHAPTER 2

Filming the Andes: Contemporary Aesthetic Configurations of the Andean World Karolina Romero

In the history of Latin American cinema, the possibility of capturing the majesty of the Andean highlands has been a recurring theme in the work of local and foreign filmmakers. At present, one can speak of the existence of an important corpus of films produced in the region that feature the representation of the Andes as a central element. This chapter aims to investigate the main narrative approaches and aesthetic characteristics that comprise these depictions of the Andean world in Latin American cinema in recent decades. I examine films that lend themselves to an analysis of the diversity of such representations, based on the recognition that there is not one Andean world but rather multiple ways in which filmmakers have approached the world of the Andes. Specifically, I consider the ways in which the notion of “small(er) cinemas” contributes to studying the diversity of cinemas produced in the Andean region, since doing so permits me

K. Romero (B) Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_2

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to discuss both conditions of production and the deployment of “small cinemas” in this unique context. In this sense, discarding the idea of an essence of lo andino, I am interested in examining the narrative and formal elements through which filmmakers have constructed representations of the Andean world, through an audiovisual practice that I refer to as “Andean cinemas.” “Andean cinemas” would be those in which a practice related to formal, aesthetic and narrative investigation about the Andes are recognized, including: the lives of its peoples, their worldviews as well as the nonhuman life that inhabits this space: mountains, rivers, trees, plants and animals. Among the pioneering filmmakers whose work falls into this category are Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva (Colombia), Jorge Sanjinés (Bolivia), Luis Figueroa (Peru) and Jorge Prelorán (Argentina).1 Although it is true that the theme of the Andean world in cinema and in Latin American film studies has generally been associated with the representation of indigenous peoples, this paper attempts to go beyond this approach. It is worth mentioning that many analyses of the representation of indigenous peoples consider formulations close to “realism” as one of the main characteristics of modern Latin American cinema, including for example, in the New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s. Such representations construct a “natural” link between indigenous identity and the earth, where the incorporation of the mountains and Andean landscapes, in the cinematic shot, plays the role of reinforcing the idea of an essentialism of indigenous identities. The conditions of production of Andean cinemas in the first decades of the twenty-first century discussed in this essay are related to the expansion of digital technologies in peripheral contexts, the crises of national cinemas and the industrial model, and the emergence of community and indigenous cinemas. In this sense, the advent of these “small cinemas” in the Andean region stimulates a heterogenization not only in their modes of production, but also in their aesthetic formats as Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig (2019) point out. Thus, I consider that the relationship between small(er) cinemas and Andean cinemas lies in the interrogation of essentializing notions of lo andino, as both take distance from totalizing narratives of the nation.

1 In this chapter, I consider the Andean region in its broadest geographical conception, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and northern Argentina.

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Therefore, I suggest that contemporary Andean cinemas explore other forms of community representation and the plurality of Andean identities. Accordingly, the films that comprise this research are limited to those that deal with the altiplano in the Andean world or feature the Andean world as a central character. In other words, these films go beyond the mere theme of landscape to problematize the presence of Andean worlds as protagonists, as well as engage in aesthetic inquiries in filmic practice. Likewise, as mentioned above, the diversification of Andean cinemas can be examined by the distance they establish from the realism of modern cinemas. As such, I analyze a corpus of films that problematizes the notion of “Andean realism,” a concept explained below. The film La nación clandestina (The Secret Nation) (Jorge Sanjinés and Ukamau Group, Bolivia 1989) established a kind of canon as to how the Andean world is represented in the history of Latin American cinema. Sanjinés’ use of the “integral sequence shot”2 had been working on since the 1960s and functions as a commentary on the circularity of Andean time. This chapter places this classic work of Andean cinema in dialogue with contemporary films from that region that share a similar search—or not— regarding the representation of the Andean world. However, it should be noted that I do not intend to affirm the canon, make comparisons or hierarchize the works of other filmmakers in the shadow of Sanjinés. Rather, I seek to bring into dialogue the diverse aesthetic and narrative paths of Andean cinemas in recent decades. Thus, La nación clandestina serves as a turning point that facilitates an analysis of some elements that recur in filmic constructions of the Andean world. In Sanjinés’ work, the integral sequence shot is a form of systematic experimentation with respect to the use of cinematic time and space, which contrasts with the Western conception of time, characterized by fragmentation and linearity. At the same time, Sanjinés’ process displays a relationship with realism due to its proximity to essentializing characteristics in the representation of lo andino. In this regard, film scholar David Wood defines the practice and conceptualization of the integral sequence shot as “Andean realism.” He writes: 2 Jorge Sanjinés defines the “integral sequence shot” as the formal search for representation of the Andean cosmovision through non-fragmentation: “By not fragmenting the sequence into different shots, a new structure could be transmitted, one that belongs to the peoples who conceive of everything as continuity among them” (Sanjinés 1989, 70).

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The rights and wrongs of these arguments are beyond the scope of this essay. What interests me here is rather the way in which the integral sequence shot combines a (perhaps essentializing) notion of the nature of “the people’s internal rhythms” with a political will to place the collective empathy deriving from the instinctive recognition of those rhythms at the service of social change. As I have outlined above, it does so by rejecting a Western realist narrative tradition that converts time and space into fragmented units of exchange, replacing it with what we might call an “Andean realism” that both idealizes and normalizes Aymara time. (Wood 2012, 11)

The notion of “Andean realism,” as Wood points out, raises the problem of an essentializing gaze that constructs the representation of lo andino through an idealized and inextricable link between the Andean communitarian framework and the circularity of time. In this sense, the author discusses Bazinian realism and notes that, in trying to capture the essence of Andean time on film, the integral sequence shot prefigures an extension of reality insofar as Sanjinés’ film does not attempt to capture reality from an external point of view, but rather is projected as part of reality. The importance of this theoretical approach lies in the extent to which it lends itself to discussing realism in cinema, as well as considering the issue of time and space in the representation of the community. These ideas allow for an interesting point of departure with respect to the diverse filmic explorations and representations of the Andean world. One could identify films, on the one hand, close to what we would call “Andean realism” and those that explore other ways of seeing, moving away from a search for the essence of lo andino. Likewise, some recurring characteristics in the filmic treatment of the representation of the Andes can be discerned, including: circular time; the attention to spatiality and community relations; topography and geography; Pachamama; and the city-country, rural and urban dichotomies, among others. This chapter analyzes the following films: Wiñaypacha (Oscar Catacora, Peru, 2018), Killa (Alberto Muenala, Ecuador, 2017), Retablo (Altarpiece) (Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio, Peru, 2017) and La sinfónica de los Andes (Los Andes Symphony Orchestra) (Marta Rodríguez, Colombia, 2018) paying special attention to their various formal aspects, such as experimentation, genre, conventional and alternative narrative models, aesthetic form, temporality, space and modes of representation.

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The Construction of Andean ˜ Time in Cinema: Winaypacha The following analysis considers the construction of cinematic time and space as a key component of the representation of the Andean world. Wiñaypacha (Peru, 2018), the debut feature by Aymara filmmaker Oscar Catacora, was produced by Cine Aymara Studios with funding from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. In 2017, the film won the award for Best First Film and Best Young Director at the Guadalajara Film Festival. Wiñaypacha tells the story of an elderly couple living at 16,404 feet above sea level in the Peruvian highlands, located in the Puno region (the southern part of the country). They are the only human characters that appear in the film, and Catacora explores the material conditions of their existence as they await the arrival of their son. In the film, the representation of the Andean world revolves around the couple’s life, marked by abandonment, hope, old age and the approach of death. In this sense, it could be said that the representation of the Andean world is based on the relationship that the elders have with time and space. Moreover, the aesthetic and narrative structure is based on contemplation not just about landscape; but rather, about contemplation itself. Unlike Jorge Sanjinés, Catacora films the mountains without sequenced shots, composing the contemplative gaze through static shots. The stillness of the shot does not seek to capture the inert landscape, but rather tries to include the energy of the mountains as a character in the film with a life of its own. In this way, contemplation manages to express, on the one hand, waiting and absence. On the other hand, it allows us to imagine the energy of the mountains that envelops and accompanies the lives of these elders. The formal and narrative exploration that comprises Catacora’s film situates it in a type of film that moves away from the idea of an essence of the Andean world. In Wiñaypacha, the experience of the characters and their relationship with time and space emerges from a circularity that is built around the internal rhythm of the shot. In this way, the sensitivity of the camera that incorporates the altiplano together with the slow and cyclical movements of the elders communicates a different sense of time, one that transpires between the hostile climate in which they live, waiting for the absent son, and the rituals offered to the Pachamama.

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The topography of the terrain becomes the surface of the shot. The camera dwells on the relationship between the elderly couple and their environment as a landscape that we access little by little. In this way, both the static shots at ground level that evoke the futility of waiting for their absent son and the perception that nothing is happening also refer to the contemplation of the human condition, as experienced by these two characters: working the land, their subsistence, as well as their fraternal relationship. Such contemplativeness allows us to approach their lives as internal geographies of the characters; it does not seek to show them as part of a totality. The singularity of this film can be seen in the ways in which it explores filmic language as it examines this elderly couple’s way of seeing the world by way of the static shot. This kind of shot is also utilized for various nonhuman beings that accompany the couple’s life. This kind of depiction anticipates the representation of the communal space that is permanently enveloped by the mountains, showing an equanimous relationship between the different beings. It also shows its inclemency and destructive force: the sheep, the dog and the llama have their own names and are treated as if they were children, just as the bird that brings bad omens is chased away. Rain and wind are energies with which they communicate. Finally, everyday life centers around the consumption of the coca leaf: the permanent gratitude for the strength to survive adverse conditions, to endure hunger and cold, as well as the anguish when they run out. This filmic space allows us to understand the experience of time and the community practices of the elders as an internal topography of the Aymara world. In this respect, the representation of the communal space achieved through the static shot can be understood, from Jacque Rancière’s logic, as the search for a relationship of equality in film. The philosopher explains this aesthetic process, discussing the relationship between cinema and politics by way of the concept of “wisdom of the surface,” which alludes to a balance between content and form. He observes that this is a specific strategy of an artistic approach: a way of accelerating or slowing time, shrinking or expanding space, harmonizing or de-harmonizing gaze and action, making or breaking the sequence of before and after, inside and outside (Rancière 2014, 103). Thus, in Catacora’s film, the surface of the static shot situates the spectator in different ways of seeing and feeling. In Wiñaypacha, Andean time is not experienced outside the characters, as is the case with La

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nación clandestina where, through the integral sequence shot, circular time overdetermines Sebastián, the main character of Sanjinés’ film, exemplifying what David Wood describes as “Andean realism.” In Wiñaypacha, the internal circular movement of the shot, derived from the interaction between the beings that comprise the filmic space and the elderly characters, brings the viewer closer to a different sense of time distinct from the linearity of capitalist modernity. Thus, the hills, the wind, the fire, the water, the earth, the plants and the animals, all discernible in the miseen-scène, are incorporated into the static plane comprising this search for the Andean world that is the basis of Catacora’s film. Finally, it could be said that if the realism described here constructs a “natural” link with Andean time, as in the case of Sanjinés’ integral sequence shot, then, this constitutes an affirmation of the Andean world. In Wiñaypacha, on the other hand, lo andino is configured as a way of seeing. It is interesting to note that the indigenous identity of the filmmaker Catacora himself does not determine the affirmation of an essence of Andeaness. In this sense, the filmmaker takes a different direction, one that explores the ways in which the characters perceive and feel anguish and abandonment, expanding the space from the point of view of nomovement to bring the viewer closer to a non-harmonic communal space of the Aymara culture.

Intercultural Dramas: Retablo (Altarpiece) and Killa In this section, I will put the films Killa (Alberto Muenala, Ecuador, 2017) and Retablo (Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio, Peru, 2017) in dialogue, using my research on the cultural conflicts in those two countries to do so. Both films’ work with drama (as in the film genre) emphasizes the individual’s conflict within the community that triggers the subaltern condition of the protagonists who reside in racist, classist and homophobic societies. The two films follow conventional narrative structures to comment on the Andean world and its cultural conflicts. In this analysis, I examine the films’ intercultural tensions and how encounters and separations between Andean cultures and the hegemonic, modern Western culture are approached and constructed through the lives of the characters. Retablo, the debut feature by Peruvian director Álvaro DelgadoAparicio, was produced by SIRI Producciones and coproduced by Germany and Norway. The film, which has been categorized as LGBTQ+

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cinema, did well in the international festival circuit: it was nominated for Best Peruvian Film at the Lima Film Festival in 2017 and for Best LGBTQ Film at the Chicago International Film Festival. It should be noted that in contrast to the works of independent cinema analyzed here, Retablo has the feel of an industrial production. However, I think it is worthwhile to analyze the film’s relationship with the notion of “small cinemas” given its status as an independent production, as well as the context of the crisis of national cinema in Peru. Likewise, Delgado-Aparicio’s film is noteworthy in its approach to how it deals with masculinities in the Andean world, a subject seldom explored in the cinema of the region. Retablo tells the story of Noé, a retablo3 artist, and his teenage son, Segundo, who live in an Andean community in the Ayacucho region of Peru. Segundo’s mother, Anatolia, is portrayed by Peruvian actress and star of Andean cinema Magaly Solier. Most of the dialogue is in Quechua, although often the young characters mix it with Spanish. The story’s main conflict revolves around issues of sexuality that Segundo must struggle with as he learns that his father secretly engages in “immoral” sexual practices. Segundo’s discovery of this secret affects his relationship with Noé and with the community. The film delves into the teen’s inner drama, showing his anguish, disappointment and confusion. Retablo deals with the theme of sexuality in the Andean world, a topic often avoided when it comes to the filmic representation of indigenous peoples. The film raises the issue of masculinity and sexual practices from the boy’s point of view. Moreover, the use of the subjective shot stands out, especially when Segundo looks at the bodies of other men. Such point of view shots, as well as the film’s filmic language in general, are comprised of long and medium shots. Segundo’s point of view is developed by his relationship with the corporal, both his own body and those of other men. For example, in parts of the film, the camera reveals a secretive gaze through subjective shots as Segundo looks at the bodies of his father and his male companions. In a fight scene between teen characters, the camera reflects a somewhat confused look, with close-ups of the naked torsos of the

3 Peruvian retablos are ornately decorated miniature boxes or dioramas that depict diverse scenes and are often used as household shrines. It is an art form that fuses Christian and folk art traditions.

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fighters, as if Segundo did not know where to look. Thus, the relationship of the camera with the bodies configures the point of view of the protagonist, who is caught between suffering and guilt. The way that Delgado-Aparicio constructs masculinity is as an internal conflict that is personified in Segundo’s relationship with his friend Mardonio, who represents hegemonic masculinity. The latter frequently refers to the sexual act of penetrating a woman and criticizes the artisanal labor Segundo does with his father as “women’s work.” Indeed, the film thematizes violence and the strength required to be a man when Segundo gets into fights and quarrels with other boys. It should be noted that Delgado-Aparicio represents the community that Noé and Segundo inhabit through the popular festival, play with friends, the relationship between the priest Samuel with those, of course, of the Catholic religion, and mostly through the character of the villager Don Timoteo. His role is central, since through his voice, the decisions made by the community are articulated. For example, in the scene of the lynching of a cattle thief, shown in a wide shot where the community forms a circle around the man being executed, Don Timoteo calls the shots. This scene also serves as a warning to Segundo of what could happen to his family. However, the conflict of masculinity remains at the individual level, since the community’s participation in Segundo’s education is absent, resulting in the boy’s feeling of helplessness. Segundo’s conflict is transferred to the community space only when the community repudiates and turns its back on Noé and his family. When the latter’s secret is made public, he is violently attacked and is left badly wounded. In this sense, the film enacts a severe critique of the community’s role in the suffering and stigmatization of Segundo’s family. One of the most notable cinematographic achievements of the film is the similarity between the long shots of community life and Noé’s retablos. In several scenes, extended panning shots of communal and family celebrations are used to establish visual resemblance between the retablo and the panoramic images of the community. Likewise, the film’s visual approach sometimes resembles the aesthetic of the retablo through a search for a shared gaze between the protagonists, Segundo and his father. Through a meticulous work of art design, the construction of the frame resembles a retablo. Windows, doors and natural frames are recurrently used to compose the shot, forging a similarity with those inside the retablos made by Noé. The use of chiaroscuro,

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in the interior scenes of Segundo’s home, recalls the space of intimacy and secrecy, as well as the hostility of life in the highlands. One of the most important scenes representative of the world of images made by Noé, and the ways of seeing shared between father and son, is Segundo’s dream about castration, where he and his father appear as figures inside the tableaus. This dream, besides having a powerful psychoanalytical meaning in the film, defines the gaze not only as a conflictive space but also as the family bond that unites father and son. In sum, the representation of the Andean world in this film is related to the gaze shared between Segundo and his father. In this sense, the world of both characters unfolds in an intersectional space between the visuality of the retablos and the conflict around masculinity. Thus, Retablo constitutes an approach to Andean worlds through the space of the common, which also involves the way of seeing of the protagonists, representing something that is shared but at the same time is conflictual and painful. Killa (Ecuador, 2017) deals with the theme of impossible love in a racist and classist society. The film tells the story of the romance between the indigenous Quechua Sayri, native of the small highland town of Pacahuayco, and Alicia from Quito. Through their investigative work— she is a reporter, and he is a photojournalist—the couple become involved in a corruption case centered around mining that affects the rights of the indigenous community of Pacahuayco. Killa was directed by indigenous filmmaker, Alberto Muenala, and produced by Corporación RUPAI and RUNACINEMA with development funds from the National Film Council of Ecuador (CNCine). Muenala is considered a pioneer of indigenous cinema in Ecuador, and Killa is his first fiction feature film. With hints of melodrama, the film is composed almost entirely of medium shots, and features few close-ups and little camera movement. This is exemplified by one of the romantic scenes, when the protagonists meet in the middle of a natural Andean landscape, where the use of warm light, with golden tones, resembles postcards of touristic landscapes. Although the romance between the young characters is impeded by the racism of Alicia’s father, a government official, the film also explores the incompatibility of love between them from their own points of view, because, while Sayri maintains an indestructible community bond with the anti-mining struggle, Alicia, in the end, fails to make that fight her own.

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The representation of the community plays a key role in the film. The conflict over mining exploitation triggers the struggle of the community’s organization in defense of their territory. While the couple’s relationship is disrupted by the environmental conflict, Pacahuayco’s struggle is violently repressed by the government. The communitarian space is represented mainly through the assembly of leaders of various indigenous peoples, comprised equally of men and women. It is here where the community decides to carry out a revolt against the mining company and where the celebration of Inti Raymi (a festival that takes place in the Andean world to honor the arrival of the summer solstice) occurs. Throughout the film, all dialogue between community members is in Quechua, while the mestizo characters speak in Spanish. Even so, Killa puts great emphasis on representing the “Andean essence” of the protagonist Sayri by showing a return to his roots. At the beginning of the film, the Andean creation myth is narrated by the voice of a grandfather of the community who states that their duty is to be “guardians of the earth.” The protagonist’s homecoming is narrated through majestic shots of the Andean highlands: volcanoes, hills, snowcapped mountains, rivers and lakes that represent Sayri’s ancestral world, as well as the cleansing ritual performed by his father, suggesting an initiation rite on his path in life. Thus, in Killa, the essence of Sayri’s identity, who must assume his role as “guardian of the earth,” that is, his “natural” connection with the land and the mountains, configures the film’s representation of the Andean world. The character Cashiguano, a mole who infiltrates the community in an attempt to destroy the indigenous organization, represents the opposite of Sayri; he is the traitor who, out of ambition, betrays the community’s interests. These types of stereotypical characters, both the hero who returns to his roots and the conspirator, are common in the narratives of the great return. For example, the character of the indio who corrupts himself and acts under the white-mestizo logic is also found in La nación clandestina, analyzed earlier, as an iteration of “Andean realism.” One of the interesting aspects that separates Killa from Retablo is the way in which each film depicts the community celebration or popular festival as a representation of the collectivistic space. Whereas in Retablo, Segundo does not participate, nor does he feel welcome in the celebration. Sayri, by contrast, feels integrated into it. At the same time, in both

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films, the individual conflicts of the characters, in some ways, upsets the supposed harmony of the Andean communal order. Another aspect present in the construction of the Andean world, both in Retablo and Killa, as well as in Wiñaypacha, is the representation of the world of dreams as premonitions. In Killa, the staging to represent the dreams of Sayri’s father, who anticipates the tragedy of his son, is perhaps one of the most important cinematographic achievements of the film, since there is an attempt to show a different type of knowledge in the conception of time that the character lives. To conclude, although in Killa many of the elements frequently used for the representation of lo andino are present, such as community relations, the relationship with the earth and the presence of the mountains in the cinematic shot, there is a difference in that unlike in the other films analyzed so far, where poverty is visible as the main factor in the lives of the protagonists, in Muenala’s film, it does not exist. In this way, the film breaks with a generalized stereotype of the representation of indigenous people in cinema. Perhaps this is attributable to an exercise of self-representation on the part of the Otavaleño Alberto Muenala, since in recent years, the indigenous communities of Otavalo have achieved important economic advancements mainly due to the handicraft trade. It should be noted that one of Killa’s original features is its representation of the community space as an equal space between men and women. And although the film does not delve deeply into this issue, the fact that the collective organization is represented as a nonviolent, peaceful and equitable space is striking. In this regard, it could be said that this aspect of parity, coupled with the notion of an Andean essence, constitutes Killa, as a narrative that idealizes ancestral community spaces, thus resorting to a dichotomous vision of the indigenous as the harmonious world and the mestizo as one of corruption.

Nonfiction in the Andean World: La sinfónica de los Andes Colombian filmmaker Marta Rodríguez is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary Latin American cinema, principally for her documentary work on indigenous peoples of her country and her films in which she denounces the harmful effects of Colombia’s armed conflict on the lives of its peoples. Since the 1970s, much of her

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ethnographic filmmaking has been carried out with the Nasa indigenous community who are based in the department of Cauca. Although Rodríguez’s work has focused mainly on the rights of indigenous peoples and the consequences of the war between guerrillas, extreme right-wing armed groups, drug traffickers and the Colombian government, her films also seek, through the testimonies of the victims, to show how violence has affected the territories, lives and community practices of these populations. Thus, her filmic approach comprises the representation of an imaginary of the Andes that traverses the armed conflict in Colombia. La sinfónica de los Andes (Colombia 2018), Rodríguez’s most recent documentary, was made with Fernando Restrepo and produced by Hollywoodoo Films and the Fundación Cine Documental, as a ColombiaBolivia coproduction. The filmmaker has since the beginning of her career been a militant defender of independent cinema in her country. The documentary presents the painful testimonies of the mothers and fathers of three children killed because of the armed conflict in the Northern Cauca region: Maryi Vanessa Coicue, Sebastian Ul and Ingrid Guejia. The documentary works in parallel with testimonies of women community leaders from the Nasa ethnic group, which comprises the council (cabildo) of Huellas Caloto. Their testimonies underscore the importance of maintaining, despite the harsh conditions unleashed by violence, the teachings, practices and ancestral knowledge of the Nasa people about the care of mother earth. La sinfónica de los Andes seeks to represent the community space through testimony, together with the search for peace and the struggle for territorial rights in the context of violence experienced by those communities. What is unique about the film is the way in which Rodríguez presents this violent world through the music performed by the titular orchestra using Andean instruments from the locality of Huellas, Caloto. This is a youth orchestra that is able to express the pain and hope for peace for the communities of Northern Cauca through the Andean music of their region. The following analysis focuses on how the representation of community space is linked to the film’s testimonial structure, with the musical sounds of the Andean world as interpreted by these young musicians. Rodríguez’s use of testimony can be appreciated by considering the ways in which she places the camera in front of the interviewees, the mothers and fathers of the murdered children and the community leaders,

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bringing their world of pain, struggle and survival closer to the viewer. Through in-depth conversations, the documentary attempts to dignify the words of each participant through intimate and frank interviews with Rodríguez. In this way, an intimacy with the viewer is produced by the familiarity with which the interviewees address the filmmaker. Thus, it could be said that the result of the ethnographic process carried out by Rodríguez allows the spectator to “feel the pain of others” from a relationship of respect and dignity toward the testimonies that compose the documentary. Precisely, in the case of the oral testimonies of the mothers and fathers of the murdered children, the value of the word of each one of them is established insofar as the viewer is invited to listen. In other words, the spectator, like the filmmaker, occupies the privileged role of listener of these words recounting pain and experiences of death. The importance of listening and speaking in these testimonies is given the time necessary, though never sufficient, to situate oneself in the face of pain. La sinfónica de los Andes ’ use of time derives from the spoken word and from listening. Through this temporal strategy, Rodríguez attempts to establish a sense of time specific to these testimonies; one can also recognize the filmmaker’s search for “the ways cinema can make use of the relationship between the certainties of injustice, the uncertainties of justice and judging the right thing to do?” (Rancière 2014, 103), that Rancière speaks of and that was explained in the first part of this chapter. Additionally, the testimonies of the parents are interspersed with those of women community leaders from Huellas, Caloto. The accounts of these women bring words of hope, resistance and struggle of the indigenous communities of Northern Cauca. The most important contribution these testimonies offer is the possibility of transferring the spoken word to the realm of collective memory. The recollection of the war, as uttered by the parents, is linked to the memory of struggle of the indigenous movement in the voice of a group of women, as a transition from individual to collective memory. This transition toward collective memory, based on the testimony of these women of the community, is achieved through their commitment and honesty as revealed in the uttering of their words that express the pain of war in the community, as well as the memory of their struggle and resistance in the face of the historical violence of which their people have been victims. In this way, the use of testimony constructs a collective

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voice through the enunciation of these women insofar as their voices give rise to the representation of the collective in the documentary. This collective memory of the community, as presented in the testimonies, moves toward the representation of community space, which is established by bringing together the voices of the women with the music played by the orchestra of Andean instruments. Thus, the space of the collective encompasses testimony, the spoken word, voices, the silences and the sounds of the mountain and Andean music. In this documentary, the representation of the community corresponds with the space created through the spoken word, listening and music. Although the mountains, the land and the labor in the fields are incorporated in the visual plane, the sensorial connections between the women’s voices and the music construct the sonic space as that of the collective. Likewise, this representation of sound is also linked, throughout the documentary, with the notion of mother earth. Here, the sounds of Andean music, as performed live by the youth orchestra, are comprised of iconic instruments characteristic of that region, including the quena (a flute), the charango (a stringed instrument of the lute family), the zampoña (a pan flute) and the rondador (a set of corded cane pipes), which creates a communal dimension that establishes a connection with the spoken testimonies, not only via the lyrics of the songs dedicated to the memory of the murdered children and their yearning for peace, but also through the sensitivity that connects with the voices and silences of the interviewees. Likewise, these musical sounds are intended to transmit the ancestral roots of the Nasa people. In this way, Andean music is part of the representation of mother earth, which is narrated through community practices and knowledge that are described as ancestral by the women. As we have seen, Pachamama, or mother earth, is a characteristic element of the filmic representation of the Andean world. In general, the treatment given to Pachamama in nonfiction film is, in this case, related to the incorporation of the mountains in the filmic plane, as well as the work in the fields: the planting, the harvest and caring for the land. Placed in dialogue with the other films that have been analyzed in this case study, it is interesting to note that the land of the Nasa people, as represented in La sinfónica de los Andes , differs geographically from the Andean region of Ecuador and Peru, since, in Colombia, the Andes is closer to the Chocó (an enormous region that covers the northwest of the country near the Panama border and the Caribbean Sea) rather than the altiplano.

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To conclude, Marta Rodríguez’s documentary also interfaces with other documentaries that deal with collective memory and its relationship with the cartography of the Andean world. For example, the documentary La cordillera de los sueños (The Cordillera of Dreams) (Patricio Guzmán, Chile 2019) deals with the memory of the Pinochet dictatorship and the disappeared, based on the relationship between collective memory and the cinematographic exploration of the geological conditions of the Andes mountain range that borders the capital of Santiago. Another documentary that has a similar approach, Púpila de mujer: mirada de la tierra (Pupil of a Woman: Gaze of the Earth) (Florencia Copley, Argentina 2018) memory and a search for ancestral knowledge are undertaken by Florencia, a Mapuche woman who returns to her origins. This film’s narrative, too, is developed through its depiction of the landscape and the sounds of Andean music. Finally, it is important to highlight the fact that the women’s voices that somehow sustain the collective voice in this documentary establish a close relationship with the representation of mother earth. For it is the women’s voices that enunciate, narrate and shape the notion of Pachamama. Thus, the representation of the Andean world in La sinfónica de los Andes builds a nexus between the feminine, the collective and mother earth.

Conclusion This chapter has focused on the search for lo andino through cinema. Based on the approach undertaken here, it can be argued that the filmic construction of the Andean world comprises diverse sensibilities that revolve around the aesthetic and dramatic constructions of the community. Contemporary Andean cinemas explore on the one hand, diverse and plural ways to represent community and Andean identities through themes that are usually invisiblized in the representation of indigenous peoples. On the other hand, although the idea of an Andean essence is not affirmed in the circularity of time, as in the case of “Andean realism,” there is continuity in the “natural” relationship with mother earth. The representation of community space is characterized by the incorporation of the altiplano in the visual plane, and also features a protagonistic role of the social organization according to the particularities in the different territories of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. For example,

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in Killa and La sinfónica de los Andes , the fight for the communities’ territorial rights is foregrounded. It is exemplified by the anti-mining struggle and in the resistance via ancestral practices and knowledges in the face of violence perpetrated by the governments of these countries. In this sense, community space is affirmed in the notion of Andean originary communities as guardians of mother earth. Catacora’s film represents another approach to community space. In Wiñaypacha, the inclusion of nonhuman beings in the static shot represents an innovative filmic experimentation about community practice, through a search for an equal relationship among living beings. Likewise, the memory of ancestral knowledge is a key theme in these films, much of it realized through the use of the Quechua and Aymara languages. Films such as Wiñaypacha and Retablo approach the representation of lo andino as an exploration of the inner world of the characters, where the indigenous language offers a feeling that is at once inviting and alienating, thus giving the viewer a singular way of vicariously experiencing the world of the protagonists. The issue of Andean time undoubtedly occupies a crucial place in Andean cinema, as being central to the construction of community space. As discussed earlier, the film La nación clandestina is a starting point for analyzing such cinematic temporality insofar as Sanjinés problematizes the notion of “Andean realism.” However, it should be noted that the formal exploration of Andean time does not seem to be a constant in the region’s cinema since the temporal structures of the films analyzed here are largely in line with conventional modes of representation in classical fiction cinema. In conclusion, it can be said that these diverse aesthetic and narrative approaches to the Andean world have allowed us to examine the filmmakers’ ways of seeing, as well as their filmic explorations of lo andino. In Rancière’s words, what is visible and what is articulable of the “distribution of the sensible,” which comprises the Andean, becomes an aesthetic construction. In this way, Andean cinemas bring us closer to reflecting on the fact that the Andean gaze is, ultimately, historically constructed.

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Bibliography Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. “Nuevo cine ecuatoriano: pequeño, glocal y Plurinacional.” pos(t)s 5 (2019): 70–101. https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index. php/posts/article/view/1592. León, Christian. Reinventando al otro: El documental indigenista en el Ecuador. Quito: La Caracola, 2010. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/handle/10644/ 3957 Rancière, Jacques. The intervals of cinema. Translated by John Howe. New York: Verso, 2014. Sanjinés, Jorge. “El plano secuencia integral.” Revista de Cine Cubano 125 (1989): 65–71. Wood, David. “Andean realism and the integral sequence shot.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 54 (2012). https://www.ejumpcut.org/arc hive/jc54.2012/WoodSanjines/index.html.

Filmography Catacora, Óscar. Wiñaypacha. Peru: Cine Aymara Studios, 2018. Copley, Florencia. Pupila de mujer. Argentina: Cruz del Sur Cine, 2018. Delgado-Aparicio, Álvaro. Retablo. Peru: SIRI Producciones, 2017. Guzmán, Patricio. La cordillera de los sueños. Chile: Arte, 2019. Muenala, Alberto. Killa. Ecuador: Runa Cinema/Corporación Rupai, 2017. Rodríguez, Marta. La sinfónica de los Andes. Colombia: Fundación Cine Documental/Visual Arts Factory, 2018. Sanjinés, Jorge. La nación clandestina. Bolivia: Beatriz Palacios, 1989.

CHAPTER 3

Technological Appropriation and Audiovisual Sovereignty in an Indigenous Key Pablo Mora Calderón

Introduction Since the 2010s, the audiovisual practices of native peoples in Colombia have been on the rise. If at the beginning of the twenty-first century the existence of Indigenous collectives dedicated to the production of audiovisual content could be counted on the fingers of one’s hand, today we can say that a complex scenario has emerged in which there is room for different modes of production, practices, aesthetics and strategies involving more than sixty such Indigenous collectives throughout the country.

This text collects in a fragmentary and concise way the essays on visual anthropology contained in the book by Mora (2019) Máquinas de la visión y espíritu de indios. P. M. Calderón (B) Departamento de Artes Visuales, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_3

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There are several reasons for the strength of this phenomenon. Besides the technological shift that has made possible the previously restricted use of media production by Indigenous communicators, there are two principal reasons for this emergence. The first is the strong positioning of the political agenda of Indigenous organizations and movements and their ongoing demands for communication rights. The negotiation between the national government and the Indigenous government of a public policy on Indigenous communication, ratified at the end of 2017, is setting the course for state actions over the next decade. The second reason has to do with the establishment of national and continental networks where audiovisual productions are exchanged at exhibition venues such as festivals and screenings. In Colombia, there are several Indigenous film festivals, the most important of which is the Festival of Indigenous Film and Video in Daupará. Created in 2009, this festival, which is national in scope, is a venue for the exhibition and intercultural dialogue between Indigenous filmmakers and the Colombian public. The Daupará festival was born as an alternative venue to allow for the circulation of Indigenous peoples’ self-representation, historically excluded from the dominant film and television industries. Likewise, in recent years, thanks to pressure from Indigenous organizations, spaces have begun to open up for the distribution of Indigenous audiovisual works on national public television and at major venues such as the Cartagena International Film Festival. In this context of the emergence and strengthening of the audiovisual practices of ancestral peoples, there has been considerable academic interest in describing, analyzing and interpreting these phenomena, something that had previously been restricted to specific case studies in the field of communication.1 In recent years, new scholarly perspectives have opened up through the use of conceptual tools from semiology, cultural studies and anthropology. This chapter is situated within the latter of these, anthropology. It begins with an introduction to the analytical categories of indigeneity

1 For example, the audiovisual observatories promoted by the Ministry of Culture in

2011 resulted in two pioneering publications: Luchas de representación. Prácticas, procesos y sentidos audiovisuales colectivos en el sur-occidente colombiano by Gerylee Polanco and Camilo Aguilera (2011) and Usos del audiovisual en el Caribe colombiano. Relato desde las organizaciones, los realizadores y los colectivos by Patricia Iriarte and Waydi Miranda (2011).

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and visuality, followed by an exploration of the impact of advocating for Indigenous communication rights in Colombia. I then introduce the first appropriations of the technological repertoires2 of the digital environments created by the Arhuaco, Kogui, Wiwa, Embera, Makuna and Nasa peoples. Finally, the chapter focuses on the demands for audiovisual sovereignty articulated by national Indigenous organizations to position themselves in the complex tapestry of the Colombian audiovisual sector.

Visuality and Indigeneity This essay examines a vast territory consisting of images, attitudes and actions that are united by the intersection of two concepts: visuality and indigeneity. The text highlights the conditions, practices, apparatuses and representations that are at the core of looking and what is looked at that is proposed by this intersection. Visuality, understood less as the social construction of vision and more as the visual construction of the social (Mitchell 2003), refers not only to what non-Indians look at, define, practice and represent, but also to what Indians say and do with the images that others produce of them, as well as those that are produced by them. Indigeneity (indianidad) is a perceptual, representational and discursive device in constant movement and is part of what Martin Jay (1998) refers to as a scopic regime, which is a way of seeing (in this case the “other-Indians”) in a given era. As Miguel Ángel Hernández-Navarro (2007, 43) has proposed, this regime of vision or the “eye of the epoch” refers, strictly speaking, to the visual culture of a given era or “to the spectrum of images characteristic of a particular culture at a particular time.” Thus, the scopic regime is much more than a mode of representation or a way of understanding and must be grasped as a complex web of statements, visualities, habits, practices, techniques, desires and powers. In a groundbreaking article that helped inaugurate visual culture studies, Timothy Mitchell (1998) argues that the construction of the

2 I use the phrase “technological repertoire” and take distance from term “information and communication technologies” (ICTs), based on the conceptual development proposed by Vilma Almendra Quiguanás et al. in the book Tierra y silencio. Como la palabra y la acción política de pueblos indígenas cultivan entornos digitales (2011, 10). The latter term emphasizes common technological foundations such as chip electronics, integrated circuits, the binary and digital condition of information processing and its telematic and telecommunication condition, miniaturization and convergence.

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colonial order was linked to the creation of modern forms of representation and knowledge. For him, the economic and political consolidation of the global hegemony of the West that was initiated in the nineteenth century began with the elaboration of new forms of technology, knowledge and representation. It does not have to do with a simple but convenient “ideological distortion” of the non-westerner, or the other, but rather with the emergence of a dense and interwoven system of imaginaries and expertise that organized the modern political power of Europe. In short, this system, supported by new apparatuses of representation, transformed the world into a spectacle. The new urges of curiosity, novelty and excitement of the European public were consolidated in the form of nascent “universal” exhibitions in museums and in published chronicles and travelers’ accounts that appeared in newspapers at the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on the argument that Mitchell had developed about Orientalism, this chapter offers different visions of how a part of the Indigenous Americas is traversed by the concept of indigeneity as elaborated by Marisol de la Cadena and Orin Starn (2009). Far from relying on hackneyed notions of immutable native tradition, those authors engage with the tense dynamics of Indigenous people as they are categorized by others and their quest to define themselves in and against the dense tangle of symbols, fantasies and meanings that others produce about them. By proposing a vision of hybridity, eclecticism and dynamism as the essence of indigeneity, as opposed to a fall or “corruption” from some original state of grace, De la Cadena and Starn attempt to undo well-established stereotypes about the populations interpellated as Indigenous and demand recognition of the issue as a relational field of governance, subjectivities and knowledge that involves us all, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in the construction and reconstruction of their structures of power and imagination. It is reductionist to argue that indigeneity was constructed in the Americas and associated with the “pagan” and the “primitive,” as opposed to the “civilized.” Although these imaginaries were hegemonic, they were not exclusive. During the American conquest, the Spanish Church proposed for the first time a racial classification of human diversity. The sixteenth-century discussions of Ginés de Sepúlveda and Father Bartolomé de Las Casason the nature of the American Indians were well known: the Indigenous population either consisted of real men, that is, brothers of the Spanish whites, or animals and, therefore irrational and

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prey to be hunted. Well into the twentieth century, sectors of mainstream Colombian society considered this dichotomy of “rational” (them) and “irrational” (the Indians) as natural. This logic, for example, was used to justify the hunting and murder of hundreds of Guahibo Indians of the Eastern Plains (los Llanos Orientales) in the mid-twentieth century. According to Silla (2012, 217) the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss recounted that a few years after the discovery of America, in the Greater Antilles, while the Spaniards sent commissions to investigate whether the Indians had souls, the latter dedicated themselves to drowning the whites that they had taken as prisoners to verify, through prolonged observation, whether or not their corpses would rot. The Indians never doubted that the Spaniards had souls; their uncertainty lay in whether the newcomers had bodies, since, from their perspective, not every specter does, nor is every visual appearance necessarily what it seems to be. We know that of these two confronting ethnocentric perspectives, the worst part was borne by the Indigenous people. Peter Wade (2011) demonstrates that, despite the multicultural character of the current Colombian Constitution (1991), the term Indian has continued to be a racialized category that works to discriminate and wield power against ethnic groups, as well as allow for construction of stigmatizing perceptions about them. Wade (2011) notes that there is racism toward Indigenous people but insists that the concept of race has no basis nor can it occupy a place in the toolbox of the social sciences. The word “race” is an invention of colonial origin of classification and subordination of nonEuropean populations that served to legitimize the Spanish conquest and colonization in the Americas. A lot of water has passed under the bridge of multiculturalism and there is no denying these profound changes, innovations and ruptures have meant the multiethnic and pluricultural consolidation of the Colombian nation beyond mere rhetoric. There has been struggle in some bastions of the Indigenous movement to establish an ethnic state. The new subjectivities based on the Amerindian and the intercultural citizenships based on ancestral origins have meant a “political-epistemic” turn, to use the Catherine Walsh’s (2008) term from her analysis of Bolivia. Of course, not everything related to Colombian Indigenous activism is decolonial and many representational practices, including those of the Indigenous organizations themselves, maintain a colonialist perspective, as Alcida Rita Ramos (2004) notes in her case study of Brazil, Pulp fictions

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del indigenismo. This means that nowadays, just like in the past, in accordance with De la Cadena and Starn (2009), there is an intricate and heterogeneous dynamic of converging and competing agendas, visions and interests occurring at the local, national and global levels. It is also the case that with lo indígena that there is no equation that what can be seen can be known. On the contrary, the knowable is much broader than the visible. Nor is it a question of what Walter Benjamin called the optical unconscious, a foreign presence of an invisible knowledge, something inscribed in the visual that can be unveiled by the mechanical eye of the camera.3 No, it is, no more and no less, about another way of seeing, another way of signifying and knowing the world that does not rely on mechanic devices; if the expression fits, it is about corporeal technologies of communication that come from very old epistemological substrata. One hypothesis is that these models of knowledge have endured and can be considered remnants of pre-Columbian origin. Another less naïve idea is that far from a miraculously preserved authenticity, there are the adoptions, transformations, assimilations and deformations of five centuries of westernization in the patterns of seeing, remembering and articulating Indigenous peoples. This is how Serge Gruzinski (1994) developed his ideas about colonial America, when he analyzed the passage from Indian pictography to alphabetic writing in sixteenth-century Mexico, inviting us to think about the transformations in the Indigenous perception of reality and the appearance of new modes and techniques of expression, memory and vision of time and space. According to Gruzinski, the Jesuits provided the Indians with an incitement to vision, a standardization of their delusions and some models of interpretation. Three centuries later, the Indigenous world witnessed the planetary expansion of a “fabulous laboratory of images” that revealed itself as an instrument and expression of power, but also of reactions and oppositions to it in a veritable war of images (Gruzinski 1994, 11–16).

3 In his celebrated text The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, first published in 1936, Walter Benjamin introduced the term “optical unconscious” to describe the expanded capacity of visual perception made possible by the advent of cameras and film that revealed what was previously impossible to see directly with the human eye (Benjamin 2003, 86).

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The Right to the Production of One’s Own Images Georges Didi-Huberman (2014) has pointed out that nowadays Indigenous peoples are exposed precisely because of media. According to this proposition, they are now more visible than they ever were. They are the subject of documentaries, tourism, markets and reality TV. DidiHuberman succinctly concludes that they are exposed due to the fact that they are threatened, precisely in their political and aesthetic representation and in their very existence. One can then ask: what can be done so that Indigenous peoples can expose themselves and not their disappearance? Raising this question means asking ourselves about the shift that has occurred in the last thirty years, when a widespread movement of native peoples in the Americas proclaiming the right to create and recreate their own images. Their demand to access and appropriate new audiovisual technologies, their will to control the media representations of them made by others and to strengthen ancestral forms of self-representation, their demand that the images be returned to them, their ongoing demands to build their own production and exchange networks has determined the construction of a continental agenda, which is united in its strength of resistance and self-determination (Declaración de Quito, quoted in Mora 2012, 3). Since then, the growing production of Indigenous images has exacerbated the crisis of Western representation while expanding the Indigenous presence in the arena of new utopias and emancipatory desires on issues of sovereignty, citizenship, economic development models and cultural and communication policies. In this era in which visuality and its resultant technologies such as photography, cinema and the Internet have especially gained ground, the electronic image has become one of the most powerful tools for the construction of social imaginaries and, above all, the way in which the Indigenous movement has gone from hidden resistance to one of strategic visibility. At present, we are witnessing the emergence of other scopic regimes stemming from new imaginaries of Indigenous peoples. Thus, for example, in the so-called contemporary “ethnoboom” (Caicedo-Fernández 2015), indigeneity has undergone a moral purification associated with values of philanthropy, generosity and care for nature and an essence opposed to the Western world, which is in crisis. The originary peoples have broadened their horizons of vision, but this has not meant that many of them have allowed themselves to be fully seen; there is still concealment or, to put it another way, a refusal to be exposed.

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This denial stems from a desire to disappear and that is not just from the hegemonic imposition of keeping Indigenous cultures invisible. In another context, the fact that Indigenous filmmakers have moved from mechanically reproduced images to e-images has also given rise to radical epistemic modifications. And as always when there are major transformations, distrust and nostalgia dominate value judgments and contaminate visions of the future. Indigenous peoples had to wait almost a hundred years to “domesticate” the technical image. Now that this is expanding with much force, its consolidation is called into question by the very nature of the transformations that have taken place in the world of visual technologies. If the Indigenous filmmakers remained “untouched” as filmmakers, that is to say, if the cinematographic representations that are technical forms of coming into visibility were not explicit at the time, now that they have mastered and have autonomous access to the digital technologies of visibility, the forecast could not be more pessimistic. What dangers lie in wait for them in the new turn toward this representation? Will they realize that the condition of possibility of the visible rests on a crisis of the truth of the visible; that there are things we cannot see and that the things we see cannot be trusted? There is no consensus in this regard. If for some Indigenous intellectuals, the techniques are there to be appropriated or domesticated; all that is lacking is the will and disposition to take advantage of and consume them.4 For others, this dominion is dangerous and they find it necessary to critically profess an antivisuality; a scopophobia that avoids contamination. Only in this way is it possible to escape the false dilemma of invisibility versus technological appropriation. The new electronic images, it has been said, are volatile, ghostly, ephemeral, fleeting and contingent. They have inaugurated new modes of memory and have cast doubt on continued presence and have privileged the instantaneous. As José Luis Brea (2007) has shown, these changes have affected the very ontological, technical and cultural status of the image. As there is no longer a promise of longevity, will the images of Indigenous authorship, which now have the power of being collectively 4 This has been the case, for example, with the strategies of the Nasa people of the northern department of Cauca, as described extensively by Nasa communicator Gustavo Ulcué in his article “Espiritualidad, política e imagen en movimiento del pueblo nasa,” which appears in Mora et al. (2015).

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shared around the planet, be able to survive the excess or will they be condemned, like in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982), to “disappear like tears in the rain?”.

Reappropriations The introduction of new technological repertoires in the traditional worlds of Indigenous peoples has impacted traditional codes of representation, habitual forms of perception, imaginaries and social practices. The impact can be compared to the first uses of electricity in the European world at the beginning of the twentieth century. Writing in 1939, Aby Warburg proposed “Our technical age does not need the serpent in order to explain and control the lighting […] The lightning no longer frightens the [city dweller]” (Warburg and Mainland 1939, 291). He observed the end of the mythical vision of the world and how the telegraph and the telephone annihilated the cosmos. “Instantaneous electrical contact” destroys “myths and symbols” that attempt to “establish spiritual bonds between man and the outside world” (Warburg and Mainland 1939, 292). Will the same thing happen in Indigenous territories now that massive cellphone connectivity, the universalization of Internet access and, in general, new digital citizenship are the order of the day, due both to state policies and ethnic demands? In some cases, at first, the new ways of looking by way of devices and emerging technical images were considered inappropriate and those who dared to operate cellphones, photo and video cameras were dismissed as childish and spurious. But gradually access to and use of communication and recording media were implemented. Although such access is still precarious in many Indigenous territories and the idea of a world surrounded by images or interconnected by satellite in the remote, secret and sacred territories is still inconceivable, the use of these technologies has meant complex negotiations for traditional Indigenous thought.5 For some Indigenous peoples of the Colombian Amazon (the Yukuna and 5 Amado Villafaña, photographer of the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, for example, lamented the resistance of the more traditional Indigenous people being photographed by him when he began his work at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It seemed to them that this was not a job worthy of an adult and, in addition, they were opposed to the territory being portrayed and disseminated through indecent images: “It’s like undressing one’s mother.” See the testimony of Amado Villafaña in Pablo Mora’s documentary, Seyarimaku o la otra oscuridad (2010).

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the Barasano, for example) and the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (the Kogui and Wiwa, for example), such negotiations were established with the spiritual fathers or “owners” of nature, that is to say, technology was incorporated into cosmogonic narratives and ritual practices, as will be discussed below. In an attempt to build ties between two seemingly unbridgeable worlds, some Indigenous thinkers have tried to compare spiritual communication with Western technology. This first occurred in the linguistic field, with a search for semantic translation, and a need to make the unknown intelligible by establishing analogies.

The Cellphone and Spiritual Parents The scene took place in 2014 in the lost village of Kemakúmake, located in the upper basin of the Guachaca River in the Wiwa territory of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. A group of Indigenous videographers were making their debut as directors, cameramen and scriptwriters in the first installment of a series about the wise women of their community. The sage María de la Cruz Nakoguí danced in circles, treading softly on the sand, while whispering a song addressed to the planet. Without anyone asking her, she stopped and explained the sacred music that she was singing: When we perform originary music we are communicating with our spiritual parents who are in the hills. When we sing, we are heard everywhere. It is like when the younger brother6 calls by cellphone, his voice is heard by another person. In the same way our singing is heard by the spiritual parents on a universal level.7

Yuruparí Contact Lenses For the Indigenous peoples of the northwestern Amazon, the Yuruparí ritual marks the male initiation into the adult world. During this ritual, traditional norms for maintaining the health of the body and the land are passed down to the youth. This knowledge has been inherited from a

6 This is how these Indigenous people refer to the non-Indigenous, white and mestizo populations. 7 Testimony taken from Rafael Mojica’s documentary Ushui (2014).

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mythical Yuruparí; an anaconda that lived as a person and was embodied in sacred trumpets made of palmwood. The Yuruparí is in everything that exists: in the river, the air and the residue. It gives life and the power to live. When the young man becomes an adult male, he is obliged to see Yuruparí. It is a moment to be reborn, to gain strength and to acquire defenses. The rite is marked by strict diets and if the rules are broken, one can fall ill and die. Through terrifying visions, in which the healers explain the meaning of all things in the world, these youth become men. The Yuruparí are associated with predatory jaguar spirits that are everywhere, watching over us. If someone encounters these jaguars, he or she may be devoured. The healer or k˜umu establishes a relationship with these wild animals because the Yuruparí acts through humans. They need coca to be able to “fix” or “cure” the world and only the healers can give it to them. The k˜umu is also the Yuruparí, according to the Makuna. If one doesn’t take care of oneself, one gets sick: The Yuruparí’s eyes are like two contact lenses and when he gets sick, they get filled with smoke; the healer takes out his eyes, cleans them and fixes them. These are very special cases and at that moment the healer feels mentally obliged to become the Yuruparí’s own body. (Arhem et al. 2004, 91)

New Jais for the Present In an ethnographic text from the 1980s, the anthropologist Luis Guillermo Vasco (1985) describes with precision the aspects related to the activity of jaibanismo 8 practiced among the Embera Chamí Indigenous people of the department of Risaralda. By vindicating the jaibaná as “the true man,” Professor Vasco contributed to the defense of the Indigenous peoples, encircled by ethnocidal strategies of missionaries and other interest groups that persecuted, imprisoned and banished these forms of political and ritual leadership. Many years have passed since the publication of this ethnographic work and only Indigenous groups could today reflect on how long these practices and ways of thinking have remained. As originally stated by the anthropologist: 8 Jaibanismo refers to the activity of communicating with the spirits developed by the jaibanás or shamans or spirit guides of the Embera Indigenous people of northwestern Colombia.

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I believe that a phenomenon such as jaibanismo, both complex and misunderstood until now and, above all, so strongly repressed that it threatens to disappear, can no longer be explained in a way that is completely satisfactory for a mode of thinking such as ours. (Vasco 1985, 131)

According to Vasco, the jaibaná is a man of knowledge, an Indian doctor. With his learning and action, he transcends the world of empirical experience. He constructs knowledge by seeing directly and explicitly. Seeing is the power of the jaibaná. Knowledge is not something that is theoretically elaborated but seen. What matters, then, is learning to see, which is achieved through a process of initiation that involves dreaming. The jaibaná, by means of arduous work, opens the deceptive veil that Carabí had placed before the eyes of men to hide the sky from them. At present, the curing of diseases is perhaps the most important role of the jaibaná. Disease occurs when a jai, or a spirit, in the form of an animal of prey, enters the body of a human being on the orders of a jaibaná and hides, eats or takes out said person’s “soul.” The jaibana expels the jais from the body of the sick person, reestablishing its victim’s lost identity. He does this by means of a chant that he practices for hours on end: “I am a man… I am a true man.” It is accompanied by elements such as the chicha, a staff, the body painting, the snail, the drum and the dance. Through the chant, the jaibaná calls the jais but, above all, he narrates what happens on the level of reality that the assistants do not perceive and clarifies what is the cause of the illness, who has produced it and what must be done to cure it. And because it narrates the healing, it occurs. The word that is sung has a performative power and its effectiveness is not doubted. Thirty-two years later, in 2016, when Luis Evelis Andrade, leader of the Emberá people, was asked about the fate of the jaibanás, he responded with determination: Now the jaibaná, in his process adapted to the new times, has created new spirits, new spiritual entities according to his relationship with the environment. An example of this takes place when he visits Bogotá and discovers an artifact that he finds interesting, something used by the nonIndigenous society. He adopts it and through it creates a spirit that serves him for his work. So now he can create a cellphone jai or a recorder jai. Jaibanismo works like an army that every day is equipping itself with new weapons or new technologies for defense to heal and protect. The jaibaná creates spirits according to what he discovers, because the more spirits he

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has, the more power he has. In everyday real life, the jaibaná makes use of technologies to strengthen his work as a communicator of good and evil forces that may be affecting a community or a person. Then he discovers, adopts and uses these new technologies for his work and takes it to his spiritual duties as well. The jaibanás are open to the use of everything that helps them to transmit what they do, see and feel. It is similar to a journalist who has transitioned from the typewriter to the computer, to the cellphone, to the satellite, or to the microwave. There are no people in the Indigenous world who innovate more in terms of what serves to strengthen their work as doctors, and they also transmit the message of the jaibanás. They are creative and they appropriate everything.9

What Electronics Don’t Pick Up When in 2006 photo and video cameras arrived at the Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization (Santa Marta), comprised of the Wiwa, Arhuaco and Kogui peoples, the lifestyles of these emergent Indigenous communicators began to change imperceptibly. For example, in less than a year, Felipe Ortiz, member of the Arhuaco tribe, abandoned his trade as a builder and fully immersed himself in audiovisual production. When I met him at the Casa Indígena de Santa Marta (Indigenous House of Santa Marta), he was just beginning to “domesticate” a small amateur video camera, a home desktop publishing program, a camera and two cellphones. With this new technological equipment, Felipe had to cope with unheard-of perceptive experiences, including readjusting his entire body (not just his eyes and ears). Socially, it is not customary for the Arhuaco people to publicly remove their traditional clothing, including, for example, the tutusoma (cap), the poporo (container that stores small amounts of lime that is used while chewing coca leaves) and their mochilas (woven bags). Observing Felipe in the middle of a recording operation, trying to set up the tripod on unstable ground, with the tutusoma in the way of his headphones and bothered by the intense ringing of his two cellphones invading the silence of the place, I said to him: “The Arhuacos should invent their own headphones…”.

9 Ismael Paredes, in an interview with Luis Evelis Andrade for this essay, in Bogotá in December 2016.

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What a mess! The tutusoma represents the snow-capped Gonawindúa [considered the most important peak in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range]. So, if I want to do a good interview, to capture good audio, it seems that I have to get rid of something. I have to take off my cap to be able to put on my headphones to position myself well and hear the audio. Why do I say that it is not compatible? Because if I have the tutusoma on, then I’m going to put the earpiece on. I can’t hear; it’s too far away from my ears. That’s why I thought that there is no compatibility. There cannot be a proper earpiece because then the camera will not register it. Our own is the spiritual communication we have with our ancestors that the electronic device does not pick up.

The manifesto of the ancestral people the Mamos10 of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta represents a good example of this view, as the text compares spiritual communication with Western technology: In an effort to make ourselves understood by the younger brothers,11 we say that the object that allows us to have spiritual communication is like the cellphone: we can converse through it with someone who is not next to us. But we must know how to ask questions and interpret the answers that come to us from the spiritual world through different manifestations. For example, when we contemplate the iridescent clouds, we receive messages that we need to interpret in order to prevent and defend ourselves. In this case, it is like a television, only that the images mean something different that you have to learn to decipher. The sacred spaces where we practice spiritual communication can also be compared to a radio station. Those spaces are our spiritual stations from where we communicate with our mothers and fathers. We do not see them, but we hear their announcements. Of course, these comparisons are forced and the cellphone and television and radio stations are a poor imitation of our spiritual communication. We refer to these devices and technologies only because we have been told that in this day and age, they are useful and essential. [...] The artifacts are worthless if they are not used for the purposes of defending and protecting the territory. We were left in this land of Seynekun and Serankwa to take care of it and that is where those who learn to make television should aim. A well-used earphone, microphone and camera can

10 The spiritual authorities of the Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are known as Mamos. 11 This is how these Indigenous people refer to the non-Indigenous, White and Mestizo populations.

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record with quality the words and actions of an interviewee and will be able to communicate something good about us. But this technology will not be able to establish the spiritual connection with our ancestors. Electronics and optics can never replace our way of being in this world. (Mamos Arhuacos 2016, 9)

To Watch or Not to Watch Television, That Is the Question Each of the 115 Indigenous pueblos that are officially recognized by the Colombian state has had a particular way of thinking about the subject of modern audiovisual technologies and of confronting the colonization of these devices. This simply means that the history of this appropriation is extensive, diverse and differential. The appraisals made by the Indigenous organizations themselves agreed that in dating the first experiences with these appropriations to the 1960s, with the use of printed materials, continuing with radio at the end of the twentieth century and with cinema and video at the turn of the twenty-first century (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia et al. 2016). Although in many cases the appropriation of audiovisual media has been welcomed and solicited within a political agenda of rights activism, it has not been devoid of trauma. The hypertrophy of the visual undoubtedly is a consequence of modernity’s imposition of the scopic regime on the Indigenous gaze. Interestingly, in addition to the effects of its appropriation, is its resignification. In a pragmatic way, without ethical dilemmas or apocalyptic fears, many Indigenous peoples have accepted and claimed access to these technologies. A few others, on the contrary, have viewed these forms of integration with suspicion, distrust and apprehension. Such is the case with the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, who saw the entry of communication and information systems into their territories as an undesirable contamination: To attempt to articulate television to our spiritual communication is, in principle, impossible. If a dress is white and it gets covered with red, it remains red. So it is with our communication and with what other Indigenous brothers and sisters call “appropriate.” So, just as we must be firm with what was left to us from birth to maintain and protect; and be careful with what is not our own, to analyze it well and without haste. Radio stations, for example, may seem useful because they inform us instantly of

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things happening in remote places, but they are not part of our culture. If we accept these technologies, it must be through the guidance of our spiritual laws. Those who watch television, whether Indigenous or nonIndigenous, must understand the spiritual connection we have with nature. The problem is that we have weakened ourselves and now it is more difficult to establish communication between the material and the spiritual. That is why we ask ourselves: How much can communication with media such as television serve us? How much does it strengthen us? (Mamos Arhuacos 2016, 9)

However, pragmatism prevailed and after analyzing these media slowly considering these ancestral criteria, community members found that television has both positive and negative aspects and they agreed to approach this technology under certain conditions: it was necessary to produce television for the outside world, for non-Indigenous people; but it was not acceptable to watch television in the territories. This distinction is key for understanding why, along with the strengthening of their audiovisual communication strategies, which has led to abundant productions of videos and photographs, they have undertaken a tenacious opposition to the security and telecommunications antennae that were installed by the National Army and telecommunications companies without their consent in Tuma, the sacred hill of Inarwa (known as the Cerro del Alguacil), where the spiritual parents of the seeds are located.12 We do not want antennas in our territory, which means that we do not want to watch television or have mobile devices in our communities. It would be a contradiction with our actions, a setback to everything we have done to remove the antennas from Inarwa, which they call Cerro El Alguacil, near Nabusímake. We have always believed that our form of communication is not complementary with television, as we have tried to explain in this document. The antennas in Inarwa weaken our guardians, the spiritual columns of U’mʉ nʉ kʉ nʉ nʉ . The government and the nonIndigenous television authorities should not be confused, they should 12 Ruling T 005-16 of the Constitutional Court upheld a writ of protection filed

by the Arhuaco people against the National Army for having converted the hill into a center for military operations and for leasing and installing antennas for the TeleCaribe television channel, the Electricaribe electricity company and the Movistar cellphone company. Although the court authorized the removal of this infrastructure, the process of consultation and negotiation of compensation with the Tenth Brigade is ongoing.

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understand the extent to which we accept this system and they should respect our decision (Mamos Arhuacos 2016, 13).

Technological Cannibalisms More than a hundred years ago, writing, addition and subtraction were a novelty for the Arhuacos, and their early learning became a form of resistance against settlers, missionaries and traders. Now, sensing the power and influence of images, and just like writing and mathematics, they decided to domesticate13 video cameras and photography. The domestication process was not simply learning how to technically handle the new devices. It required a complex operation that I have described in other texts, which I reiterate here (Mora 2009; Mora et al. 2015). The account of this operation spoken among young Indigenous communicators is revealing: the use of visual representations had been rare in their world. Only we—their younger brothers—like this way of transmitting information and knowledge. When they became determined to master audiovisual languages, they consulted with their Mamos (spiritual leaders) and learned of the existence of a sacred site in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (a large stone or black mountain with a secret location) where the owner or mother of the images and their generating technologies is located. The Indigenous video makers have calmed down since then, because they know that it is no longer wrong to use these devices of the whites. By doing so, they are not violating the Law of Origin (a set of behavioral norms orally transmitted from generation to generation, from ancestral times to the present that ensure cultural continuity). In an unprecedented ritual experience, the Mamos gave traditional food to the spirits of “the things that shine” (mirrors, glass, screens and now, cameras). The Mamo Kogui Bernardo Moscote officiated the ritual and explained to the Indigenous youths, who filmed him at his government site, the meaning of these devices that were pointed at him: We are seeing that these cameras have arrived. It is urgent to give an offering to their mother. Fortunately, I know who that mother is and where she is. I owe this knowledge to my ancestors. They told me that the 13 The concept of domestication is specific to the Arhuacos and both replaces and departs from the notion of appropriation, which is used in the political communication of the country’s Indigenous organizations.

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mother of the photos is in a sacred place around here. That is why I am going to purify this equipment as they are now ours.14

Shortly thereafter José Shibulata, another Mamo and member of the Kogui tribe, conscious of his role as spiritual guide and protagonist of emergent Indigenous video productions in the Sierra, gave advice to the young man from his village who was making his debut as a director: What I am going to tell you is true. In the old days they said that Mukeke had devices like the ones you have now. So said our ancestors. So, when you start your work, think like Mukeke. They say that they took a picture of the sun and that this image is a mask that serves to communicate with Jate Sé, father in the dark. So it is established and, therefore, you must not do anything without first being guided by us Mamos. Think also that these devices are not from the present but come from the creation of the world. Do not think either that this knowledge is proper to the younger brother. It comes from the sun father and Mukeke. This is how you should always think.15

The naturalness with which the Mamos situated the Western audiovisual technology in the register of their spiritual parents allowed them to travel to the communities that were beginning to be the object of interest of the young filmmakers. After this cannibalism, it was no longer unusual to hear stories of the fathers and mothers of light and images. The youth Saúl Gil, Wiwa, and Silvestre Gil Sarabata, Kogui, began to speak with familiarity of a secret place where there was a “kind of television.” At night, a screen would appear, projecting all kinds of images. In trying to explain to me what the screen looked like, Silvestre pointed to its shadow on the ground. In that shadow, you see animals passing by, such as ants, dogs, rabbits, mice and tigers. It is the same as the photographic and video records that are later projected; Silvestre clarified without hesitation. Without a doubt, the Mamos de la Sierra encountered a way to devour the audiovisual technology of the younger brothers and resignify it for their cautious use. Over the years, with nine films made and a wide experience in the broadcasting of audiovisual content, this is how they replied

14 Testimony from the film Resistencia en la línea negra (2011) by Arhuaco director Amado Villafaña. 15 Testimony from the film Resistencia en la línea negra.

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to the National Television Authority about the possibility of formulating an autonomous Indigenous television plan: Now, with the increase in population, television is seen as a necessity. We already accept that this form of communication is important for contact with our younger brothers. We think that if through its use we can make visible and communicate what is happening to us, that is, the serious violations of our sacred territory, then it is useful. The messages can be good, useful, and strategic […] But it is one thing to watch television and another to produce it. So, we answer that we do want to produce television that is seen elsewhere, so that our messages reach other people who can understand us and take our side in defense of the territory. We can make video and photography if we are clear about that purpose. Otherwise, we would be bad imitators. We must also know what we publish and what we do not publish, why we do it and to what extent. This means that if we appear in the media, it must be with our own voice and spirit. [...] For this to be so, these media must be under our control. If they are not by us and for us, they do not interest us; they are of no use to us. (Mamos Arhuacos 2016, 13–14)

Audiovisual Sovereignty The demand for the development and implementation of a public policy on Indigenous communication has been central to the strategies of the Indigenous movement since at least the first decade of the 2000s. The idea of consolidating the positioning of native peoples through image and public communication is not new and has a long history in Latin America, as it is structurally related to the Indigenous agendas of social transformation and cultural citizenship.16 What is at stake is not a simple transfer of media and a search for ratings, but the conquest of another form of communication that proposes the right to difference without it being translated into greater inequality. A large part of the reason for participating actively and with full autonomy in the elaboration of policy is the discomfort with the naturalized imaginaries of exoticism, folklore, backwardness and criminal bellicosity, facilitated by non-Indigenous modes of media representation. In short, it is a matter of confronting the “bad image,” but also the

16 See Reguillo (2000, 67–76).

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contamination of hypocritical sentiments, which see Indigenous peoples’ access to the media as a matter of compassionate humanism. Jacques Rancière has expressed this in another context: “The masters of the world serve up seduction to hide the mechanisms of domination; moreover, to make us accomplices, transforming the products of our dispossession into mirrors where we contemplate ourselves as happy and proud consumers” (2014, 69). Although this policy is just beginning to be implemented, we can venture some conclusions about its cultural and imagined importance. If the exercise of the fundamental right to proper and appropriate communication is feasible,17 in today’s world, overwhelmed by different forms of violence and colonialism, at least four communicative practices or tasks will become visible: wise thinking to respond to actions that endanger the survival of Indigenous peoples; autonomous communicative agendas that will help the communities overcome the dependence and distortion of external media; intercultural dialogue based on a solid position of defense of the territory and of what is theirs (lo propio); and new training strategies to nurture and strengthen cultural dynamics (Organización Nacional Indígena, Confederación Indígena Tayrona, Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas de Colombia por la Pachamama, Gobierno Mayor y Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia 2016). In this context, the audiovisual and television sector agreed upon and implemented by the national government and the Indigenous government, ultimately approved the creation of a Unified Indigenous Television Plan on December 6, 2017. Its implementation is guiding state actions in this matter during the next ten years (Organización Nacional Indígena, Confederación Indígena Tayrona, Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas de Colombia por la Pachamama, Gobierno Mayor y Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia 2017).18 If the plan is to be fully implemented, at least five lines of action will transform the ways in which the images and 17 In the documents written by Indigenous peoples, it has become commonplace to differentiate the communication inherited and inscribed in their cultural matrices since time immemorial (one’s own communication), from that which comes from the more recent but long history of conquest and colonization brought about by the West (appropriated communication). 18 In a historic event that had been anticipated for decades, the Indigenous authorities of the five national organizations and representatives of the communications sector, including the Minister of Information and Communications Technologies and a delegate of the National Television Authority (ANTV), signed the minutes of protocolization

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sounds of Colombia’s Indigenous peoples are conceived of, produced and disseminated: Indigenous-led and appropriated training for the production of audiovisual content; the strengthening of Indigenous institutions; guarantees and access to public television service; the promotion of Indigenous innovation and creativity; and adaptation of the institutional architecture of the information and communications sector. A first concern from the non-Indigenous world has to do with the widespread idea that the development of audiovisual techniques and languages, whether simple or complex, can become “omnipotent mobilizers” of the world, capable of subjecting all existence to their designs. This is how Siegfried Zielinski (2012) describes it. For him, the idea of technological progress has been mistakenly thought of as something irreversible and almost natural. This global imaginary permeates the rhetoric and public actions of state agencies that see it as an imperative to turn Indigenous peoples into digital citizens or new consumers of these emergent technological repertoires.19

Concluding Remarks Together with the perceptual, representational and discursive devices contained in the concept of indigeneity, this chapter offers perspectives and visuality practices of the Indigenous peoples themselves. These contributions increase the tensions and polysemy of the concept of indigeneity. The growing appropriation of technological repertoires of the digital environment augurs the dissemination and consolidation of new imaginaries coming from Indigenous makers in direct rejection of the historical mediations of representation in the hands of officials, journalists, artists and academics. The persistence of exhibitions and festivals dedicated to the exhibition of Indigenous audiovisual works and the conquest of spaces on television platforms, and digital networks have deepened the crisis of Western representation, even breaking down the very notions of knowledge, identity, authorship and creation in Indigenous audiovisual practices. However, of this public policy at a session of the Permanent Roundtable of Agreement with the Indigenous peoples. 19 For example, the programs of the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, aimed at “closing the digital divide” and the promotion of initiatives to massify (in their terms, “universalize”) the consumption of new technologies.

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the effect of electronic images produced by Indigenous authors in the construction of social imaginaries is still uncertain. And the impact of the appropriation of the new technological repertoires of the digital environment on the internal order of Indigenous cosmovisions likewise remains unclear. What is clear is that the development of public policies in the field of communication and audiovisual creation, two demands that have already been somewhat resolved, strengthen the autonomous agendas of Indigenous collectives and organizations, settle scores with the usual distortions and prejudices of the mainstream media, enhance intercultural dialogue between broad sectors of Colombian society and confront the still prevailing forms of violence and colonialism with new visual tools.

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. Medios sin fin: Notas sobre la política. Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2006. Arhem, Kaj, Luis Cañon, Gladys Angulo and Maximiliano García. Eds. Etnografía makuna: Tradiciones, relatos y saberes de la Gente del Agua. Bogotá: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis and the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2004. Benjamin, Walter. La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica. Translated by Andrés Weikert. Mexico City: Editorial Ítaca, 2003. Brea, José Luis. Cambio de régimen escópico: del inconsciente óptico a la e-image. Estudios visuales: Ensayo, teoría y crítica de la cultura visual y el arte contemporáneo 4 (2007): 145–164. https://www.fadu.edu.uy/estetica-diseno-ii/ files/2019/03/cambio-de-r%C3%A9gimen-esc%C3%B3pico-completo.pdf Caicedo-Fernández, Alhena. La alteridad radical que cura: Nneochamanismos yajeceros en Colombia. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2015. De la Cadena, Marisol and Orin Starn. “Indigeneidad: problemáticas, experiencias y agendas en el nuevo milenio.” Tabula Rasa 10 (2009): 191–223. https://www.revistatabularasa.org/numero10/indigeneidad-proble maticas-experiencias-y-agendas-en-el-nuevo-milenio/. Didi-Huberman, George. Pueblos expuestos, pueblos figurantes. Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2014. Gruzinski, Sergei. La guerra de las imágenes. De Cristóbal Colón a “Blade Runner” (1492–2019). Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. ———. La colonización de lo imaginario. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994.

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———. Política pública de comunicación indígena [working paper], 2016. Polanco Uribe, Gerylee and Camilo Aguilera. Luchas de representación. Prácticas, procesos y sentidos audiovisuales colectivos en el suroccidente colombiano. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011. Quiguanás, Vilma Almendra, Diana Giraldo Cadavid, Rocío Gómez Zúñiga, Julián González Mina, Oscar Grillo, Armando Henao Velarde, Rocío Rueda Ortiz Gustavo Ulcué Campo, Viviam Unás Camelo. Eds. Tierra y silicio: cómo la palabra y la acción política de pueblos indígenas cultivan entornos digitales. Programa Editorial UNIVALLE, 2011. Ramos, Alcida Rita. “Pulp fictions del indigenismo.” In La antropología brasileña contemporánea: Contribuciones para un diálogo latinoamericano, edited by Alejandro Grimson, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, Pablo Semán and Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira, 285–322. Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2004. Rancière, Jacques. “El teatro de imágenes.” Translated by Alejandro Madrid Z. In Alfredo Jaar: La política de las imágenes, edited by Nicole Schweizer, 69– 89. Santiago de Chile: Metales Pesados, 2014. Reguillo, Rossana. “Movimientos sociales y comunicación: el espejo cóncavo y la irrupción indígena.” América Latina Hoy 25 (2000): 67–76. https://dia lnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1670493. Rueda, Rocío. “Cultura, política y repertorios tecnológicos: el caso del tejido de comunicaciones NASA-ACIN.” In Tierra y silicio. Cómo la palabra y la acción política de pueblos indígenas cultivan entornos digitales, edited by Vilma Almendra Quiguanás, Diana Giraldo Cadavid, Rocío Gómez Zúñiga, Julián González Mina, Oscar Grillo, Armando Henao Velarde, Rocío Rueda Ortiz Gustavo Ulcué Campo and Viviam Unás Camelo, 9–30. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/ Julian-Gonzalez-Mina/publication/327384495_Tierra_y_Silicio_como_la_p alabra_y_la_accion_politica_de_los_pueblos_indigenas_cultivan_entornos_dig itales/links/5b8b5676299bf1d5a737f716/Tierra-y-Silicio-como-la-palabray-la-accion-politica-de-los-pueblos-indigenas-cultivan-entornos-digitales.pdf. Silla, Rolando. “Metafísicas caníbales: Líneas de antropología posestructural.” Revista de Antropología 20 (2012): 217–222. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/ 1690/169031634010.pdf. Ulcué, Gustavo. “Espiritualidad, política e imagen en movimiento del pueblo nasa. Poéticas de la resistencia.” In Poéticas de la resistencia, edited by Pablo Mora (2015): 103–131. https://idartesencasa.gov.co/artes-audiovisuales/lib ros/poeticas-de-la-resistencia-el-video-indigena-en-colombia. Vasco, Luis Guillermo. Jaibanás, los verdaderos hombres. Bogotá: Biblioteca Banco Popular, 1985. Wade, Peter. “Multiculturalismo y racismo.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología, 47 (2011): 15–35. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/1050/105021311002.pdf.

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Walsh, Catherine. Interculturalidad, plurinacionalidad y decolonialidad: Las insurgencias político-epistémicas de refundar el Estado. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, 2008. Warburg, Aby and W. F. Mainland. “A lecture on serpent ritual.” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2, no. 4 (1939): 277–292. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 750040. Zielinski, Siegfried. Arqueología de los medios: Hacia el tiempo profundo de la visión y la audición técnica. Translated by Alvaro Moreno-Hoffmann. Bogotá: Departamento de Arte de la Universidad de los Andes, 2012.

Filmography Mojica Gil, Rafael. Ushui, la luna y el trueno. Colombia: National Television Authority, ANTV and Ministry of Culture. Colombia: Ministry of Culture, 2014. Mora, Pablo. Sey Arimaku: La otra oscuridad. Colombia: Ministry of Culture, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCNGnPEaJ3E. Scott, Ridley. Blade Runner. United States. Warner Home Video, 1982. Villafaña Chaparro, Amado, Saúl Gil and Silvestre Gil Sarabata. Resistencia en la línea negra. Colombia: Colectivo Zhigoneshi, 2012. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=stTHubhy0R4.

CHAPTER 4

Indigenous Audiovisual Producers of Ecuador: An Integral Practice of “Cosmovivencia” Eliana Champutiz

This chapter seeks to relate knowledge, experience and Indigenous cosmovision in the fields of audiovisual production and communication. Based on our collective experience, the analysis of Indigenous peoples’ audiovisual production and our dialogue and work with its filmmakers, we offer a reflection on the theory of Indigenous filmmaking through the following four components: self-representation, content design, the audiovisual dynamics and Indigenous techniques. It also relates the experience of the audiovisual collective that I co-founded, Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Nationalities and Peoples (CORPANP), including a concept that we coined, cosmovivencia, which describes not just how Indigenous people see the world, but how they live it. The

E. Champutiz (B) Corporación de Productores Audiovisuales de Las Nacionalidades y Pueblos (CORPANP), Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_4

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first part of this chapter discusses the four components analyzed from an Indigenous makers’ perspective. Self-representation refers to the possibility of narrating from within the experience of being Indigenous: what we feel, live, produce and reproduce in life, far from the anthropological vision of the subject/object that has been developed throughout history in the academic world. This offers the possibility of breaking with the ventricular version of lo indígena (what third parties do and say for us); and it becomes a legitimate exercise of self-determination as Indigenous peoples. Content design refers to the presentation and representation of content and its meaning, from an Indigenous cosmovision, one without demonization, folklorization or the symbolic erasure under the colonial and racist model, which is historically how lo indígena has been approached. The dynamics of audiovisual production refers to a collective construction, from the genesis of an idea to the production of the film. It also means understanding spaces of diffusion in which the collective imbricates the historical social subject, namely the belonging to an Indigenous people that is united by language, spirituality and clothing and social, cultural and economic practices. Our own techniques refers to recent analysis and a proposal to identify the extent to which Indigenous cinema makes use of technical resources (narrative, photography and sound) to be able to nourish its own cinematographic narrative or perhaps from the empowerment of technique for the reproduction of the contents. We start from the use of shots where there is no assessment of the individual subject as, say, a superhero. Instead, in our extensive use of collective scenes, we try to depict the community or the collective not as a homogeneous mass but as one with differences and complexity. In the same way, we focus on the composition of shots from the “dignified image,” avoiding colonial shots that show poverty, alcohol and abuse, which have been presented for years as Indigenous themes. Likewise, the use of natural sound as the presence of elements of nature such as water, fire, air and earth that has to do with the cosmovivencia of originary peoples and includes the shots of nature and the representation of deities in the films. To arrive at these four categories, I situate myself as a communication scholar, an audiovisual producer and a cultural organizer. I am part of the binational Pasto people, an Indigenous nation that, prior to the consolidation of the Ecuadorian nation state in 1822, had a territory that included part of what is now called the Knot of the Pastos (Nudo de los Pastos)

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on the border between Ecuador and Colombia. I am founder of the collective the Corporación de Productores Audiovisuales de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos (Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Nationalities and Peoples, CORPANP). Created in 2008, its members are Indigenous peoples based in Quito (CORPANP 2020). Our collective emerged as a space of articulation for Indigenous communication practitioners that are part of the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE)1 During the years of CORPANP’s existence, the coordination of this collective has mostly been carried out by women, which has generated a particular dynamic in audiovisual production, as well as in its administrative, technical and political work. CORPANP has been a space of work and accompaniment for audiovisual training for influential and important women communicators and audiovisual producers such as Patricia Yallico (Waranka), Saywa Escola (Karanki and Kayambi), Rocío Gómez (Kitu Kara), Sisa Lozano (Saraguro), Josefina Aguilar (Otavalo), Margoth Atupaña (Puruwa) and Tamia Lema (Otavalo). All of them have been part of CORPANP’s production team, and each one has fulfilled her dreams and projects to strengthen the audiovisual, communication and/or her own organizational spaces and cultural proposals. CORPANP has allowed us to weave together and strengthen several ideas, concepts and arguments, including our cosmovision (worldview) and the right to communicate. When we discuss cosmovision in CORPANP, we allow ourselves to break down the word and reflect on the fact that it is not only the vision of life, but the experience we have in it. Therefore, we coined the word cosmovivencia, an alternative term used within the intellectual world and by Indigenous leaders themselves that has been gaining strength and is now commonplace. Regarding the right to communicate, it is important to recall that the Latin American Coordinator of Cinema and Communication of Indigenous Peoples, (Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas, CLACPI) and other Indigenous communication organizations declared 2012 as the year of Indigenous communication (SERVINDI 2012). This declaration is related to the communication rights in general and Indigenous communication in particular. In order to talk about Indigenous communication and the right to it, we begin with the analysis 1 The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is the largest Indigenous organization in Ecuador, founded in 1986.

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of the legal situation of communication laws in Latin America as it relates to Indigenous peoples. We also need to understand that communication is not only a technical practice, but part of the way of life of Indigenous peoples and their forms of communication. Finally, it is important to recuperate the right to communicate not only as consumers of content, but as subjects of rights capable of producing our own content, analyzing the existing production dynamics and at the same time the public policies regarding Indigenous communication. The right to communicate in general and audiovisual communication in particular is part of the process of self-determination, an exercise of originary peoples, which implies the recognition and respect for their own ways of life. In this sense, the way I self-identify is with the Pasto people and its collective process, situated in the province of Carchi, located near the Colombian border. Later on, my self-determination would also include my work. I am a communicator, audiovisual producer, cultural organizer and not a video maker (videasta). That latter term is one with which academics wanted to identify us. However, I personally see that term as culturally and socially charged, relegating Indigenous audiovisual production to a status inferior to that of cinema. Thus, while some generate art, we Indigenous people make crafts; while they make films, we make videos. This conceptualization derives from elitist visions in which film is made by a handful of people and art is produced by certain privileged groups. Therefore, self-determination in the realm of labor is also a political action. Since its creation, CORPANP has been comprised of people who work in audiovisual production, and who understand that video and film are indispensable communication tools. Moreover, we see ourselves as cultural workers in general and audiovisual workers in particular. The process of personal training has been linked to radio, press, television journalism and management positions in public organizations. But above all, our work responds to the very particular dynamics of Indigenous organizations. I have been working as an audiovisual producer in CORPANP since 2004, though my path in communication began years earlier through my direct involvement with CONAIE. I also worked in the news division of the cultural and educational public television station Vive TV in Venezuela and the public channel Ecuador TV. Public administration is an area that I have also been able to explore precisely because of the professional path I have taken, being a Director of Cinema in the Ministry of Culture, General Technical Coordinator of the Instituto de Cine y

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Creación Audiovisual (Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Creation) and Head of Communication of the Mayor’s Office of Tulcán (northern Ecuador). This trajectory, in addition to formal academic training at the Universidad Central del Ecuador (Central University of Ecuador) as a social communicator and non-formal training at the national and international level, is that which allows me today to highlight the possibility of an Indigenous cinema within the framework of communication as an exercise of native peoples.

Indigenous Organization in Ecuador In Ecuador, there are four national Indigenous organizations. CONAIE, which was created in 1986, articulates the largest number of grassroots groups at the national level and is the Indigenous organization that has played the most important role in the political life of the nation. But the first Indigenous organization formed was the Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios (Ecuadorian Federation of Indians, FEI) (1944), followed by the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas Indígenas y Negras (Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous and Black Organizations, FENOCIN) (1965) and the Federación Ecuatoriana de Indígenas Evangélicos (Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians, FEINE) (1980). These groups reflect different organizational processes, representatives and tendencies in the Indigenous movement. At present, CONAIE brings together eighteen Indigenous peoples and fifteen nationalities, which is the way we define ourselves in Ecuador. Currently, this umbrella organization is composed of three regional organizations from the coast, the Amazon and the highlands: the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast, CONAICE), the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Amazon, CONFENIAE) and the Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality, ECUARUNARI). Each organization has its governing council as well as community directives. Each president of these base organizations forms part of the Regional Expanded Council (representing the coast, highlands and Amazon), and in turn the Consejo Ampliado Nacional

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(National Expanded Council). These three regions, with their organizational forms, come together as CONAIE. The Pasto people and its Council of Communes is part of this organization. Since its inception, CORPANP has been linked to the local and national projects of CONAIE in different moments and contexts. Outside of this same space, together with other communicators, we have outlined the need for a plurinational system of communication where each work of Indigenous communicators has its own dynamics. For example, our organization is involved in audiovisual production, training and distribution. Likewise, regional or local organizations—and this is the case with CONFENIAE—have a network of communicators that facilitate their own productions. The communicational dynamics of each grassroots organization functions autonomously from the national organizations, but their work is always articulated with larger organizational priorities. This is due to the fact that there are many processes that have arisen in the area of communication from Indigenous peoples and nationalities. In the highlands, coastal and Amazon regions of Ecuador, we can today see processes, collectives and forms of leadership that permit such visibilization as an exercise of communication. For some years now, regional organizations have been empowering themselves in the field of communication; this has been the result of the use of radio stations, virtual platforms, the simplification of technology access and, above all, the ability of the actors themselves to see the possibility of creating content. The audiovisual content that is created must be able to respond to the current situation of the Indigenous population. For example, we consider how on the coast, there are many people who have migrated there from the highlands who experience labor, transportation and housing problems. And they are living in cities that are not prepared geographically or culturally to receive this population, and the levels of discrimination are high. That is the reality; it is not the same to be an Indigenous person from the countryside as it is to be an Indigenous person from the city, and we have been working in the last few years to respond to these other social demands. We want to respond to these social issues, to unite the ideals and the possibility of analysis that allow us to address solutions collectively and for this we believe that inter-institutional alliances are essential.

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CORPANP’s First Audiovisual Creations When CORPANP was created, it was designed as a space for “learning by doing communication” through the academic training of some and the work experience of others. We took on audiovisual creation as one of the tools to strengthen our organizational work. CORPANP is part of the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas (CLACPI). The X Festival Internacional de Cine y Video de los Pueblos Indígenas Ecuador (the Tenth International Indigenous Film Festival) was held in Ecuador in 2010. Prior to that, in 1994 the first Festival de la Serpiente (Serpent Festival) also took place in Ecuador. CORPANP organizing several CLACPI-led trainings spaces, including local, national and international workshops, that foregrounded communication rights and empowerment through film and ICTs. Our organization was founded, then, with a “learning by doing” approach and we would later become a collective of young people dedicated to the transfer of knowledge. In the beginning, we carried out a process of conducting workshops. We met twice a month for six months. The three-day workshops were shared with diverse colleagues, not necessarily those in communication, but people interested in communication. These workshops, where we learned to use cameras and edit, were supported by International Cooperation and the Universidad Salesiana de Ecuador (Salesian University). When we finished the workshop series, we proposed—and there were more than thirty of us from the coast, highlands and the Amazonian regions—to make an audiovisual production in which we would take the cameras and tell the stories we wanted to tell from an individual perspective, while at the same time respecting our identity as a collective being. In 2008, this dream led us to create a series that comprised our first productions as CORPANP. The series consisted of twenty-four documentaries, over the period of a year and a half, with about ten Indigenous filmmakers and several field producers throughout the country who had participated in these workshops. The series was called Kikinyari, and the series dealt with different topics of interest: the organizational process, water laws, food sovereignty, education, medicine and spirituality, among others.2 In Kichwa, which is the main language spoken by Ecuador’s 2 The promos from the Kikinyari Series can be viewed here: https://www.youtube. com/playlist?list=PLD143A4C2E05DFC4F.

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Indigenous population, kikinyari means “identity.” Among the works produced for the Kikinyari series were documentaries that dealt with the creation of water laws, ceremonies such as those of the Kañari people, the Tsachila and Shuar nationalities, the health practices of the Otavalo people, the Manta people and the organizational history of the Movimiento Indígena Campesino (the Indigenous Peasant Movement), among others. Also in 2008, when we were still in the growth stage, we produced other documentaries and began to work on fiction films. Prior to that, during the formation of CLAPCI, we had only worked on a few short films. We won a grant from the Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía del Ecuador (National Film Council, CNCine), which we used to make the docufiction Sumak Kawsay (2012), whose title roughly translates as good living, an approach to life that guarantees good conditions for all people in the interrelation of nature, deities and people. As CORPANP, we have recognized and reaffirmed daily that we are not an independent video production company, but that our communication and audiovisual work responds to the dynamics and agenda of the organization. This means that if within the organization a political agenda is raised as the main issue, say, for example, the community’s management of natural resources, we as CORPANP would say, “We have to work on that issue.” This is how our first productions were born. We focused on community management, whether of water, land, food sovereignty, Indigenous rights, women or education. Most of the themes we deal with respond to this dynamic. We come from grassroots organizations with technical and political links to the Indigenous movement. Our work involves accompanying and strengthening organizations. It is through this dynamic that we have been learning and developing audiovisual work. To carry out one of these productions on community water management, we spent almost a year working on organizational strengthening and resource management. The audiovisual material is the result of this process. It is not the first objective, rather it is the result of work that is done to contribute to our communities’ organizational process. It includes the creation of content, the identification of protagonists and recording as a process of memory and audiovisual training. That is why we say that, above all, we are communicators and organizers because there are many times when we prioritize organizational work over audiovisual production. That is where the proposal to have our own media came from. As part of CORPANP we

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set two goals: “we need to aim at having a national channel for Indigenous peoples” and the other is “to strengthen the experience of local channels that already exist.” We realized that it was necessary to provide training for some and generate content for others. The idea was to nurture the local Indigenous media that had already been developing through practice. At the same time, we proposed that they transmit our content. We organized several itinerant tours at the national and international level, mainly with the organizations with whom we work. We believe that an audiovisual product belongs to a community or an organization when we procure their ample participation. From the initial idea, to when we screen and edit the video, it is the work of the community. We always screen the work to the community or grassroots organizations. And given that we do not have our own media outlet in Ecuador, we circulate them among communities to disseminate our work. During one tour, we were able to visit more than fifty communities.3 With few resources, just speakers and a screen, we traveled by bus from one community to another, where we were received by the people. It was an opportunity to use the moving image as a tool for self-recognition. The idea was to first disseminate the work to those twenty-four communities and organizations that were involved in the first Kikinyari series, with the people with whom we collaborated. They were our principal audience. In addition, we disseminated a monthly e-newsletter. We uploaded the videos to our YouTube channel.4 This has been useful for circulating the work as well as for building and strengthening alliances with Indigenous organizations regionally. But at the local level, it has solely been through the work of visiting communities and giving out copies of our films to the people and organizations. We do not sell our work; on the contrary, we tell them, “Friends, you know these productions support us and feed our children; if you can contribute, thank you.” On the other hand, within the e-bulletin we had a weekly segment that highlighted the work of other Indigenous organizations in other countries. When we attend workshops and our colleagues share their material with us, we share it under the heading Runa TV, on the e-bulletin and on our YouTube channel. 3 This tour was made possible through a grant from the former Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía del Ecuador (National Film Council, CNCine). 4 CORPANP’s YouTube channel can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/user/ Corpanp.

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Through CORPANP, and with the collaboration of those who are very close to us, we organize video forums in which materials from other compañeros are screened. Something that I once learned from the compañeros of the public television in Caracas: “copy it and pass it along.” So that large amount of material is also posted on the YouTube channel. It can be shared; we do not believe in private ownership or production, but rather in lo colectivo, lo comunitario. I have drawn three conclusions from distributing this work. The first is that there are many leaders who have understood that people are tired of trainings that take years to complete. Certain leaders use our videos as tools to open space for reflection, questions and debate. Second, when we screen the work and the community members can see themselves, something very nice happens. And the third is that the work provides us with an opportunity to analyze the content on a political level. We always say that one must learn to receive criticism with humility because it permits us to continue learning. Thus, the exercise of self-representation was born. For example, in one of the first works we did about the water law, we shot footage of a march that took place in a region where most of the water boards in the country are based. The sun was very bright that day, and we were not that familiar with the camera we were using. The resulting images were overexposed. Our compañeros, and leaders, became angry. “You can’t see anything,” they told us. They then added, “the problem is not only that, but also the content.” Through the act of viewing and critiquing that footage they were able to better position themselves and develop the content of their proposals.

Working with CLACPI We have been part of CLACPI even before we founded CORPANP as some of us were already involved with that organization individually. It was in our work with CLACPI that we began to see the need to organize ourselves as audiovisual producers in Ecuador. Once that occurred, we then became affiliated with it, including with the International Film Festival that CLACPI holds every two years. The good thing about CLACPI is that it hosts other activities, such as international internships, training workshops and activities to share methodologies or screen new material sharing learning methodologies or getting to know the material. CORPANP has participated in all of its festivals.

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Some of CORPANP’s materials, as well as the work of filmmakers we are affiliated with, have been part of the official selection of the CLACPI International Film Festival. CLACPI’s value as a place of encounter has allowed us to expand the reach of our work and to strengthen our demands regarding communication rights, particular within the audiovisual field. Thus, we were able to tour Peru with the Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú (Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru, CHIRAPAQ), one of CLACPI’s partners, with a traveling exhibition of CORPANP’s production for four months, which allowed us to forge ties with communicators there. CHIRAPAQ articulates its own communication process within the Red de Comunicadores del Perú (Network of Communicators of Peru) and with the Enlace Continental de Mujeres (Continental Network of Indigenous Women). In addition, we worked with the youth councils in the national Indigenous movement. These ties have helped us to make connections with groups in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia. We have learned from these experiences and have formed part of panels, workshops and audiovisual productions, and members of CORPANP have participated in CLACPI workshops and internships. When the Festival was held in Ecuador in 2010, we learned about the organizational and administrative dynamics of CLACPI (sometimes one arrives at the festivals and thinks that it just happens, when in fact it involves a tremendous amount of work and effort). That’s why we committed ourselves to support the Festival in Colombia in 2012. We collaborated with colleagues from Venezuela, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, following up via Internet for months prior to the Festival. That’s how we learn. The good thing about our work in CORPANP is knowing that we are supported, both nationally and regionally. The exchange of experiences with participants from the Escuela de Comunicación (Cauca School of Communication) in Colombia, with people from Bolivia and Argentina, has allowed us to learn a great deal. To be able to do this work, and for people to get to know us through a forum, a workshop, a conference or to exchange visits with an Indigenous school of communication, as in the case of Colombia: within CORPANP we came to realize that “we are not alone in this journey.”

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Cosmovivencia, an Integral Practice In CORPANP, we coined the term cosmovivencia to describe not just how we see the world (cosmovision), but how we live. The concept questions the way of dividing Indigenous peoples’ culture on the one hand and their identity, gender, education, etc., on the other, when in reality it comprises an integral practice, a way of life. As we have discussed several times in CORPANP, it is not that we see this way; we live this way. With respect to communication, to be able to construct an audiovisual proposal from the cosmovivencia of Indigenous pueblos, to be able to understand everything in a holistic way: what one does, what one thinks, what one feels and what one says. Perhaps because of the thematic treatment of scripts or of the characters themselves, it is necessary to prioritize a theme. Perhaps many of the audiovisual works, such as those exhibited at the CLACPI International Festival, initially presented themes of resistance. In the case of CORPANP, most of the works dealt with the mobilization and resistance for water rights, land rights and intercultural education. Perhaps these themes are the result of a moment of social mobilization, and thus, as Indigenous peoples, we need to position ourselves through the audiovisual format. We are against mobilization, but the street is not enough, now we need to position our struggles through audiovisual media. It is the need to reinforce, by using media, the political discourse through social mobilization, and that is what we want to convey in the audiovisual. As long as we continue to live in current society, as long as we have a system that threatens us on a daily basis, we cannot leave our organizational agendas or resistance outside of our audiovisual work. It is nice to talk about our traditional food and about ancestral medicinal practices, but it is more necessary to position our political discourse. It is easy to raise the political agenda and the question of resistance. But how does one make the organizations or communities that are outside of those social dynamics aware of it? We are committed to using audiovisual means to do so. Some of our colleagues who are members of CORPANP work directly with the community. One of the first audiovisual pieces that we produced in our first series dealt with the clothing of one of the young people who left his community to study in the capital and “changed” his traditional way of dressing. That kind of story allows us to explore identity, through clothing or food—in such simple things such as what one wears.

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In that sense, several of our films deal with the reasons for wearing an item of clothing, such as a hat, a poncho, espadrilles, their colors, the manacles, the hair tied up and the long hair. Perhaps these are not the most important things, but I think they complement the political discourse and perhaps in a more didactic way.

Being Runa, Being Mapuche, Being Nasa For us, lo indigena is not an ethnic or physical condition, but a matter of the heart, a way of understanding and wanting to produce and reproduce life. There is a dominant way of thinking that imposed upon us individualism, but the principle of life of the native peoples is communitarian. When one begins to think, act and feel in lo comunitario, one is proposing an approach that is not an ethnic question, but rather about life itself. One thing is the ethnic identity that can be “registers” in the physical condition insofar as you can “have an Indian face or name” and you cannot deny it. But there are many compañeros who wear ponchos and espadrilles, but they have forgotten in their hearts and minds what it means to be Indigenous. We have experienced this even in our collective. There are compañeros who say “we are more Indigenous than you” in this way of creating levels of purity. Then, we ask ourselves why do we talk about self-determination? We have concluded that it is an exclusionary discourse that does not construct a life plan for all peoples, but rather only by and for Indigenous peoples. There is a word that in Kichwa, runa, which means human being. Some names of Indigenous peoples in the continent mean human being, person, people or land. For example, consider the word mapuche: mapu is “land” and che is “human being.” For the Nasa, nasa means people or human being. Runa shimi means “the word of the human being. Thus, a question arises: “Which one of us is not runa, which one of you is not che, which one of you is not nasa?” We are all human beings because interpreted in Spanish, it means person or people. Sometimes we say that “there are many Indians, but very few runas , because the idea is to know oneself as runa, to know oneself as che, to know oneself as nasa.” In reality, what changes are the categories, the concepts, but the feeling remains the same. Language is not a category; language is a feeling, and if one feels that way, that is what it is. We are runas , and in CORPANP we are runas .

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The Exercise of Self-Determination I have been searching for my ancestral roots for 16 years, a call of vision and reawakening my affection (re-encariñamiento) for them. Selfdetermination is a particular history that we share with another of CORPANP’s members from the “Kitu Kara” people, who are also in the process of self-determination. Their ancestral home was located in what is now the province of Pichincha (Quito), the capital of Ecuador. The growth of the city rapidly “urbanized” the Kitu territory. This onslaught of colonization led then to hide some of their distinctive characteristics (that years ago they began to recover) including, for example, their clothing. This affective reaffirmation (re-encariñarse) is not to say whether we are more or less Indigenous with or without our traditional clothing or language. That which is valuable is to remember who we were, how we spoke, how we dressed and that colonization could not strip us of these elements. Language is essential in this sense; it is not only a vehicle for conversation, but it is the way of thinking that the language transmits. That is why we must recover our languages. I have felt that attachment to my ancestral people; communication opened that path for me, including a search through photographs, but above all through oral memory. This path has led me to remember who we are on a spiritual level, our food, our names, our recovered language and the possibility of thinking of our nations as transcending the republican state borders. This journey of self-determination allows me to think that knowledge is not exclusive to a people, in this case the Pasto. It consists of symbols of native peoples and their close relationship with the nurturing of the land, as well as with the moon, the sun and the living elements of nature. Perhaps the clothing is not 100 percent original because there are native clothes in Ecuador that have been influenced by the Spanish, such as the use of cloth, hats and the design of our blouses. It does not matter; we always re-signify clothing; it has been said and it has been done. I have no traditional dress, no language, but wherever I go it is simple—and beautiful—to be recognized as Indigenous. In the city, it is necessary to make an effort to maintain lo indígena. When I lived in Quito, I used to frequent one of the city’s three Indigenous bars, not because they are places to party, but because of the need to go to a meeting place, to be among one’s peers, with our own music, where one can dance and enjoy oneself in community. Wherever we live, we look for it and make it happen. On the 21st day of four

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months—March, June, September and December—the raymis (a celebration related to the Andean agricultural cycle) takes place. And what we do is to say let’s put the word around the fire. Identity, when one is in a process of self-determination, is a political construction. This is because it is difficult to recognize oneself as Indigenous in a society where one is discriminated against and where the denial of lo indigena and whitening oneself has greater value. Reflecting on identity, we all have something of lo indígena in us. One cannot come talk about being pure. Neither purely Indian, nor purely white. The process of self-determination is complex because society does not want Indians, nor does it want Blacks. There is a very specific dynamic of invisibilizing the historical identity and of survival more than anything else; like our men having to have their hair cut. There is a large movement to reaffirm that we are Indigenous because of our hair; having long hair is a sign that one is Indigenous. It is difficult for those of us who are mothers of boys. We struggle and worry because our sons have long hair, because they go to school and they are identified as Indian or are treated like little girls. It has been hard work to reaffirm the importance of the long hair. It is not easy to be Indigenous in the city. In order to survive, one cuts one’s hair, takes off one’s clothes and stops speaking one’s language. Our elders tell us: “my grandfather and my grandmother were not allowed to walk on the sidewalk or to enter the school. Every time they spoke their own language, their hair was pulled; they cut their hair, they were beaten.” There are many older colleagues who don’t want to go through that again. This whole process of reaffirming takes a lot of energy. And this involves saying: “yes, we are Indigenous because we are Indigenous. They screwed our elders, they hurt them, but not us.”

Toward the Filmic Path Through Audiovisual Means CORPANP has forged many local, national and international ties. Our organization was the starting place for individual processes that validated our collective demands. Initially, we focused on communication rights. From there, we began making films and audiovisual works of Peoples and Nationalities, while we continued to recognize the need for public policies that strengthen and promote our own communication as an integral exercise of doing and being (CLACPI 2020).

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In July 2013,5 as part of our efforts to strengthen Indigenous peoples’ cinema, CORPANP and other audiovisual producers created the Asociación de Creadores del Cine y el Audiovisual de Pueblos y Nacionalidades (Association of Audiovisual Creators of Peoples and Nationalities, ACAPANA). In addition to demanding inclusive public policies, ACAPANA is an association that collaborates with Ecuador’s non-Indigenous film guilds and associations. Through ACAPANA, CORPANP and the other collectives have been able to strengthen the work of each collective. And reaffirm: • There is a cinema of Peoples and Nationalities that has its own dynamics and questions the colonial histories through the act of selfrepresentation. This allows us to create our own work instead of “letting them tell us so.” It is a collective construction, even when there are individual makers. • It is necessary to insist on the demand for public policies that foster the communication and cinema of Peoples and Nationalities. • Cultural policies must be reflected at the continental level, where we, the political actors of cinema and audiovisuality, have been excluded. The proposals and demands have not stopped. At present, we are interested in establishing a knowledge base, from our own theories, occupying and moving in academic spaces where we build knowledge. In 2022, CORPANP was the organizer of the Festival Internacional de Cine de los Pueblos Indígenas (International Film and Communication Festival of Indigenous Peoples) of CLACPI. Another important space has been the Conferencia de Autoridades Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas de Iberoamérica (Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities, CAACI) from which we demand support for public policies from the film and audiovisual ministries and institutes. This resulted in a proposal to support Indigenous cinema (CHIRAPAQ 2019). The road continues to be arduous, but the results are increasingly evident. We believe that it is equally legitimate in a plurinational state such as Ecuador to recognize Indigenous cinema as it is to recognize Indigenous health care, education and justice. Indigenous cinema is a 5 This occurred during the Primer Encuentro de Realizadores de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades del Ecuador (First National Meeting of Filmmakers of Peoples and Nationalities).

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proposition and way of life that invites us to strengthen audiovisual practices and content, but above all that responds to the cosmovivencia of the Indigenous peoples and their approaches to life. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this. This nurtures the existence of Indigenous peoples’ cinema that today is a trend and traverses the audiovisual world. We invite you to follow our work on our YouTube page and follow each of our partners/members of CORPANP, as well as individual and collective spaces that were developed from CORPANP whose projects are still standing and keep on flying.

Bibliography Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú (CHIRAPAQ). “Representantes indígenas internacionales presentaron propuestas para revalorar el cine indígena.” CHIRAPAG. Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru. September 11, 2019. http://chirapaq.org.pe/es/representantes-indigenas-internaciona les-presentaron-propuestas-para-revalorar-el-cine-indigena. Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indigenas (CLACPI). “La situación del derecho a la comunicación con énfasis en las y los comunicadores indígenas y afrodescendientes de América Latina.” San Cristóbal de Las Casas: CLACSO, 2020. https://www.clacso.org/lasituacion-del-derecho-a-la-comunicacion-con-enfasis-en-las-y-los-comunicad ores-indigenas-y-afrodescendientes-de-america-latina/. La Corporación de Productores Audiovisuales de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos (CORPANP). Official Web Site. https://corpanpclacpi.wixsite.com/festivalk ikinyari/form__map. La Corporación de Productores Audiovisuales de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos YouTube Page. https://www.youtube.com/user/Corpanp. SERVINDI. América Latina: Lanzan Año Internacional de la Comunicación Indígena. Februrary 22, 2012. https://www.servindi.org/actualidad/59594.

Filmography CORPANP. 2020. Sumak Kawsay. 2012. Ecuador: CORPANP Audiovisual. https://www.youtube.com/user/corpanpclacpi.

CHAPTER 5

Indigenous Audiovisual Practices, Post-National Discourses and Poetics of the Small Christian León

Introduction This chapter critically reviews the literature on Indigenous video and the fundamental concepts that have been developed to grasp its complexity and put it in dialogue with subaltern and post-national visual cultures. It outlines the trajectory of communicative and cultural debates on Indigenous audiovisual practices as a background to study the work and thought of Alberto Muenala and Amaru Cholango, two Indigenous artists and pioneers in the use of video in Ecuador. Based on the conceptions of these two filmmakers, Indigenous audiovisual practices are defined as decolonial, post-national and intercultural forms of video creation within the context of minority poetics and small audiovisual expressions.

C. León (B) Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_5

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Key Concepts Indigenous audiovisual practices have undergone a long process of reflection both from the artists themselves and from communities of allies, composed of activists, cultural managers, curators and researchers. Both sides have produced a body of analysis and debates that situate, engage and problematize different aspects of the practice. Since the 1980s, organizations, festivals and Indigenous filmmakers themselves have been reflecting on and defining their own ways of using video. And since that time, efforts have been made to promote education, training and capacity building to foment the production and dissemination of Indigenous video. As a result of these initiatives, a series of regional networks were created, such as the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Video de los Pueblos Indígenas (Latin American Coordinating Committee for Indigenous Peoples’ Film and Video, CLACPI), founded in 1985. It is precisely from this organization that the following definition of audiovisual practices, as carried out by Indigenous peoples and nations, is proposed: For the organizations and individuals that comprise CLACPI, Indigenous film and/or video include works, as well as the directors and filmmakers, that apply a strong commitment to giving a dignified voice and vision to the knowledge, culture, projects, claims, achievements and struggles of Indigenous peoples. Also implicit is the idea that this type of film and video requires a high degree of sensitivity and the active participation of the people who appear on screen. In other words, Indigenous film and video attempts to use this powerful tool to foster self-expression and strengthen the real development of Indigenous peoples. (Córdova 2011, 86)

This definition clearly shows the situated and committed character of this type of audiovisual practice, which is at the service of the knowledge, culture and struggles of Indigenous peoples and nations. In this sense, it is conceptualized beyond mere communicative efficiency, and as a tool for self-expression, participation and Buen Vivir 1 (good living). The term video indígena (Indigenous video) was first adopted by Mexico’s Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI, National Indigenist Institute) in 1 Inspired by the Indigenous cosmovision, the concept of Buen Vivir critiques of the development model of Western civilization, and instead centers social coexistence and harmony with nature.

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1991. Since then, its use has become popular throughout Latin America (Córdova 2011, 82). In 1994, at the Festival de Cine y Video de las Primeras Naciones de Abya Yala (First Nations Film and Video Festival of Abya Yala) that was held in Quito, the following manifesto was launched: We Indigenous peoples proclaim our right to the creation and recreation of our own images. We claim our right to access and appropriate new audiovisual technologies. We demand respect for our cultures (which include both spiritual and material culture). As we are reciprocal peoples, we demand that the images captured in our communities be returned to us. We need to organize our own video production and massify it, build effective networks of exchange, as well as solidarity and partnership; we need to promote the diversity of genres and formats, facilitating openness to creativity, recognizing the full potential of our ancestral forms of self-representation. (Mora 2012, 3–4)

As noted in this proclamation, since the 1990s Indigenous filmmakers have clearly been aware of the role of audiovisual production and distribution, understanding all of its genre and format diversity, in the realization of fundamental rights in the communicative, cultural and political fields. For this reason, the right to creation, self-representation and access to technologies are closely linked to cultural restitution and respect. For their part, researchers and academics have produced a series of concepts to account for the particularity and complexity of this practice. For example, in the 1990s, Ella Shohat and Robert Stam spoke of a “Fourth World cinemas,” and Faye Ginsburg introduced the notion of “Indigenous media.” In the context of the debate on “Third World cinema,” or “Third Cinema,” Shohat and Stam (2002) refer to a “Fourth World” related to the fact that Indigenous and First Nations communities have been rendered invisible in both the First and Third Worlds. The authors argue that video production by these “communities of stateless nations” shows a unique “use of audiovisual technology for the cultural and political purposes of Indigenous people” (Shohat and Stam 2002, 55). Ginsburg (1991) proposes the notion of “Indigenous media” to characterize the internal and external communication by Indigenous people from within movements of self-determination and resistance to the dominant culture. For the North American anthropologist, this type of media allows for new ways of expressing needs, strengthening traditions and affirming the identity of minorities marginalized and stigmatized by the mass media (Ginsburg 1991, 96).

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Recently, Latin American authors have circulated a set of concepts to analyze the cultural, political and communicative dimensions associated with the uses of audiovisual technologies by ethnic actors. Pablo Mora, a Colombian anthropologist, filmmaker and activist, argues that the cinema and video of originary peoples, or peoples of Abya Yala,2 alludes to a heterogeneous and dispersed corpus, linked to local processes and to resistance movements that build a diversity of Indigenous audiovisual cultures. Mora maintains that what is particular to this type of manifestation is “the relationship between the introduction of audiovisual technology, the explosion of ethnic identities […] and the recent assertion of the rights of Indigenous movements in the field of communication” (Mora 2012, 10). Finally, he characterizes these productions as containing the following features: their own (ancestral) roots based on knowledges, wisdom and enduring spirituality; political agency and defense of rights; their own audiences that do not exclude solidarity audiences; collective work that begins with the community and is meant to serve the community; their own autonomous, independent and decolonized language; an educational character; a search for equity and inclusion; appropriation of technological tools; and the vision and cosmogony of Indigenous peoples (Mora 2014, 77–78). Amalia Córdova, following Ginsburg (1994), introduces the term “rooted aesthetics” to refer to the appropriation of new communication technologies, especially video, by Indigenous communities to generate different kinds of products. According to the Chilean curator and researcher, “a large part of these works is developed by incorporating the values, protocols and methodologies of each Indigenous community or people […] that denote the mode of production of the work, the determining production processes as well as the products themselves” (Córdova 2011, 83). She maintains that Indigenous video contributes to the visibilization and political participation of those communities and support for their linguistic, legal and cultural struggles. It is aimed at documenting historical memory and current events, rescuing knowledge and customs, educating young people in traditions and languages, as well as strengthening identity in the context of complex contemporary realities (Córdova 2011, 82). 2 This ancient name refers to the continent of the Americas before the Spanish conquest. The translation of the word is “land in full maturity,” and it designates an integral conception of belonging to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

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Gerylee Polanco and Camilo Aguilera deploy the notion of “imagepolitics” to group together a set of political uses of audiovisual technologies, traditionally known as community, popular or alternative video that are related to processes of organizing by civil society in the construction of participatory democracy (Polanco and Aguilera 2011, 16). For these Colombian researchers, image-politics oppose art, the market and the state, since it arises from citizens and social and community organizations and is managed and directed by popular sectors for whom communication is a process, integrated into community life and struggles (Polanco and Aguilera 2011, 25). In the same vein, Clemencia Rodríguez elaborates on the concept of “citizen’s media” to refer to processes of social change and democratization of communication, related to different types of alternative and community media. Drawing on post-structuralist and post-Marxist theories, the Colombian scholar uses the qualifier “citizen” to question the meta-narratives of emancipation hidden behind the appellation of “alternative” that tends to affirm binarisms and essentialize power and political action. For Rodríguez, “Citizen’s media are radio stations, community television stations, Internet initiatives, all those media that open up spaces of communication where men, women, girls and boys learn to shape their own languages, codes, signs and symbols, and acquire the power to name the world on their own terms” (2009, 19). Through the use of technology, these media allow the appropriation of languages, autonomous symbolization, the construction of citizenship, the narration of identities and the expression of visions of the future. In several cases, the notion of citizen’s media has been used to characterize the uses of audiovisual technologies by Indigenous communities. An analysis of these uses can be found in the works of Zamorano (2009), Castells (2003) and Salazar and Córdova (2008). Concepts such as image-politics and citizen’s media allow us to understand Indigenous video within broad typologies in relation to the political use of communication. However, they leave out the technological particularity, such as in the case of Rodríguez’ concept, and the ethnic positioning, in the case of Polanco and Aguilera’s notion. For this reason, I prefer to use the notion of “Indigenous audiovisual practices,” as it refers to the social and cultural uses of communication technologies rather than to the media themselves. The term “Indigenous” that we use to qualify these practices refers not only to the ethnic or local origin of the artist, but to the complex epistemological and poetic positioning that is

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related to that which is “minoritarian” and “small.” Indigenous audiovisual practices are constructed from a place of enunciation, structured by Indigenous knowledge, epistemologies, cosmovisions and spiritualities in dialogue with local, national or transnational cultures. In this sense, Indigenous audiovisual practices can be considered as “small cinemas,” which this book explores, in that they are post-national, audiovisual expressions that reveal the coexistence of multiple visual cultures, and forms of production and consumption, that function on the margins of the film industry and the Ecuadorian arts system. First, Indigenous audiovisual practices refer to the activity that Homi Bhabha calls “dissemination,” which accounts for “the nation split within itself, articulating the heterogeneity of its population” (Bhabha 1990, 148). In contrast to the homogenizing idea of national cinemas and arts, Indigenous expressions refer to a set of practices that exist beyond the modern nation state. Along the same lines, they warn us about “the multiple visual cultures that occupy hegemonic and subaltern places due to the effects of coloniality” (León 2019, 408). For this reason, they need to be made visible and valued as forms of agency, and for how images are used in the context of the decolonization of culture. Finally, Indigenous audiovisual practices refer us to forms of audiovisual production and consumption that “are not regulated or standardized by the values, expectations and institutions of the [dominant] culture and the market” (Alvear and León 2009, 14).

Indigenous Video in Ecuador The development of Indigenous audiovisual practices in Ecuador coincides with the emergence of the Indigenous movement on the national political scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After two uprisings, in 1990 and 1992, the Indigenous movement consolidated, for the first time, a political and symbolic presence that questioned the unitary concept of the state and the “whitewashed” imaginary of the elites and the middle classes. Parallel to these political shifts was an awareness that audiovisual technologies are an indispensable part of popular education and grassroots communication. Indigenous organizations and communicators began to use video to build internal cohesion and achieve support, alliances and allegiances to their cause from other groups. Organizations such as the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE), the

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Confederación de los Pueblos de Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador (the Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality, ECUARUNARI) and the Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas del Pastaza (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza, OPIP) strengthened their communicational activities and began to venture into the field of audiovisual production. In this context of the emergence of the Indigenous movement and the democratization of audiovisual technologies that the filmmaker Alberto Muenala and the artist Amaru Cholango began to practice their art, which now has regional significance. Alberto Muenala was born on February 28, 1959, in Otavalo, an Indigenous village located in the northern highlands of Ecuador. He is the son of an artisan weaver. From a very young age, he became involved in artistic movements in Otavalo, which in the mid-seventies were committed to promoting identitarian pride and cultural affirmation in the face of the classist and agrarian character that the Indigenous movement had maintained until then. Early on he discovered the power of the arts to transmit messages and activate culture. Supported by his father and influenced by the work of Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés, he decided to study film. In 1980, Muenala moved to Mexico, where he began his studies at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos (University Center for Cinematographic Studies, CUEC) at the Universidad Autónoma de México (Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM). His first short films date from this period, including Tiempos de tempestad (Stormy Times) (1983). Muenala recalls his joyous discovery of audiovisual arts as a tool for cultural expression in the following way: “Cinema is something that has been made just for that, so that we, people from different cultures, can transmit what we experience, what we feel, what we want. It is fabulous” (Muenala 2014). In 1985, he returned to Ecuador and created the Rupai Corporation, an initiative dedicated to promoting educational, cultural and communicational projects. Faced with the difficulty of producing in the film format, he began to work with video technologies. In 1989, he made Yapallag , a comedy that proposes a recovery of stories from the Kichwa oral tradition. “For me the important thing is to try to support this process of decolonization and to try to recover the memory of who we are. Yapallak is just that” (Muenala, 2014). In 1990, he made the documentary Ay Taquicgu about the importance of music in the Andean world through the testimonies of musicians from Otavalo.

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In 1992, in the context of the various acts of resistance inspired by the Five Hundredth Anniversary of the Spanish Conquest, together with the Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas del Pastaza (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza, OPIP), Muenala made the documentary Allapamanta, Kawsaymanta; Katarisun (For the Land, for Life, Let Us Rise Up) (1992). The film is a mystical chronicle of the over 500-kilometer march made by the Indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon to demand the legalization of their lands. According to the director, the documentary was conceived as a way of circulating the demands of the Indigenous movement, but it also represented a break with the traditional style of the indigenist documentary that was being made in Ecuador at the time3 (León 2009). During that same year, in Popayan, Colombia, Muenala, together with Iván Sanjinés and Colombian filmmaker Martha Rodríguez, taught what became a celebrated workshop called “El uso del video en comunidades indígenas para testimoniar sus procesos de recuperación cultural” (The use of video in Indigenous communities to bear witness to their cultural recovery processes), which was financed by UNESCO and helped give rise to Indigenous video in Colombia. Rodríguez recalls the experience as follows: We believed that it was necessary to encourage them to take the cameras and learn, unlearn and build their own cinematographic language that would show their identity. At the beginning of our workshop the reflections of the Indigenous people, in my opinion and taking the necessary distance in time, very much projected what is happening today; they told us that this was a new tool for them, that they had innumerable previous experiences of being photographed and filmed but they had no memory of processes of those images being returned to their communities. (Rodríguez 2013, 72)

The Colombian anthropologist also underscores the distance that existed between her references from the French academy and the workshop participants, and comments on the fundamental role that Muenala’s voice played in the methodology of the workshop as an Indigenous filmmaker

3 Throughout the twentieth century, Ecuadorian documentaries depicted Indigenous peoples as passive victims of capitalist exploitation and colonialism.

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who had documented the uprisings that had recently taken place in Ecuador. At that time, an important debate began to take place within the Latin American Indigenous video movement. Within the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas (Latin American Coordinator of Cinema and Communication of Indigenous Peoples, CLACPI), a strong internal debate arose about the power relations within the organization and the actual participation of Indigenous people in the direction of the organization. At this time, there emerged: Conflicts that led to a rethinking of CLACPI, which at that time was a mixed space but with a greater non-Indigenous presence, reflecting on the fact that it was time to become a primarily Indigenous space [...]. This led to a declaration that called for change and demanded the right of Indigenous peoples to be the direct protagonists of film and audiovisuals and that images taken from the communities be returned to them. From this point on, starting in 1992, there was talk of a kind of re-founding of CLACPI and different processes were developed. (Sanjinés 2013, 40)

Muenala played a decisive role in this discussion by advocating for bringing the principles of self-determination to the very practices of production, education and audiovisual exhibition carried out by Indigenous video collectives and institutions. These ideas led the filmmaker to organize in 1994 the first Festival Continental de Cine y Video de las Naciones de Abya Yala: La Serpiente (Continental Film and Video Festival of the Nations of Abya Yala: The Serpent) in Quito, outside the CLACPI festival system, with the support of CONAIE. In the festival’s catalogue, Muenala states that Indigenous video should “strengthen the spirit and diversity of which we are a part, projecting ourselves with dignity in life and in death, thinking above all, and beyond immediacy, that our image will speak in other times” (CONAIE 1994, 7). In a press release, he said: Each video, like the serpent, a symbol of fertility and wisdom, will be able to touch the sensitive hearts of men and women in our communities and cities. Each sting will be a boost for the processes that we, the Indigenous nationalities, the popular and intellectual sectors, are building in the continent. (Hoy Newspaper 1994a)

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These two statements reveal Muenala’s critical vision which, through the powerful metaphor of the serpent, considers Indigenous audiovisual practices beyond the filming of crises or denunciations, but as an enduring mechanism of struggle, alliance, communication and transmission of cultural diversity. That same year, the filmmaker made Mashikuna (Friends 1994), a medium-length fiction film that tells the story of two Indigenous children who grow up amidst racism and oppression. In 1996, Muenala participated again with Iván Sanjinés and Marta Rodríguez in another workshop organized by the Fundación para el Desarollo de la Comunicación Intercultural (Foundation for the Development of Intercultural Communication, CEFREC) in Bolivia for the training of Indigenous filmmakers. These sessions took place over three years, and trained filmmakers such as Reynaldo Yujra, Marcelino Pinto and Patricio Luna. They also inspired the creation of The Plan Nacional Indígena Originario de Comunicación Audiovisual (National Indigenous Plan for Audiovisual Communication), which became one of the most successful experiences in promoting the production and diffusion of videos produced by social organizations (Wortham 2000, 3). Between 2000 and 2008, Muenala resided in Mexico where he worked intensively to professionalize Indigenous communicators and facilitate community video workshops in Oaxaca, Michoacán, Yucatán, Veracruz, Morelia, as well as in the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (International School of Film and Television, EICTV) at San Antonio de los Baños in Cuba. Between 2006 and 2008, he served as General Coordinator of CLACPI, and finally returns to Ecuador to train Indigenous video makers in his own country. These workshops have trained young filmmakers who today are innovating Indigenous audiovisual production. Among them are Humberto Morales, Rocío Gómez, and Patricia Yallico.4 In 2017, Muenala directed the film Killa Ñawpamukun (Before the Moon Rises), a thriller with elements of intrigue and action that tells the story of a Kichwa journalist who discovers an act of corruption, and as a result is persecuted by public officials and Indigenous leaders.

4 Eliana Champutiz’ chapter in this volume discusses CORPANP, the collective that these young Indigenous women created.

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Kichwa Film Aesthetics Since 2008, when I first met Muenala, we have carried out a series of interviews, conversations and collaborations that have led me to understand him not only as a filmmaker, educator and cultural organizer, but also as a theorist of his own practices. Over the years, he has shared a series of critical views and concepts about Indigenous audiovisual practices in forums, organizations and in the press. At the height of subaltern studies, Freya Schiwy proposed understanding Indigenous video as a post-colonial border practice that is changing the perspective and terms of the production of knowledge. She argued that its makers must be understood as intellectuals who were generating a critical reflection on culture and society (Schiwy 2002). In this sense, I value Muenala as an intellectual who works with new media from a culturally situated perspective. His discourse shows the construction of reflexive and autonomous thought that opens a pathway toward the re-conceptualization of Indigenous audiovisual practices beyond essentialisms, established categories and activist visions. Muenala recognizes, as does much of the academic literature, the fundamental role that communication technologies play in political and cultural struggles for the rights of Indigenous peoples. However, from very early on, he has manifested the need for a complex view that does not limit Indigenous video practices to the documentary genre, community productions or individual testimonies. During the II Festival Latinoamericano de Cine de los Pueblos Indígenas (the Second Indigenous Peoples’ Film Festival of Latin America), which was held in Brazil in 1987, he called for a consideration of Indigenous video as a form of cultural activism as well as artistic expression. “Cultural rescue and revalorization are fundamental. But it is also important that the films have an aesthetic value in themselves, so that they are respected and recognized as art” (Rodríguez 2013, 70). Later, in a compelling article, which is a kind of manifesto of Ecuadorian Indigenous video, he argued against the integration of the Indigenous people into the Western system and its reductive notions of Indigenous peoples’ as solely as proletariat or a peasant class. He called for the search for artistic and cinematographic expressions based on the symbols, language and ancestral culture of living and changing Indigenous peoples. For Muenala, such an exploration implies a critique of

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the inferiorizing and binary categories to which colonization confined Indigenous peoples. We were condemned to silence, but they never managed to silence us [...] They have studied our culture as folklore, they say that we speak dialects and not languages, that we make crafts and not art, they have considered us second-class citizens for being Indians, hence the importance of using a new cinematographic language that manages to rectify these and other errors. (Muenala 1995, 34)

For the filmmaker, while Indigenous peoples and nationalities remain at the margins of the development of Ecuadorian cinema and video, colonizing messages will continue to be reproduced that conceive of them as objects rather than as protagonists of their own stories. For this reason, Muenala maintains that while indigenist documentaries made from a Western point of view are something positive, they are not enough; instead, he prefers more creative expressions, often based on stories, legends and mythologies (León 2009). Another point the filmmaker is critical of is the reduction of Indigenous audiovisual practices to community or artisanal practices. He recognizes that many of the production, writing and filming processes that emerge from the workshops with Indigenous filmmakers are collective, but nevertheless he maintains that it is necessary to value the role of the creator and support the processes of professionalization. He believes in the training of photographers, screenwriters and directors as a mechanism for empowering the workshop participants, who historically have been denied their ability to create. Regarding his experience of audiovisual training in Ecuador he says: We can’t box ourselves into community [art] because a piece of fiction, for example, is created by an author. In the workshops we have created a laboratory called Laboratorio Runa Cinema (Runa Cinema Laboratory), and at the moment there are three or four feature film scripts that are already being developed by some young people, and it is their proposal. Collectively we are supporting and contributing to these scripts, but in a way, it is one person who is proposing it. The work is collective, but the creator must be valued; it is important that he or she is given recognition. The work is not always communal, although it is collective. (Muenala 2014)

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On the other hand, faced with the idea that some researchers have about the political and cultural nature of Indigenous video, Muenala has argued on several occasions that it is necessary to build a cinematographic aesthetic that is fueled by oral tradition, traditional ceremonies, artistic manifestations, cosmovisions and political thought. Early on he warned, “We have no personality within the language […] it is a challenge to search for a semiotics of our own cinematographic language as an expression of a cosmovision” (Hoy Newspaper 1994b). This new language, this new aesthetic, still to be constructed, has several elements: “We have to value the Kichwa, but there are many elements that go into composing this aesthetic. Also, the attitude of the people is different, the attitude of Indigenous peoples. Often silence says many things, that kind of attitude has to be recovered in the audiovisual. There are many elements, many symbols, colors above all” (Muenala 2014). Finally, he proposes that the political character of Indigenous audiovisual practices is defined not only by their content or in their militant character. “You cannot make a film or a video without having a political impact. Everything is political. The fact that you do it in Kichwa is already a political matter. The fact that you take the camera and present some images, according to your proposal your position, is already a political proposal” (Muenala 2014).

Art, Video and Andean Cosmovisions Amaru Cholango was born in 1951 in Quinchucajas, a small town in the northern Ecuadorian highlands. His parents were dedicated to agriculture and weaving. The artist’s childhood was marked by memories of oppression and injustice, but also the strong presence of his mother who instilled in him the Kichwa religiosity and cosmovision. He studied mathematics and geology at the Universidad Central del Ecuador (Central University of Ecuador) and later worked as a mathematics teacher at the same university. He studied painting in London for a short period and then decided to complete his artistic training in a self-taught way. He lived in Switzerland, Holland, France and finally in 1985 resettled in Germany. There he worked as an art teacher and has been able to sustain a career as a contemporary artist to the present day. Over the course of three decades, he has had more than twenty solo exhibitions in France, Germany, Ecuador and Mexico, has been awarded the Robert Schumann Prize in Luxembourg (1995) and has participated

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in the Esbjerg Biennial in Denmark (1996), the Documenta X in Kassel, Germany (1997), the 47th Venice Biennial in Italy (1997) and the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil (2002). In 2011, the Fundación Museos de la Ciudad de Quito (Museums Foundation of the City of Quito) organized an anthological exhibition of his work at the Museo de la Ciudad de Quito (City Museum of Quito), the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (The Center for Contemporary Art) and the Casa de la Cultura (House of Culture). Even though his extensive work addresses very diverse issues and themes, according to Cholango, there are two lines of inquiry that run through all his work: rebellion and spirituality (Cholango, September 14, 2011). The first implies a strategy of open criticism and confrontation that makes the artist a provocateur, while the second is an approach to the sacred, with a healing character that makes the artist a shaman. In the first, we can mention his fierce criticism of colonization, capitalism and the destruction of nature. For example, in 1994, Cholango inspired by the recent Indigenous uprisings and returned temporarily to Ecuador where he approached the leader of CONAIE in preparation for what became one of his most emblematic installations: Las carabelas de Colón todavía navegan en tierra (Columbus’ Caravels Still Sailing on Land). This work, created in the context of the five hundred years of the Spanish conquest, was presented at the IV International Biennial of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador. The installation is comprised of five canoes containing oil and dead fish in the courtyards of the Biennial. As for his second line of inquiry, spirituality, we see a recovery of the Andean Indigenous cosmovision and spirituality as the foundation of a post-materialist and post-capitalist world where politics, economy and culture are integrated (Cholango, March 5, 2014). One example is the healing action of his piece Papa chaucha (2009), which he performed at the Glanzkind Gallery in Cologne, Germany, whereby the artist invited the public to harvest, cook and eat potatoes while he explained the Amerindian conception of that plant according to the Andean cosmovision. This work proposed an Andean relational aesthetic that, through an intercultural pedagogy, tried to create the experience of spiritual purification and invited the audience to enter a new relationship between man and nature.

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Poeticizing Technologies Cholango has carried out extensive labor of conceptual reflections on art, culture and politics as well as on his own art. “I am not only an artist who makes the pieces, but I am also a theorist of art, which is why I can discuss what is political culture, what is contemporary art according to the artist” (Cholango 2012, 5). For Cholango, theorization and reflection have turned into a political task that allows him to argue with interpretative authority and legitimize his practice in his own terms. Despite the uprooting caused by migration, the artist has worked permanently on reconstructing his ties and connection to Andean culture and Kichwa spirituality. Much of his work can be understood as a critical project of reinventing ancestral traditions in a post-colonial; cross-border context that is characterized by global flows. According to the artist, Andean culture holds a potential to critically question the Western world, but also has the possibility of offering an alternative civilizatory principle. Here is the source of our identity. Identity is our language, our customs, our traditions etc., but this is only the external part and variable over time. The essential part is spiritual in nature. It is the cultural and religious knowledge of the past. This is the cultural richness of our Indigenous peoples, and that which we can contribute to a new world. Only in this way are we able to enter into dialogue with other cultures. Without this we are mere imitators of western culture and fortifiers of capitalism and colonialism. (Cholango January 17 2014, 9)

Hence, his work seeks a reconciliation of the Andean and the European, of the ancestral and the contemporary, of myth and reason, of art and ritual, of the shaman and the scientist. Jaume Reus maintains that Cholango’s work is marked by the encounter between the ancestral values of the Kichwa culture and certain conceptual or neo-conceptual practices of contemporary Western art (2012, 5). However, as I have pointed out elsewhere, in the artist’s practice, “the Indigenous cosmovision is the filter through which the desacralized world of Western culture and art is thought” (Cartagena and León 2012, 31). As such, it is possible to read the artist’s work in terms of border thinking (Mignolo 2003), indianization of technology (Schiwy 2005) and cosmopolitics (Viveiros de Castro 2010). He began to work in ink, watercolors and paintings, but almost immediately he began experimenting with different materials including

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objects, installations and performance. He has frequently incorporated photographic, videographic and robotic technologies. Cholango maintains that science and technology have been complicit with capitalism and colonialism; however, he believes that it is necessary to “poeticize technologies” to use them to reconstruct the relationship between man and nature. Technology is the right arm of capitalism, and of colonialism as well. So, you have to consider that science itself, which is also capitalism, has caused nature to be destroyed. So, from that point of view, I fight against technology but by using technology, so in this field I also began to use video. (Cholango 2014, 3)

His work with video dates back to the early nineties with the work Arte y magia (Art and Magic) (1991), a collective film made by artists from Germany and Luxembourg. Subsequently, many of his multimedia installations have consistently used video technology. For example, his work Enfermedad cultural (Cultural Illness) (1998) critiqued the policies of the Casa de la Cultura (House of Culture) located in Quito. It featured a horse loaded with television monitors, psychiatric beds, protest posters and naked young people, interrogated the exclusive and outdated institutionalization of culture at that time. The television monitors displayed a series of documentary shots of Indigenous people in the countryside contrasted with images of the opulence of the affluent classes after the oil boom. A closed-circuit television was also transmitting live the actions that took place inside the building. In Yo soy un árbol y tú también (I Am a Tree and So Are You) (2012), he installed hundreds of burnt tree trunks and a burnt cross in an old chapel, located inside the Museo de la Ciudad de Quito (the Museum of the City of Quito) and placed five television monitors on the altar, showing images of elder Indigenous women in the place normally reserved for the Catholic saints. The video images were horizontal portraits, in medium and static shots, of women who are expressionless in front of the camera. The apparent immobility is broken by involuntary micro-movements or blinks that reveal the passage of time. His work Cripta (Crypt) (2013), which Cholango created at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National School of Arts) at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM, National Autonomous University of Mexico), is an installation of a single gigantic screen in which, in a

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fixed and stationary shot, he shows live the image of a man slowly dying in the Balbuena Hospital. For the Kichwa artist, video technologies have a playful dimension that allow him to experiment and play with images and time, but they are also a weapon capable of capturing and amplifying action. In the first instance, we see the poetic use of video, while in the second, its political function. On the one hand, we find video-poems, projective installations and videosculptures; on the other hand, we find the urgent recording of actions and political interventions in cultural institutions and public spaces that question their own racist and exclusionary logic or their social ineffectiveness. On several occasions, the artist has carried out rebellious acts that have been violently repressed, as in the X Biennial of Cuenca when he performed El arte ha muerto (Art has Died) (2009) or in the Plaza de la Independencia (Independence Square) in Quito when he performed La cultura al poder (Culture to Power) (2013). In these cases, video became a tool for self-reflection about his own practice, but also a weapon of denunciation and a counterinformational medium that spread messages of a political nature. Hence, Cholango argues, “For me video is a very good politics of decolonization” (Cholango 2014, 8).

Indigenous Visuality and Poetics of the Small Both Muenala and Cholango posit the need to not pigeonhole Indigenous visual production and to distance it from essentialist, romantic and primitivizing concepts. Rather they demand the need for Indigenous people to occupy the place of the artist. Both artists also coincide in claiming the role of creator as a way of challenging the colonial structures of the division of cultural labor. Both creators have constructed a culturally positioned theory and a body of work that is itself in search for an intercultural communication that builds bridges between the ancestral and the contemporary. Both make strategic use of ethnic-cultural discourse to negotiate spaces of visibility and legitimacy, and to question cultural institutions and the state. They demand a visuality that works from the Andean cosmovision as a mechanism of self-representation and decolonization. Both have an open conception of politics, understood not as activism but from the field of creative expression as a critique of capitalism, colonialism and the geopolitics of knowledge. Both utilize a complex notion of interculturality based on the appropriation of technologies, knowledge and the circulation of practices that border Andean

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and Western cultures. The work and critical thought of these two filmmakers problematize a series of certainties and established conceptions that have been constructed in the academy to conceptualize Indigenous video. Based on these two artists and their work, we see how Indigenous audiovisual practices question the essentialist notions with which Indigenous video has been characterized. There is a vast spectrum of practices carried out by Indigenous subjects, mediated by audiovisual technologies that do not fit the narrow definition of Indigenous video. For example, there are small commercially oriented companies dedicated to the recording of patron saint festivals, weddings and social events (Kummels 2013; Alfaro Rotondo 2013); popular fiction films linked to entertainment that circulate in informal circuits (Alvear; León 2009 and Alfaro Rotondo 2013); an audiovisual industry related to chicha music, techno-cumbia and techno-folklore (Rosero 2007); audiovisual practices that circulate in the form of video-letters among migrant communities (Ñukanchik People 2012); advertising and institutional production, genre films, art films, experimental cinema, video art, video-sculptures, installations and more. The notion of audiovisual practices designates the use of audiovisual technologies by Indigenous subjects (individuals, collectives, multitudes in diaspora) who think, act and create from other cosmovisions and epistemologies, in the context of post-national communities that challenge the binarisms of modern colonial thought and the established circuits of industry and art. In this sense, Indigenous audiovisual practices are a post-national expression that challenge the established order of the hegemonic discourses of the nation and Ecuadorian culture, its institutions and its cinematographic and artistic canons. Indigenous audiovisual practices project a different visual culture, one that is open to intercultural dialogue and exchanges between local and global culture, from a minor language and the poetics of the small. The work of creators such as Muenala and Cholango refer us to minority expressions that deconstruct the established field of cinema and national art in order to posit the transition from the idea of “Small Cinemas” to the expanded field of “Small Visualities” that place us in the presence of the poetics of the small.

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Córdova, Amalia. “Estéticas enraizadas: aproximaciones al video indigena en América Latina.” Comunicación y Medios (Instituto de Comunicación e Imagen/Universidad de Chile) 24 (2011): 81–107. https://dialnet.unirioja. es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5242683. Cyr, Claudine. “De ‘objeto etnográfico’ a cineasta indígena. Panorama del cine indígena en el continente america.” Gira 7 (2012). https://es.scribd. com/document/331918628/De-objeto-etnografico-a-cineasta-indigena-Pan orama-del-cine-indigena-en-el-continente-americano. ———. “De ‘objeto etnografico’ a cineasta indigena. Panorama del cine indigena en el continente américano.” Revista Chilena de Antropología Visual, 1–12 (2005). De la Cadena, Marisol. Indigenas meztizos. Raza y cultura en el Cuzco. Lima: IEP Ediciones, 2004. https://repositorio.iep.org.pe/bitstream/handle/IEP/ 694/DelaCadena_indigenasmestizos.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y. Hoy Newspaper. “El Festival de la serpiente.” December 3, 1994a. Hoy Newspaper. “En busqueda de nuevos colores y paisajes.” November 15, 1994b. Ginsburg, Faye. “Embedded Aesthetics: Creating a Discursive Space for Indigenous.” Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 9 (1994): 365–382. https://www.jstor. org/stable/656369?seq=1. ———. “Indigenous Media: Faustian Contract or Global Village?” In Cultural Anthropology 6, no. 1 (1991): 92–112. https://www.jstor.org/stable/656 496?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Kummels, Ingrid. “Espacios transnacionales de imaginación: video vernacular en la Región Mixe.” Conference presentation at Primer Congreso Internacional de los Pueblos Indigenas de América Latina, siglos XIX al XXI. Avances, perspectivas y retos, Oaxaca, October 10, 2013. Latour, Bruno. Reensamblar lo social. Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red. Translated by Gabriel Zadunaisky. Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2008. León, Christian. “Foro ‘Cine indigena y autorepresentación.’” Conference presentation for the project “Imaginando al otro. El documental indigenista en Ecuador.” Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía, Quito, April 29, 2009. ———. Reinventando al otro. El documental indigenista en el Ecuador. Quito: Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía, 2010. ———. “Telecolonialidad, visualidad y poder. Desafíos actuales de los estudios visuales desde América Latina.” In Investigación crítica de la comunicación en América Latina. Diálogos con la vertiente Mattelard, edited by Alberto Efendy Maldonado and Edizon León Castro, 385–410. Quito: CIESPAL, 2019. Martín-Barbero, Jesús. Oficio de cartógrafo. Travesias latinoamericanas de la comunicación en la cultura. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003.

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Mata, María Cristina. “Comunicación popular. Continuidades, transformaciones y desafíos.” Oficios Terrestres 1, no. 26 (2011): 1–22. https://perio.unlp.edu. ar/ojs/index.php/oficiosterrestres/article/view/982. Mateus Mora, Angélica. El indígena en el cine y el audiovisual colombianos: imágenes y conflictos. Medellín: La Carreta Cinematográfica, 2013. Mignolo, Walter. Historias locales/Diseños globales. Colonialidad, conocimientos subalternos y pensamiento fronterizo. Madrid: Akal, 2003. Mora, Pablo. “Lo propio y lo ageno del otro cine otro. Un panorama de la producción audiovisual indígena de Colombia.” In El documental en la era de la complejidad, edited by Christian León, 57–79. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Cinememoria, 2014. ———. “Más allá de la imagen: aproximaciones para un estudio del video indígena en Colombia.” In Cuadernos de Cine Colombiano, edited by Cinemateca Distrital (17B): 2–19, 2012. https://idartesencasa.gov.co/sites/ default/files/libros_pdf/Cuadernos%20de%20cine%20colombiano%20No% 2017B%20Cine%20y%20video%20indigena.pdf. Muenala, Alberto. “El cine de los pueblos indios.” Cuadro a Cuadro (ASOCINE) 34, 1995. ———. Interview by Catalina Unigarro. 2014. Entrevista Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. Research project “Políticas y poéticas del video indigena en Ecuador,” Otavalo. January 11, 2014. Ñukanchik People. 2012. Archivo de la Memoria Audiovisual de la Migración Ecuatorina. http://proyectoamame.blogspot.com/2012/. Polanco, GeryLee, and Camilo Aguilera. Luchas de representación. Prácticas, procesos y sentidos audiovisuales colectivos en el sur-occidente colombiano. Santiago de Cali: Universidad del Valle, 2011. Restrepo, Paula, and Juan Carlos Valencia Rincon. Impacto político del audiovisual intercultural: algunos casos colombianos. Medellín: V Encuentro de Investigadores en Cine, 2014. Reus, Jaume. “Amaru Cholango: poética y política.” In Catálogo de la expoeisción ‘Amaneció en medio de la noche’,” 5–22. Quito: Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, 2012. Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia. Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa. Una reflexión sobre práticas y discursos colonizadores. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón, 2010. Rodríguez, Clemencia. “De medios alternativos a medios ciudadanos: trayectoria teórica de un término.” Folios (Universidad de Antioquia) (21 and 22): 13–25 (2009). https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/folios/article/view/6416. Rodríguez, Martha. 2013. “Hacia un cine indígena como metáfora de la memoria de un pueblo y de su resistencia.” Revista Chilena de Antropología Visual (CEAVI) (21): 64–79.

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Rosero, Santiago. 2007. “El no lugar del atrevimiento delfiniano. (¿Quién lo hizo y por qué lo hizo?).” In La Selecta, cooperativa cultural. Arte contemporáneo y cultura popular desde Quito, edited by Manuel Kigman. Salazar, Juan Francisco, and Amalia Córdova. “Imperfect Media and the Poetics of Indigenous Video in Latin America.” In Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics, and Politics, edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart, 39–57. Durhan/London: Duke University Press, 2008. Sanjinés, Iván. “Usando el audiovisual como una estrategia de sobrevivencia y de lucha, de creación y recreación de un imaginario propio.” Revista Chilena de Antropología Visual (CEAVI) 21 (2013): 32–50. http://www.rchav.cl/2013_ 21_b03_sanjines.html. Schiwy, Freya. “Entre el multiculturalismo e interculturalidad: video indigena y descolonización del pensar.” In Construcción y poética del imaginario boliviano, edited by Josefa Salomón, 121–126. La Paz: Asociación de Estudios Bolivianos, 2005. ———. “¿Intelectuales subalternos? Notas sobre las dificultades de pensar el diálogo intercultural.” In Indisciplinar las Ciencias Sociales. Geopolíticas del conocimiento y colonialidad del poder. Perspectivas desde lo andino, edited by Catherine Walsh, Freya Schiwy and Santiago Castro-Gómez, 101–134. Quito: Abya Yala, 2002. Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Multiculturalismo, cine y medios de comunicación. Translated by Ignacio Rodríguez Sánchez. Barcelona: Paidós, 2002. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. Metafísicas canibales. Líneas de la antropología posestructural. Madrid: Katz, 2010. Wortham, Erica. “Building Indigenous video in Guatemala.” Jump Cut. A Review of Contemporary Media 43 (2000): 116–119. https://www.ejumpcut. org/archive/onlinessays/JC43folder/GuatemIndigVideo.html. Zamorano, Gabriela. “Intervenir la realidad: los usos políticos del video indígena en Bolivia.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología 45, no. 2 (2009): 259–285. https://www.academia.edu/43606807/Comunicacion_y_ sociedades_en_movimiento_la_revolucion_si_esta_sucediendo.

Filmography Cholango, Amaru. Arte y magia. Ecuador, 1991. Muenala, Alberto. Allapamanta, Kawsaymanta; Katarisun. Ecuador: Corporación Rupai. 1992. ———. Ay Taquicgu. Ecuador: Corporación Rupai, 1990. ———. Killa. Ecuador: Runa Cinema/Corporación Rupai, 2017. ———. Mashikuna. Ecuador: Corporación Ruapi, 1994.

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———. Tiempos de tempestad. Mexico and Ecuador: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1983. ———. Yapallag. Ecuador: Corporación Rupai, 1989.

CHAPTER 6

Audiovisual Practices and Production of the Commons Luz Estrello and Julio César Gonzales Oviedo

Introduction In Latin America and the Caribbean, during the last decade it has become commonplace to use the term “community” in reference to certain types of audiovisual practices that take place outside the locus of the film industry and mass media, and which are led and narrated by various people, communities and territories. This kind of audiovisual practice has been referred to in diverse ways. Specifically, it has been called participatory cinema and/or audiovisual, cinemas without authors (cine sin autor), popular, alternative, community or collaborative cinemas. It is also referred to as other cinemas, group

The authors are members of Maizal, an itinerant, independent collective that produce content and conduct research in the field of audiovisual communication, working alongside communities, organizations and collectives in Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. The word maizal translates to cornfield in English. Amanda G. Córdova, also a member, worked on an early draft of the English language translation from the original Spanish.

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cinema and of course small cinemas . For us, this constellation of categories evidences a concern for the situated gaze, that is, one that takes shape in a particular time and space, with a production process that tries to move away from hierarchies. In other words, it takes distance from the paradigm of the single author/director and from the idea that there is only one way (commercial production) of experiencing cinema. Nevertheless, do these diverse production practices refer to the same type of audiovisual practice? What is the “community” (lo comunitario) in the audiovisual? Likewise, what is community audiovisual practice? How does it manifest itself and what are its implications? We draw on our own status as a collective that, among other things, produces audiovisual media in collaboration with different groups of people and communities. In this chapter, we propose that these audiovisual practices can be understood as a form of production of the commons (lo común) (Gutiérrez Aguilar et al. 2016) insofar as they are exercised by people with the same objective and in a collaborative way, to satisfy shared needs. Therefore, we believe that it is possible to analyze these practices from the goods they produce (material and immaterial) and from the construction of social relations that sustain them. Our argument is based on the reflections and findings from our collective research project “Cine y audiovisual comunitario en Perú: prácticas de creación colectiva” (Community cinema and audiovisual in Peru: practices of collective creation), carried out during 2020,1 in which we analyzed L. Estrello (B) Maizal, Oaxaca, México e-mail: [email protected] J. C. Gonzales Oviedo (B) Maizal, Lima, Perú e-mail: [email protected] 1 This project was the winner of the 2019 Concurso Nacional de Proyectos de

Investigación sobre Cinematografía (National Competition for Research Projects on Cinematographic Practices) sponsored by Peru’s Ministry of Culture. The research team

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a series of case studies using a qualitative methodology, and the principles and tools of visual anthropology. In this chapter, we first review the literature and then discuss the conceptual framework that we employ to think about community audiovisual practices, referencing collective experiences that, like Maizal, engage in audiovisual practice at the borders of hegemonic fields.

Theoretical and Historical Overview Film and audiovisual studies usually focus on the artistic and aesthetic qualities with regard to the production of films, the creation of audiences and the social implications of the filmic image. For the most part, the various subfields in this academic discipline are devoted to the analysis of creative practices linked to the industry’s canon and mass culture, or to the authorial perspectives found in independent or alternative circuits. The sociology of culture studies and theories of communication has also contributed to this debate, albeit from a more general perspective. Perhaps a related field of study with the most open perspective has been visual anthropology, in that it has incorporated themes and analytical frameworks that seek to overcome the positivism and colonialism that characterized the early years of the cinema/anthropology partnership in the early twentieth century. Academic literature about community audiovisual practices is still scarce and the existing scholarship generally focuses on case studies or singular experiences. Also, for the most part it does not go in depth conceptually. Community audiovisual practice is a relatively recent concept, and although there are collectives that have a long history of being in dialogue with these practices, they have become more relevant and widespread in the last decade. For Maizal, it is a category that we have frequently used to define some experiences we have had in diverse networks and spaces of Abya Yala2 that have in common the

included Luz Estrello, Amanda Gonzales, Julio César Gonzales and Gabriela Koc, members of Maizal. 2 Abya Yala is a term that originated with the Cuna People in what is now Panama and Colombia, used to denominate the entire American as a territory-continent. It is an ancestral term that, depending on the context, could mean “land in full maturity,” “land of life,” “land in full” and “good living.” Contemporary use of the term often indicates support for indigenous rights and ontologies.

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use of audiovisual tools for self-representation, documentation and the reconsideration of collective memory and expression. Regarding a lack of literature, this has not been the case with other categories related to social movement cinema from the 1960s and 1970s, such as militant cinema and popular video, and similar formats which continued well into the 1980s and 1990s. Nor did this happen with other mid-twentieth-century audiovisual movements emanating from the fusion between cinema and anthropology, such as ethnographic cinema, comparative anthropology, participatory video and even collaborative documentary (Zirión 2015). In these cases, there is much literature on the subject, the result of years of production and study, which have yielded different categories and definitions that, we believe, are part of the substratum of what in recent years has been called communitarian cinema and/or community audiovisual practice. This production of knowledge and of visualities and sonorities is closely related to the sociopolitical context of each era. In what follows, we explore some key concepts that have helped us to locate the notion of community in cinema and audiovisual practice, and to determine a conceptual framework that places audiovisual practice at the center as a collective praxis that reproduces the commons.

Cinema at Service of the People The New Latin American Cinema, a movement created by filmmakers (mainly documentarians), which took place during the 1960s and 1970s, set out to represent the everyday reality of people in a direct and engaged way, especially highlighting the conditions of inequality and poverty in cities, the countryside and in Indigenous communities. In those years, this cinematic movement problematized the “relationship between art and politics or between the image and the demand for justice. In fact, the creative power and the act of artistic resistance of filmmaking that oriented its production to art resided precisely in this problematic relationship” (Goicoechea-Ansa and Cabezas 2014, 12). Although the manifestations and experiences of what we now refer to as political or militant cinema not have the same momentum and importance everywhere, since their history varies according to each country. However, it highlights a common interest in producing a critical image of the Latin American reality. In many cases, these practices were grounded in theoretical frameworks, which were published as manifestos.

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One such example is the contribution of Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Grupo Cine Liberación (Liberation Group Cinema) regarding the notion of militant cinema, elaborated over the course of several years during the height of their audiovisual practices in Argentina. Their definition of such cinema is that “which is integrally assumed as an instrument, complement or support of a certain politics and of the organizations that carry them out, regardless of the range of objectives it pursues: to counter-inform, develop levels of consciousness, agitate, form cadres, etc.” (Solanas and Getino 1971, quoted in Mestman 2009, 124). The key to this definition of militant cinema proposed by Cine Liberación lies precisely in the powerful activity of that group in those years, marked by the exhibition of its film La hora de los hornos (Hour of the Furnaces) (1968). This piece, conceived as a film-act, acquires full meaning in the context of its public screenings, which often took place through politically organized circuits (unions, student groups, cultural groups, etc.). The idea was that spectators would dialogue with each other following screenings of the film. Therefore, “the militant character of this cinema derived more from the experience it triggered, and from the generation of a political act during or after the projection, rather than from the content of the films themselves” (Mestman 2009, 129). This emphasis on exhibition is particularly interesting, considering that it is one of the most notable concerns of contemporary audiovisual collectives. However, as Alfonso Gumucio points out, it is not possible to establish a direct relationship between what is now known as community cinema and the approaches of the New Latin American Cinema. Nevertheless, many of the practices of the filmmakers in those early days “had an influence on the development of community cinema, to the extent that they introduced alternative forms of organization, production and dissemination, but above all, a view of identity and social struggles, which translated, in many cases, into a different aesthetic as well” (Gumucio 2014, 45).

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The Paradigm of Popular Communication: Practice Before Theory The emergence of “alternative” forms of the organization, production and distribution of audiovisual media, in the sense of not following the patterns established by the commercial film industry, has not only occurred in the world of cinema, but also in all other kinds of communication science and arts. In the literature on the subject, we find a certain correlation in highlighting the importance of radios set up by mine workers in Bolivia (1930–1940s) and the educational and cultural focus of Radio Sutatenza in Colombia until 1947, which was established by the priest José Joaquín Salcedo (1921–1994). Both of these cases, despite their differences, placed the control of communication (and education) into the hands of the people, “translating into new experiences of appropriation that challenged unjust legal frameworks from the legitimacy of their right to denounce realities of subjugation and exclusion” (Chaparro 2015, 95). The main aspect of critical thought-action that nurtured these first popular communication experiences (which years later would apply to the audiovisual) is the pedagogy of liberation (pedagogy for liberation), as proposed by Paulo Freire, informed by his experiences in Brazil. For Freire and the educators who have implemented his methods to this day, there is a need for a bold education: “[One] that leads man to a new position to face the problems of his time and space. A position of intimacy with them, of study and not of mere dangerous and annoying repetition of fragments, statements disconnected from their own life conditions” (Freire 1965, 99). Popular education’s principle, as conceived by Freire, is dialogue (understood as a horizontal relationship among people), whose exercise leads us through a process of reflection, stimulating criticism. This component connects Freire’s ideas directly with popular communication, since he himself “was an advocate of communication as a facilitating process of social literacy, with the aim of generating the appropriation of knowledge, and fundamental tools for self-government of destiny” (Chaparro 2015, 96), that is to say for peoples’ liberation. It is necessary to value the knowledge generated by popular radio, and later by video and other media. This is known as popular communication, “whose main purpose is to organize and mobilize small groups,

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so that they can create their own channels of expression and express their disagreements and demands, which would not occur in conventional media” (Gonzaga Motta 1983, 13).

Indigenous Video: Beyond Ethnographic Cinema The spread of video, a much more accessible format than film (both in economic and technical terms), expanded artistic creation and possibilities for social action. This has meant going beyond an authorial perspective, albeit politicized and committed, toward the participation of people and communities, who have gradually replaced their role as audience to become producers, technicians and protagonists of stories. Collaborative strategies are part of a broader paradigm of knowledge production and have been developed in different disciplines, including in the visual arts, theater, literature and journalism, just to name a few (Zirión 2015). For anthropology, the relation between researcher and subjects of study, and to an even larger extent, the rupture of such dichotomous relations, represented an epistemological turn whose effects are felt to this day. And to a large extent, it was strengthened by the use of cameras and tape recorders in anthropology field research.3 The first steps toward the self-representation of subjects in Latin America principally took place through video in the 1980s, the exact year varying from country to country. Such video production was not only led by anthropologists, but also by the accumulated experience in popular education and communication, as mentioned above. It was mostly carried out by native peoples and popular sectors of urban communities, where video took on a pedagogical dimension and was linked to the intervention of civil organizations and independent collectives. This became known as the Latin American popular video movement.

3 We will not dwell on the details of the historical collaboration between anthropologists, sociologists, photographers, filmmakers (or some combination of all of them) and people of various professions, for it is too lengthy to do it justice here. But we would like to emphasize the work of American ethnologist Edward Curtis with the Kwakiutl in North America in 1914 and American filmmaker Robert Flaherty’s work with the Inuit in 1922 (Flores 2020; Zirión 2015; Ortiz Escámez 2014). We should also not forget the contributions of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in the 1920s, and of course, the work of Jean Rouch.

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In this popular video movement, “the appropriation and use of film and video technology by collectives and individuals belonging to Indigenous populations and nationalities, constitutes a complex practice of difficult conceptualization that in the present day still has not been fully understood” (León 2017, 61). In fact, over time different notions have emerged to refer to this type of use of the audiovisual medium, from “Indigenous film/video,” “Indigenous media,” to more sophisticated elaborations depending on the field of study. We concur with Christian León’s proposal when he refers to “audiovisual practices,” especially Indigenous ones, as “a particular type of cultural mediation and social use of media and communication technologies. To consider these processes, it is necessary to remove oneself from media studies, which predominate in the Anglo-Saxon context, in order to analyze the cultural and social matrices in which they are immersed” (León 2017, 84).

Communication in Community and the Specter of Developmentalism In this final conceptual section, we discuss the development field that has produced the greatest amount of literature on audiovisual practices in and for communities, and from international organizations that, since the mid-twentieth century have been interested in popular communication in the so-called Third World. Such field has been characterized by its promotion of development discourses, which have been shifting according to time and place, through “the articulation of a complex institutional scaffolding aimed at materializing it on the ground and as an object of study of new disciplines […] focused on uncovering the laws and models that would allow for planning the transit of the underdeveloped to the blessed paradise of the First World” (Breton 2010, 8). Two decades after the first developmentalist formulas had been promoted by international agencies, especially in rural areas, these organisms accepted that “almost no attention was paid to ascertain and understand the aspirations of the local populations, directly affected by the results” (FAO 1991, 82). This prompted the emergence of “participatory” approaches. The first UN agency to make this shift was the Food and Agricultural Administration (FAO), which opened the Development Support Communication Branch, as part of the Public Information Division (1969). What is relevant here is that this office was the driving force

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behind two pilot projects that in the mid-1970s introduced the use of video in farmer training processes: the Centro de Servicios de Pedagogía Audiovisual para la Capacitación (The Center for Services of Audiovisual Pedagogy for Training, CESPAC) in Peru (1975) and the Programa de Desarrollo Rural Integrado del Trópico Húmedo (the Integrated Rural Development Program for the Humid Tropics, PRODERITH) (1978) in Mexico (Fraser 1990, 73). Thus, Paulo Freire’s pedagogicalcommunication framework has been used by UNESCO under the name of “educommunication” (Chaparro 2015, 97). At the beginning of the 1980s, while the Latin American popular video movement was gaining strength, the approach that combined the developmentalist imperative with advances in communication was also reinforced. In those years, “the participation of the poor peasant [sic] was emphasized, who should not only share the benefits of development, but should also share responsibility in decision-making” (FAO, quoted in Fraser 1991, 82). Thus, to refer to these popular communication processes, the developmentalist narrative has promoted different definitions, until arriving (in the first decade of the twenty-first century) at communication for development, for transformation or for social change. In this plethora of diagnoses, reports and methodologies from international cooperation agencies, the contributions of Alfonso Gumucio stand out for systematizing the different phases of the articulation between communication and developmentalism. Each of them has its own conceptual umbrella which, rather than create “a new paradigm, they integrate previous ones. The new model aims to include sectors and parts of society that remained distant from previous initiatives” (Gumucio 2004, 21). The interesting thing is that the notion of “community cinema” and, later, “community audiovisuality” began to be used under this umbrella, with the well-known publication of the regional systematization coordinated by Gumucio, where a large number of experiences related to popular, Indigenous, barrio (neighborhood), participatory and militant video in Latin America and the Caribbean are referenced. For Gumucio, the “need to communicate without intermediaries, and to do so in a language of one’s own that has not been predetermined by other existing ones, and the desire to fulfill in society the function of politically representing marginalized collectivities” (Gumucio 2014, 18) is the main motivation for making community cinema. These are characteristics that we can discern, in what has been called alternative, militant or popular video, as referred to by Gumucio.

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Having concluded this brief discussion about the most relevant literature related to our research topic, the following section lays out our analytical framework, which takes critical distance from the term “community cinema,” and in which we propose to conceive of audiovisual practices in Peru as a form of production of the commons.

´ ) is Produced, The Commons (Lo Comun the Audiovisual is Practiced To understand the various ways in which the notion of lo comunitario has been elaborated and practiced in Peruvian audiovisual culture4 during the last decade, we turn to the theoretical framework proposed by sociologists Gutiérrez Aguilar (2018), drawing on what they refer to as the “production of the commons.” In a more general way, we fold in the debate about lo común (or the commons ) that in recent years has captured the interest of different activist, academic and community forums around the world. On this subject, the works of Hardt and Negri (2009), Laval and Dardot (2015) and De Angelis (2017), from Europe and the United States, stands out. But it is necessary to point out, as Silvia Federici rightly does, that “the idea of the commons was introduced by the example of Latin America and Africa’s struggles. For example, the Zapatista uprising had an enormous impact on the transformation of our collective imaginary; it made people aware not only of the land issue, but of the issue of the commons” (cited in Navarro and Linsalata 2014, 21). Therefore, within this debate’s framework, our proposal is much more closely linked to the sociological and anthropological thought that has emerged in Latin America, particularly in the Andean and Mesoamerican territories. It is here, in our continent, where most attention has been drawn to the importance of use value as a category to address that dimension of social life (the reproduction of life itself), overshadowed by the preponderance of the commodity (exchange value) in classical Marxist

4 Because the range of experiences is so broad, we made a selection for our analysis. Thus, the experiences we approached as “case studies” during our research were: the Red de Microcines (Grupo Chaski), Warmayllu, Guarango, Quisca, Docuperú, Cinco minutos cinco, el Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual (TAFA), la Semana por la Soberanía Audiovisual, y la Escuela de Cine Amazónico. In this chapter, we refer to a few of them.

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analysis. And it is also here where the conceptualizations around communality and Buen Vivir increasingly resonate outside the communal and Indigenous spaces that created them. The debate about the commons is profoundly political, as it speaks to the capacity for self-determination of subjects who decide collectively on the issues that concern them, in their own time and manner. The politics of the commons, as Federici refers to it, encompasses all of those “practices and perspectives adopted by social movements around the globe that seek to improve social cooperation, and weaken the control of the state and the market […] a better way to distribute wealth, and that puts limits on accumulation” (Federici 2018, 86). The political, in a much deeper sense, and as distinguished from politics, is “the characteristic dimension of human life,” according to Bolívar Echeverría (1998, 78): that capacity to decide and shape society. Then to make it part of the commons, it becomes another way of referring to social reproduction, in an eco-Marxist code, outside the logic imposed by capitalism. The practical-theoretical-practical side of Mixe and Zapotec’s thought on communality has come to refresh the conversation about autonomy, territoriality and collective subjectivity within (but not for) the social sciences. At present, there are at least two tendencies in literature about the commons. One is focused on organization and work modalities, that is, on its political dimensions. The other analyzes the “type of commons” produced by such collectivities, organized around a shared interest or need (Navarro 2016). Before we dwell on the distinction between tangible and intangible forms of the commons, it is worth mentioning that: The commons [has] a symbolic and material dimension that manifests themselves in water, land, minerals, seeds and forests; in social security, welfare, health, education or public spaces; and virtually, in the media, radioelectic spectrum and the [I]nternet. At the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that it’s not an object or a dimension separated from human activity and social structure that reproduces it (Navarro 2016, 25).

The production of the commons is a type of social relationship based on collaborative construction between people who seek to satisfy some kind of material or existential need. To produce the commons is to collectively produce that which is indispensable for life and, very importantly,

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for its enjoyment. In this sense, the commons can be made during a minga 5 in the farm, in an activists’ collective, or in a housing cooperative. To the extent to which the commons is produced, a certain type of subjectivity is also formed. This means that those people who decide to come together, “interweave their activities and establish ties of cooperation to solve shared problems and needs” (Linsalata 2018, 369), are already part of a collective subjectivity, an “us.” Thus, whatever has been produced in the commons, it is not for the enjoyment of one but for everyone involved. For this reason, Gutiérrez Aguilar et al. (2016) use the category of “concrete wealth” to refer to that which is produced in the commons and not destined for mercantile exchange. In this sense, to produce in the commons is to create use value, not exchange value, which can be both material and symbolic. According to Raúl Zibechi (2015), the commons comprises “the bonds that we forge to continue being, to make life continue as life; ties that cannot be limited either to an institution or to things” (p. 59). In this sense, community is not an entity that exists per se, but a social relationship that is constructed. There are no commons, then, without people who unite to make commons, that is, in the words of Linsalata, Gutiérrez and Navarro, without community ties. These articulations are the fruit of “diverse conversations and coordination of conversations of men and women who […] establish their own ends and define, from the shared word, the time frame and mechanisms to achieve them” (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2015, 80). This tells us that, in addition to an intertwining of tasks, to produce the commons also requires the development of the political, on the part of the community network, as it must be able to self-regulate and make its own decisions. The commons is that which “is made among many, through the generation and constant reproduction of a multiplicity of associative connections and collaborative social relations that continuously and constantly enable the production and enjoyment of a large amount of goods, both material and immaterial, for common use” (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2018, 63). It is a critical category that allows us to grasp the relevance of audiovisual 5 This alludes to a practice rooted in the Andean and Amazonian traditions of resolving individual and collective needs through mutual work and support without being exclusively mediated by a monetary economic exchange, but rather through the social energy that this can produce at the collective service.

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practices in the framework of struggles and social movements, whether for communication rights, self-representation or defense of bodies and territories. For the purposes of our research, and following the theoretical proposal referred to thus far, we have decided to “deconstruct” this concept of the commons according to three dimensions: (1) as a social relation; (2) as a form of production; (3) and as a political practice. We have established that the commons can be characterized by material and immaterial categories. The former consists of everything that concerns the tangible world, and the latter, consists of ideas, traditions, knowledge or culture in general. However, the material also encompasses everything that concerns intellectual labor, for the production/ execution/interpretation of intellectual work, or that serves them as support” (Navarro 2016, 25). We consider that one of the theoretical strengths of this perspective is that it doesn’t determine an ideal type of practice or a single way of producing the commons, but rather allows for epistemic and political possibilities of meaning that guides certain collective practices related to the audiovisual, in the case of this research.

Audiovisual Practices as Production of the Commons Returning to the notion of audiovisual practices (León 2017, 84), we propose to approach them as production practices of the commons not only for the goods they generate (films) but for everything that is shared during the process, in how and why to share stories through audiovisual language. To speak of audiovisual practices as producers of the commons, we are referring to neighborly relationships, affiliations, (up) rootedness and feelings that account for all the social richness that is generated by shared audiovisual creation. Therefore, for the purposes of our research, we take up the idea that the commons are produced because they allow us to analyze “those spaces and those social times that are conducive to the gathering, sharing, being and doing together, reciprocity, human empathy, being part of, willingness to serve towards the community and to give back what is received by the community” (Linsalata 2018, 373). That is, it allows us to ground the theoretical reflection in those collectivities or associative networks that are organized to produce and/or distribute moving imagery (film, video or animation) outside the most

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well-known production and circulation logics, often regulated by the cultural industry and even experiment with popular pedagogy. Secondly, this theoretical framework allows us to distance ourselves from the term “community,” as if it were an adjective or a quality inseparable from the peasant way of life or even something that only Indigenous peoples have. If we think of the commons as a key category, it is possible to open a path toward an analysis of audiovisual experiences and collectivities that do not seek to place labels, but rather try to understand the processes and, above all, the ways in which they name themselves and the goods created. Thirdly, proposing a commons perspective that allows us to distinguish between the material and the immaterial, allows one to reflect on films and their distribution modes, and also on what is unleashed, socially and culturally, from said material’s production, exhibition and distribution. In addition, it is worth mentioning that one of the characteristics that we are able to discern as a common element is the distance from the commercial logics of film production, which speaks of a preponderance of the use value of the audiovisual practices that we want to research. Finally, given that there is no single form of production of the commons, we have opted for the concept of community horizon to refer to a perspective that inspires, orients and mobilizes people toward the construction of societies based on collaboration, reciprocity and enjoyment. Conceiving of “the commons as a political horizon assumes […] the development of a politics of autonomy for making decisions on common concerns. And, on the other hand, it presupposes the re-appropriation of the material and symbolic reproduction of life’s capacities and conditions” (Navarro 2016, 165). Therefore, considering the enormous range of audiovisual practices that we observed, each one from its own context, doing things in their own way and from different political visions, we believe that it is feasible to use an open category that is not unifying, but rather allows us to uncover the diversity of experiences and proposals. Thus, after observing the experiences selected as case studies, highlighting the diversity of initiatives that for the most part maintain a modality of work marked by community intervention (short term), a smaller group that over time begins to build processes of accompaniment (medium term) and configures itself with a community and territorial focus in which it can sustain its work (long term).

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Furthermore, an important part of the emergence of this audiovisual practice is attributable to the formation of collaboration, exchange and mutual support ties, which occur in different dimensions and conditions. But above all, they are characterized by the peer recognition and the intention to strengthen audiovisual practices in the pedagogical and methodological field. Thus, occasional collaborations between collectives have helped shape and strengthen accompaniment processes for people and communities through audiovisual practices. We noted that in the first experiences the camera was seen as a media tool. Later on, it led to socially and politically committed audiovisual productions, and eventually to the field of pedagogical and artistic creation, within a community and/or territory. As such, initiatives such as the Escuela de Cine Amazónico (Amazonian Film School) and Docuperú have instituted audiovisual training “schools” where they share their methods of cultural organizing, production and creation intergenerationally. Additionally, initiatives such as Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual (Traveling Workshop of Audiovisual Training), Videos Creados con Dibujos (Videos Created with Drawings, VCD), Minkaprod and Cuyay Wasi, offer workshops and trainings in which they share their pedagogical and creative approaches with the general public. We also observed that Cinco Minutos Cinco (Five Minutes Five) and the Red de Microcines (Microcinemas Network) (organized by Chaski), continually organize community trainings in community, which sustains their work with specific localities over time. Parallel with filmmakers and audiovisual producers’ engagement with the pedagogical potential of audiovisual practices in their work with communities; there are those collective experiences led by people who come from educational and pedagogical fields, and who find audiovisual practices powerful tools of experimentation and innovation in their educational work. In the case of Warmayllu, an organization whose work is rooted in interdisciplinary experimentation in the arts, it also recognizes pedagogical possibilities in audiovisual practices. There is a similar dynamic with VCD, whose members ventured into audiovisual production by way of their pedagogical and educational interests and practices. Warmayllu is an interesting case because, although it is not exclusively an audiovisual collective, its work has been important for the diversification of audiovisual practices in Peru, due to its contributions in the

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educational field (formal and alternative), given its intercultural, territorial and Buen Vivir approach. Moreover, Warmayllu is a collective of artists and educators that responds to the circumstances that affect it. It self-defines as: …part of a community of makers, which becomes even clearer after the projects terminate, as we remain in communication with people and colleagues who left. They are still part of our ayllu,6 we continue to see each other, or they begin to integrate Warmayllu’s practices in their spaces. (Mariska Van Dalfsen, interview, 2020)

The profound pedagogical vocation shared by several of these collectives’ experiences with audiovisual practices has also become a strategy for self-financing. Thus, the collectives’ projects and its members are able to sustain themselves economically. A common feature we found in this multiplicity of collectivities and audiovisual practices is the search for and invention of pedagogical and methodological experimentation based on the “learning-by-doing” approach. We propose that their processes are micro laboratories where audiovisual production converges with the emergence of a critical political positioning with regard to the hegemonic canon of audiovisual media production and teaching. We have also observed in the collectives that their practices beyond the audiovisual/cinematographic dimensions stand out. In other words, their search is not merely focused on textuality (image and sound) in their productions and content. Rather, there is an ongoing reflection about the social practices at play when they use these tools within the processes of social and territorial work. Our research has analyzed a mosaic of organizational forms, ranging from self-convened collectives such as the network of groups involved in the Semana por la Soberanía Audiovisual (Audiovisual Sovereignty Week), to established organizations listed in Peruvian public records, mostly as cultural associations. Thus, each audiovisual experience referred to herein has its own identity and collective memory, depending upon the path it has taken and the people who are or were part of that collectivity. Without

6 In the Andean context, Ayllu refers to a community, that is, to a human group organized and linked to a territory.

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a doubt, these factors determine the way they position themselves politically within the contemporary audiovisual field (or territory), and how they orient their collective efforts. This diversity of perspectives coincides with the organizational and collective works’ importance; thus, we propose that their sociopolitical commitments have a common horizon. In our analysis, we have observed a shared sentiment toward movements and earlier vanguards of audiovisual practices that are committed to social struggles (peasant, student, human rights, feminist and eco-territorial). These collectivities also prioritize the pedagogical potential of cameras and recorders, converting audiovisual practice into methodological experimentation and the construction of a political culture that embraces popular education in a broad way, through technological appropriation, as well as their possibilities for recording, denouncing and creating. It is important to emphasize that, with the production of collective identity, the participants in these audiovisual processes see themselves as peers, thereby dynamizing their ties and collaborations. In time, these practices multiply. It is as if these collectivities manage to “[…] radiate to others the experience constructed, by breaking with the thresholds that, from the dominant common sense, define what is possible and impossible in the everyday and alienated spheres of life” (Navarro 2016, 166). As such, these practices boycott the dominant (or hegemonic) common sense that determines how to make or consume cinema and audiovisual products. In this journey through the audiovisual practices that produce the commons, the economic, aesthetic and affective dimensions of these products do not go unnoticed. We propose that there is a political intentionality in the construction of ways of organizing: creating alliances and building networks that amplify the social energy that they generate in their artistic, pedagogical and media processes. To a certain extent, what Fernando Valdivia calls an audiovisual minga (collective work) (cited in Agüero Solórzano et al. 2016, 18) is put in motion. Thus, the ways of producing the audiovisual in the commons, according to the Peruvian experience, stands out for its diversity, its proximity to popular education and its defense of territorial and human rights. And despite the complicated panorama, partially due to the monopolization of cultural goods by market forces, as well as social inequality, they open up possibilities for experiencing other ways to represent, narrate and enjoy cinema and audiovisual works made in Peru.

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Bibliography Agüero Solórzano, Efraín, Alca Eguiluz, Carlos and Cáceres Colán, Carla. “Representación audiovisual y ciudadanía intercultural.” Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, 2016. https://repositorio.cultura.gob.pe/handle/CULTURA/587. Asociación Cuyay Wasi Website: https://cuyaywasi.net/. Bretón, Víctor. Prologue. In Antropología social, desarrollo y cooperación internacional: introducción a los fundamentos básicos y debates actuales, edited by Mónica Mauri Martínez and Cristina Larrea Killinger, 11–18. Barcelona: Editorial UOC, 2010. Chaparro Escudero, Manuel. Claves para repensar los medios y el mundo que habitamos. La distopía del desarrollo. Bogotá: Ediciones Desde Abajo, 2015. Cinco Minutos Cinco Website: https://www.5minutos5.org/. De Angelis, Massimo. Omnia Sunt Communia. London: Zed Books, 2017. Docuperu Website: https://www.docuperu.pe/. Echeverría, Bolívar. “Lo político y la política.” Mexico City: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, 1998. https://chiapas.iiec.unam.mx/No3/ ch3echeverria.html. Escuela de Cine Amazónico Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Esc uela-de-Cine-Amaz%C3%B3nico-1554348511470799/?ref=page_internal. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). “FAO: Experiencias.” Chaski. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación 39 (1991): 82–86. https://revistachasqui.org/index.php/chasqui/article/view/2028. Federici, Silvia. “Marx, el feminismo y la construción de los comunes.” Translated by María Aránzazu Catalán Altuna. In Silva, El Patriarcado del salario, 77– 103. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2018. https://traficantes.net/sites/def ault/files/pdfs/TDS_map49_federici_web_0.pdf. Flores, Carlos. El documental antropológico. Una introducción teórico-práctica. San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico: CIMSUR–UNAM, 2020. Fraser, Colin. “Video y desarrollo rural. Video-génesis.” Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación 33 (1990): 73–77. https://revistachasqui. org/index.php/chasqui/article/view/1990/2010. Freire, Paulo. 1965. La educación como práctica de la libertad. Translated by Lilién Ronzoni. Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores. Goicoechea-Ansa, Elixabete and Óscar Ariel Cabezas. 2014. Introduction. In Efectos de imagen. ¿Qué fue y qué es el cine militant cinema? edited by Ansa Goicoechea and Óscar Ariel Cabezas, 11–14. Santiago: LOM. Gonzaga Motta. “Comunicación popular: Contradicciones y desafíos.” Chasqui, Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación 8 (1983): 12–18. https://reposi torio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/handle/10469/15122. Guarango Website: https://guarango.pe/.

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Gumucio Dagron, Alfonso. “El cuarto mosquetero: la comunicación para el cambio social. Investigación & Desarrollo 12, n.o 1 (2004): 2–23. https:/ /www.redalyc.org/pdf/268/26800101.pdf. ———. Ed. El Cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe. Bogotá: FES Comunicación, 2014. Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel. Horizonte comunitario-popular. Antagonismo y producción de lo común en América Latina. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2015. https://traficantes.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/Horizontes% 20comunitario-populares_Traficantes%20de%20Sue%c3%b1os.pdf. ———. “Producir lo común: entramados comunitarios y formas de lo político.” In Comunalidad, tramas comunitarias y producción de lo común, edited by Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, 51–72. Oaxaca: Pez en el Árbol/Casa de las Preguntas, 2018. https://traficantes.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/TDSUTIL_Apantle_web.pdf. Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel, Linsalata, Lucía and Mina Lorena Navarro. “Repensar lo político, pensar lo común. Claves para la discusión.” In Modernidades Alternativas y nuevo sentido común: ¿Hacia una modernidad no capitalista? 381–422, edited by Linsalatta and Márgara Millán. Mexico City: FCPyS-UNAM, 2016. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Laval, Christian and Pierre Dardot. Común: ensayo sobre la revolución en el siglo XXI . Barcelona: Editorial Gedisa, 2015. León, Christian. “Hacía una re-conceptualización de las prácticas audiovisuales indígenas.” In Comunicación y sociedades en movimiento: la revolución sí está sucediendo, edited by Paula Restrepo, Juan Carlos Valencia and Claudio Maldonado Rivera, 61–88. Quito: CIESPAL, 2017. https://repositorio.uasb. edu.ec/bitstream/10644/6413/1/Leon,%20C-CON-006-Hacia%20una% 20reconceptualizacio%CC%81n.pdf. Linsalata, Lucía. Repensar la transformación social desde las escalas espaciotemporales de la producción de lo común. In Comunalidad, tramas comunitarias y producción de lo común. Debates contemporáneos desde América Latina, edited by Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, 365–376. Oaxaca: Pez en el Árbol, 2018. Maizal Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/maizal.audiovisual. Mestman, Mariano. “La exhibición del cine militante. Teoría y práctica en el Grupo Cine Liberación.” In La comunicación mediatizada: hegemonías, alternatividades, soberanías, edited by Susana Sel, 123–139. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2009. http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/gt/201006 11122650/sel.pdf. Minkaprod website: https://minkaprod.com/. Navarro, Mina Lorena. Hacer común contra la fragmentación en la ciudad. Experiencias de autonomía urbana. Puebla: BUAP, 2016.

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Navarro, Mina Lorena and Linsalata, Lucía. “Crisis y reproducción social. Claves para repensar lo común.” Interview with Silvia Federici. In Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL): CLACSO: Buenos Aires, 15, N° 35 (2014): 15–26. http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/osal/20140506032000/OSA L35.pdf. Ortiz Escámez, Manuel. 2014. “Sociología visual y activismo, vidas cruzadas.” Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL). 15, N° 35 (2014): 111–130. http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/osal/201405060 32000/OSAL35.pdf. Quisca Producciones Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/quiscaproduc ciones2010/. Red de Microcines Chaski: https://grupochaski.org/red-de-microcines/. Semana por la Soberanía Audiovisual: https://semanaporlasoberaniaaudiovisual. wordpress.com/. Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual Facebook page: https://www.fac ebook.com/TVambulante. Videos Creados con Dibujos Website: https://videoscreadoscondibujos.wordpr ess.com/. Videoteca de las Culturas (Peru) website. https://videoteca.cultura.pe/. Warmayllu Website: https://warmayllu.org.pe/. Zibechi, Raúl. “Los trabajos colectivos como bienes comunes materialsimbólicos.” El apantle, revista de estudios comunitarios 1 (2015): 73–98. https://horizontescomunitarios.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/elapantle.pdf. Zirión, Antonio. “Miradas cómplices: cine etnográfico, estrategias colaborativas y antropología visual aplicada.” Revista Iztapalapa, 36, N° 78 (2015): 45–70. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?pid=S2007-917620 15000100045&script=sci_arttext.

Filmography Solanas, Fernando and Octavio Getino. 1968. La hora de los hornos. Argentina: Grupo Cine Liberación. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2H RWWyQ-kY.

PART II

Images of the Small Community

CHAPTER 7

Recovering One’s Own Voice to Redefine What is Visible, Desirable and Possible: La Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde Ana Lucia Ramírez Mateus

I reconciled myself with silence and I learned to be the master of my own words. Discover other languages. Rejecting everything that tried to make me invisible... Jessica Agila, Mi voz lesbiana Documentary created at the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2016.

A. L. R. Mateus (B) Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_7

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Discovering that Our Stories Are Worth Telling Accepting the invitation from the editors of Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes to submit a chapter about our experiences making community cinema from the margins of sexuality and gender has become an exercise in re-visioning. Ten years ago, we created the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde (Al Borde Audiovisual School) to encourage the creation of autobiographical documentaries in Colombia and throughout South America in order to tell stories that challenge the dominant narratives of gender and sexuality, which have historically operated as mechanisms of knowledgepower-pleasure. These narratives have produced “truths” with the aim of controlling bodies, sexualities, affective ties, gender identities and life, as Foucault (2002) put it. I speak in the plural because this text is the result of the memories and experiences shared by more than twenty-five sexual and gender dissidents directly involved in the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, of which I am the creator and director. We called our school Al Borde, as it signifies being situated at the crossroads, neither belonging to the center nor to one place in particular, and not wanting to be part of what is considered “normal.” In that sense, it is a territory where meetings occur that are unexpected by the system, or by sexual and gender norms. It alludes to creating from the periphery, from those who are excluded. It is a place where we can flourish, enjoy, see, imagine and narrate the world in new ways. The Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, which operates in cities in Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina, has been sustained by the small team of Al Borde Producciones1 within the collective Mujeres Al Borde (Women at the Edge), which was founded in Bogotá in 2001 with the purpose of “Activating changes from the collective artistic experience, capable of recovering our own voice, images and narratives, to make visible and possible the free and fair world we dream of.” It was created by people who consider themselves sexual and gender dissidents; a term that is used in some Latin American and Caribbean sectors to name and revindicate the politicization of identities, cultural practices and social or political movements that question heterosexuality as the hegemonic social norm.

1 This pioneering project of Latin American community cinema works in five areas: production, training, distribution, exhibition and networking. For more information see www.mujeresalborde.org.

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In each edition, three to four activists from the LGBTIQP+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Intersex, Queer, Pansexual and more) movement participate by living together and experiencing community cinema for forty-five days. Our pedagogical process is intensive; it blends learning about narrative and technical aspects as well as sharing stories and creating affective ties. In the production phase, each participant directs his or her own autobiographical documentary short, and in the documentaries of his, her or their companions, that person does camera, sound and field production, each time assuming a different role. This methodology, based on reciprocity and trust, strengthens the ties between people and their significant experiences, also connecting these films,2 since each autobiographical story is informed by, and at the same time shapes the collective history of the large community. In the words of Marta Cabrera: This collaborative workshop format of the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde opens a space where relationships of intimacy that are traversed by common histories, exclusions and shared fears are articulated, and where marginal, subordinated forms of knowledge are revalued and make visible the particular universes through which these subjects travel. (2019, p. 522)

Since its beginnings, the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde has self-identified as artivist , based on the premise that stories are capable of configuring and re-configuring the universe of the possible, where self-narrating becomes a political and intentional act, which in our case is communitarian and transfeminist. I agree with Sentamans (2017) that “[in order] to expand the possibilities of what can be experienced (lo vivible), [it is] fundamental to expand the visible: ‘in its real dimension as a reflection of the lives of the subjects or representation, but also in its symbolic dimension or new representation’” (p. 36). With this yearning to co-create and expand possibilities of what can be experienced, the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde was born, driven by a rebelliousness to tell our stories with our own voices, with the certainty that they deserve to be told and with the hope that telling them will change the world.

2 By 2020 our films had been screened in over 130 Film Festivals and Exhibitions, and hundreds of community, activist and academic venues. The videography is available in English, Portuguese and French at https://vimeo.com/albordeproducciones.

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The Embodied Dissident Gaze: Desire at the Service of Another Vision The question then is how to reconstruct or organize vision from the “impossible” place of female desire, the historical place of the female spectator between the look of the camera and the image on the screen, and how to represent the terms of her double identification in the process of looking at her looking. Teresa De Lauretis (1984, p. 69)

Our existence as sexual and gender dissidents is traversed at a personal and collective level by the difficulty of accessing audiovisual narratives that resonate with our realities and experiences. During a decade of traveling through the cities and towns in Latin America, where we led workshops and exhibited our films, we always asked participants to name the first fiction or documentary film that had lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans stories. None of the hundreds of people we asked could easily recall a Latin American example. This kind of experience communicates two ideas: the first is that “there is no one else like me here, and secondly, I cannot, and should not, make myself visible in my country; I am not possible.” For, “being visible confirms that one really exists” (Sentamans, 2017, p. 37). The “LGBT” films we have seen most frequently are directed, produced and acted by people who exist outside of our experiences. In other words, “it is a film about us but without us,” which is usually a constant for those of us who occupy places of social, economic, racial and gender subordination. This persistence of a cis-heteronormative point of view in the production of films about trans- and sexual-dissident lives has reinforced narratives that present us as secondary and dispensable characters, or as victims: our love relationships fail, we die, we commit suicide or we are murdered. Being outside of the boundaries of sexual and gender norms is represented as anomalous and is pathologized. We have also been narrated as exotic, unusual, strange, misunderstood beings, without community ties, who need to be explained, researched and in need of interventions, largely through the “expert” voices of medicine, psychology and psychiatry. So, in order to be visible, it is not enough for us that there is cinema with “LGBT content” because, although there is an increasing diversity of films that narrate our experiences, it is clear that:

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The cultural industries produce an extreme visibility in their exhibition of the bodies of LGBT subjects, but this alleged “hypervisibility,” far from affirming their own identities or recognizing them on their own terms, stands out against a much more powerful invisibility [...] [that] of the repressive practices of the police, of the courts, but also as common sense. (Olivera 2013, p. 101)

Therefore, according to this author, it is always necessary to ask ourselves: what are the necessary conditions for subordinate subjects to acquire social visibility? Who and what defines what is visible? In this regard, the feminist theorist Teresa De Lauretis (1984) makes a fundamental contribution by pointing out: [I]t is men who have defined the “visible things of cinema, who have defined the object and the modalities of vision, pleasure, and meaning on the basis of perceptual and conceptual schemata provided by patriarchal ideological and social formations. In the frame of reference of men’s cinema, narrative, and visual theories, the male is the measure of desire […] The project of feminist cinema, therefore, is not so much to “make visible the invisible,” as the saying goes, or to destroy vision altogether, as to construct another (object of) vision and the conditions of visibility for a different social subject (pp. 67–68). (Emphases added)

This cinema, which has historically dominated the domain of the visible, has greater distribution, recognition, resources and means, generating an effect of overshadowing other cinematographic visions that exist about gender and sexuality. It is a cinema that sees, re-creates and creates the world from the “gaze that mythically inscribes all the marked bodies” (Haraway 1991, p. 210), functioning as a power device capable of producing assimilable subjectivities that are absorbed by the cisheteropatriarchy (García, 2020). In that dominant cinema, stories and images about sexual diversity are constructed, [...] such a semiotic construction has the effect of marking aspirational norms among non-heterosexual subjects in the construction of their identity, since what is seen in the cinema has a kind of meaning and therefore real when it is internalized by the subject as part of their discursive subjection. (García 2020, p. 70)

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How does this occur? By producing and circulating homonormative images, stories and characters tied to a yearning to embody gender binaries and the expectations of the heterosexual norms. In other words, narratives where our experiences, corporealities, erotic practices and gender transitions, adjust to cis-heterosexual norms, dictating acceptable, understandable, assimilable, less socially and symbolically conflictive forms. Of course, this implies the predominance of white, non-racialized young bodies that adhere to the canonical forms of beauty, gender and body size that are all able-bodied. Distancing themselves from those who dissent from the norm, over whom the latent threat of exclusion looms and who will consequently be represented as the undesirable, the “ugly,” the “bad.” García asks, “would it be possible to subvert representations that invisibilize and homogenize the singular experience of that which is queer?” (2020, p. 56). Precisely, the Al Borde Producciones project (2001) and subsequently the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde (2011) were created to subvert such representations and generate questions along the same lines, such as: Why in our context, and in the rest of the world, was it so complicated to find films with LGBTQ stories made by people from our community? What are the effects of always being narrated by others? What kind of audiovisual narratives about gender, love and sexuality have been made invisible by these hegemonic narratives? Why do others have the authority to say who we are? Is it possible to take our place in the production of knowledge about ourselves? How can we do it, what fears do we have to overcome? Could our embodied dissident gaze construct a new vision, according to our desire(s)?

At the Edges of Small Cinemas We met with the network of Latin American community media makers... and we were able to put into words what we had been experiencing one after the other Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde: “Cinema is an act of love” Ana Lucia Ramírez (2018)

Over the course of a decade, the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde has produced twenty-two short autobiographical documentaries in South American countries, ten of them in the Andean region: six in Colombia (Bogotá 2011 and Cali 2018) and four in Ecuador (Quito and Guayaquil

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2016). One of the Escuela’s distinctive features is that the stories all explore creativity, pleasure, resistance, as well as exclusion, pain and violence, all of which mark the relationship of sexual and gender dissidents with the world in general, but also with cinema and its narratives. This ambivalent relationship with cinema situates the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde in the realm of “small cinemas” or “small(er) cinemas,” that is to say, as Tom Gunning has put it: “any film scene eclipsed by a hegemonic cinema culture” (cited in Coryat and Zweig 2017, p. 269). These cinemas are “small” in relation to cinemas that “dwarf” them and wield greater power, forming part of an industry with large media corporations, economic resources and standardized production, distribution and exhibition models. These cinemas have globalized the mass consumption of certain stories that privilege, as sites of possibility, memorable and desirable ways of life that are useful to the dominant political, social, sexual, racial and economic systems (rather, cis tems). The cinema of Andean countries, taken together, can be considered as a small cinema, given its low levels of production in relation to the major producers of national cinema in the world: India, China and the United States. The intersection of multiple kinds of subordination help produce small cinemas, whereby those that distance themselves from the more commercial or mainstream film scenes will have less favorable conditions than industry-backed cinema. For us, this has resulted in the absence of funding and spaces for the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of audiovisual work that deals with our realities and experiences. This is more difficult when the films are produced by local trans and gender-diverse people, and even more so if they are made in “non-professional” production contexts, such as community or activist film sectors. In contrast, mainstream films with the label “LGBTQ” or “queer” that are produced by hegemonic film sectors and that privilege a cisheteronormative point of view are widely distributed and often considered iconic. Some of these films, which attempt to deal with who we are and what our significant stories are, include Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2006), Blue is the Warmest Color (2013) and The Danish Girl (2015). These films, produced in the United States or Europe, are directed, written by and star cis professionals (even if their characters are trans or their stories involve such themes). Having a non-racialized and

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most likely heterosexual cast that almost always speaks English guarantees good box office returns. However, these same films are developed in contexts that are far from our realities. Although small cinemas do not necessarily position themselves as activist or community cinemas, they do resist in various ways by claiming space for local viewpoints, cultures and languages (Coryat and Zweig 2017). According to the manifesto Glocal Cinema: Big Stories, Small Countries, these small cinemas express “the need of every community to tell their own stories, in their own languages” (Umaran and Delgado 2017, 268). This rebellion against the “large” film industries is not only expressed in the content, language, the gaze and treatment of the topics addressed. It is also present in the modes of production, such as engaging in collaborative practices that lower costs, valuing a shared creative process and questioning rigid roles and hierarchies (Lacunza 2017). For small cinemas that are also community cinema, collaborative practices are relevant in several areas: in the epistemological field, as we favor alternative and diverse forms of knowledge production. In the political arena, we critique the structures that shape society and the hegemonic representations that perpetuate and reproduce oppression. In the affective dimension, we strengthen the community bonds that sustain us. And in the activist field, we seek to expand the capacity for agency in our communities, provoking changes in the symbolic, social and sexual realities. Within this cinema, then, “where lo comunitario opens the possibilities to tell other stories, to break with the control of the hegemonic media and its politics of representation” (Gonzales 2017, p. 28), there are some cinemas that are smaller than others. The challenges, power relations and specific exclusions faced by each community determine its conditions of social visibility. Thus, some community cinemas have fewer possibilities of financing and distribution, or recognition and legitimization. These sectors are extremely diverse in terms of subjectivities, aesthetics, points of view and life paths. They also have multiple production and exhibition practices, as they are “those carried out by the actors from their own community constitution” (Gumucio 2014, p. 30). Despite this plurality, there are few sexual and gender dissident collectives making community cinema in the Andean or Latin American

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region,3 even though we participate in the sector, are part of its networks, contribute to the small cinemas that converge there, and recognize the relevance and community value of our stories. How different can it be to make community cinema in the Amazon jungle by and with indigenous communities that bravely confront extractivism, compared to cinema made in the Andean mountains by Quechuaspeaking communities, or produced by popular sectors that use cameras to create and distribute their films in a peripheral and stigmatized neighborhood of a Latin American capital? Or, if a film is made by black women resisting armed conflict in a remote rural territory, or perhaps by migrant sex workers in a border zone? And what if it involves La Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, community cinema produced in South American cities, by trans people, lesbians, queers, non-binary and pansexual people, narrating their eroticism, body transformations, disruptive sexualities and the violence they have experienced even from communities that also suffer and resist oppressions? It is not commonplace for community film festivals in Andean countries to select the autobiographical short films that the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde has submitted. When we have directly asked the festival organizers why they rarely or never include our short films in their programs, the most frequent answer could be summarized as follows: the community is not ready for those kinds of stories.4 This tension within community cinema spaces demonstrates that it is always possible to find “smaller spheres of cinematic activity (small cinemas within a small cinema) that reflect different ethno-racial and cultural groups not well represented in the mestizo narratives” (Coryat and Zweig 2017, p. 274). We could be considered a small cinema on the edges of other small cinemas, since inhabiting the margins of sex/gender/desire extends to all

3 In the mapping conducted by Fundación Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (New Latin American Cinema Foundation) (2011–2012) to characterize community cinema in the region, of fifty-five experiences reviewed, only three dealt with sexual diversity. See more in Ramírez (2018, 29). 4 There are community cinema spaces that question this narrative. Although it exceeds the regional focus of this text, it is relevant to mention that in January, 2020, the Fifth edition of the Wallmapu Festival Internacional de Cine y Artes Indígenas (Wallmapu International Festival of Indigenous Cinema and Arts), held in Temuco, Chile, Mapuche ancestral territory, had as its central theme “sex-affective diversities or ancestral sexual diversities” and in 2021 incorporated in its programming a block dedicated to Sexual Diversities. See more at Ficwallmapu.cl.

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areas of social life, and community cinema is no exception. As Ramírez (2018) observes, “[We] have remained outside the field of community cinema, as that ‘invisible space that surrounds the visible,’ whose existence is recognized, constructed and maintained as peripheral, and for the same reason it takes time to be able to see it, hear it, focus on it so that it occupies an unquestionable place as part of the narrative” (p. 31). We have especially valued our participation in the various gatherings organized by members of la Red de Cine Comunitario de América Latina y el Caribe (the Network of Community Cinema of Latin America and the Caribbean),5 by Grupo Chaski in Lima, Peru and by Cine en Movimiento in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2014–2015). These exchanges between small community cinema organizations practice feminist intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) where we recognize that in each group positions of privilege and subordination converge. Based on that understanding, we seek to identify and topple not only that which oppresses my group, but also those oppressions that our own privileges had not allowed us to see. Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde has become a referent in the region as a pioneer in making community cinema from the edges of gender and sexuality. We have made visible a community cinema where desire is present, a cinema that decolonizes the frame, because the bodies that tell their stories and look through the viewfinder of the camera are actively decolonizing desire as a daily practice. As Mignolo, Maldonado-Torres and Schiwy observe, the decolonial turn invites us to “[C]hange the terms and not only the content of the conversation. To think from denied categories of thought […] to think in the materiality of other places, of other memories, of other bodies” (Mignolo 2009, p. 18).

Narrating from the Dissident Experience: Saying “I” in Order to Say “We.” My family found out about everything. I realized that someone, maybe my mother, had seen my belongings, the magazine you sent me, your photos, the cassette you recorded for me. I noticed their strange attitude for several days (...) I stood in front of them and said: I want you to know who I am, I am a homosexual: Queer! Total silence. My panic made me want to vomit. Jorge Medranda, in the film Impuesto de salida (Exit Tax) (2016). 5 See https://cinecomunitarioenr.wixsite.com/cinecomunitario.

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Challenging these dominant narratives and discourses on sexuality and gender from community cinema has required us to understand how and why our sexual-dissidence, transgender trajectories and stories of love, of “coming out,”6 and of body transformations, among others, have been historically silenced in all spheres, including cinema. These narratives maintain their hegemony through strategies that are not limited to establishing what can be said and what must be silenced, what can be shown and what should remain hidden. They also use various forms of silencing, determining, “how those who can and those who cannot speak of them are distributed, which type of discourse is authorized, or which form of discretion is required in either case. There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses” (Foucault 1978, p. 27, emphases added). In our case, we identified those strategies that mark our stories as shameful events for us and our families, devoid of relevance or social value, marking them as dangerous, offensive or disruptive for the communities to which we are linked. The effectiveness of these silencing strategies has also been present in the processes of our own Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde. In fact, some of the participants, when considering the implications of making an autobiographical documentary, have experienced the social threat that weighs on those of us who decide to make ourselves visible. In 2016, this happened in the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde in Ecuador, when an activist, who was also a peasant leader, decided to withdraw in the pre-production stage of her film because of the consequences that it could have on her work in the rural community to publicly and openly out herself as a lesbian. Experiences like this stir many emotions and debates within each edition of the Escuela, about how in our Andean context, rigid social frameworks persist around sexuality. We also examine how ideas of gender, deeply rooted in emotions and “common sense,” are promoted by institutions with enormous power and legitimacy, which then produce and reproduce our existence as that which is simply impossible, without

6 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1990) explains that “‘Closetedness’ itself is a performance initiated as such by the speech act of silence—not a particular silence, but a silence that accrues particularity by fits and starts, in relation to the discourse that surrounds and differentially constitutes it” (p. 3).

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regard for the very serious effects that this “impossibility” can have on our lives. The philosopher Judith Butler (2011) points to gender as a cultural matrix capable of determining which bodies, identities and subjects can be intelligible. This seriously complicates the possibility for individuals and groups that go beyond the sex/gender/desire matrix to articulate audiovisual narratives about our own lives, as well as to have the courage to make them public, since giving voice and image to the story of sexualdissidence or gender transgression implies an enormous act of rebellion. Such acts can be harshly punished, even by people from our most intimate circles and sometimes also by ourselves. The cultural matrix, through which gender identity has become intelligible, requires that certain kinds of ‘identities’ cannot ‘exist’—that is, those in which gender does not correspond with sex, and those in which the practices of desire do not ‘follow’ from either sex or gender” (Butler 2011, p. 24). Therefore, the decision to live openly, visibly and freely is not merely a “personal” decision, nor is it defined exclusively by a matter of individual courage because the regime of the gaze on which this system of death is based, which is binary, heteronormative, patriarchal, colonial and racist, marks our narratives and our existence in profound ways. To become visible can cost one’s life. Therefore, making ourselves visible, where, when and for whom, is deeply linked to both the desire to survive and to live a life worth living. For example, months after the online launching of the documentaries of one of the first editions of the Escuela, one of the participants asked us to remove her video from the Internet, along with all the promotional information (poster, synopsis, behind-the-scenes features) because the serious illness of a very dear relative had led her to return to her Christian and lesbophobic family. In this context, her short film, which was a vindication of her lesbianism, became a betrayal for the reunited family, the risk of being separated from the beloved relative, and becoming the abject, the undesirable. Who wants that for their life? Despite such challenges, finding the strength to recover our own voice, to stimulate defiance in order to imagine our own metaphors, to bring to the world other images, sounds and memories capable of forging those narratives that produce—and at the same time are producers of—new desires and bodies, is the only way to destabilize these dominant narratives and their silencing tendencies, which provokes violence, exclusion and pain in our lives. If being visible means existing, then producing

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“new images with new meanings opens a door for the symbolic and real experience to be nourished, growing irregularly, and overflowing rigid compartments” (Sentamans 2017, p. 37). Narrating with one’s own voice, renouncing the categories imposed by the norm, resonates on a personal and collective level. To say “I” marks the beginning for there to be a “we,” a pluriverse of dissidence. Jerome Bruner (2003) proposes that personal and collective identities are intrinsically related to the capacity to tell stories about ourselves, “it is through narratives that we create and re-create selfhood, that self is a product of our telling (…) If we lacked the capacity to make stories about ourselves, there would be no such thing as selfhood” (pp. 85–86). Therefore, the supplanting of our voices and visions is also one of the discursive forms acquired by the silencing of power/knowledge, which occurs in mainstream cinema where our stories have been hidden by the gaze of others. This is precisely why the autobiographical documentary is the audiovisual genre of the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde. It promotes inner curiosity and lends itself to narrative experimentation with that slippery material that is our own memories, which legitimize the voice, image and emotions of the filmmaker without requiring intermediaries or prior authorizations. And for those of us who have been continuously invalidated, this is an extraordinary experience. The creative processes are forged from the intimacy of tears and the trust of embraces, opening space to see the wounds and the opportunity to heal them.

Making Autobiographical Documentary: A Cinema that Embraces Us Let’s fly! Because after this meeting, there can only be freedom. Gabrielle Esteban (Diana E. Castellanos) in the film El Encuentro (2016).

In 2010, when I designed the pedagogical methodology for the Escuela Audiovisual de Mujeres Al Borde, I used as a reference my own turning point as a filmmaker, and my experience on the production Bajo la Piel (2002), a medium-length feature, the first film made with the Al Borde Producciones imprint. I had made this film as a thesis project at the Escuela de Cine y Televisión, Facultad de Artes, Universidad Nacional

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de Colombia (School of Film and Television, Faculty of Arts, National University of Colombia). That very intimate experience of feeling cinema from deep inside me took me on an internal journey in which I managed to draw back the veil that had been placed over the memories, images and emotions of my sexual-dissidence. During the first ten years of Al Borde Producciones’ existence, Clau Corredor and I, as co-founders and co-coordinators of Mujeres Al Borde, created artivist cinema for the multiplicity of beings that move through the margins of sex/gender/desire. We found that this kind of cinema has the gift of transforming us. It is a loving adventure that traverses and embraces our disobedient, rebellious bodies. It makes us look inward, to examine each other. It also detonates changes in the ways we perceive, in order to create images that correspond to the measure of our desires. Making autobiographical documentaries from this perspective has led to a multiplicity of personal and community healing processes that have had as their focal point a powerful, profound and fun adventure: that of finding visual and audio metaphors, narrative agents, tones and rhythms that turn our dissident memories into non-fiction films narrated with our own voices. This includes trying to answer the question, if we make films by, about and for us, what stories do we decide to tell? To achieve this, we have devised pedagogies that encourage participants to play with the profound forms and mixtures that autobiography can assume in the audiovisual. This includes film essays, archival research, intimate memories, testimonials, fictional staging, direct observation and actions that intervene in reality. And all of this catalyzes unpredictable effects that often go beyond the realm of cinema, to realize a language closer to the poetic and the experimental, as possible resources to narrate intimate universes. Our body of work is very close to the autobiographical essay documentary, which “arises when someone tries, according to their own criteria, without the guarantees of a previous knowledge, a subject that they themselves constitute as a subject when making that film” (Bergala 2000; cited in Lagos 2012). Its reflexive and performative modalities “invite us to look again at the world and to reflect on our relationship with it” (Mamblona 2012, p. 220). It is during those modes of inquiry that the gaze embodied in the dissident sex/gender experience becomes visible. For this reason, Ricard Mamblona argues that:

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Recent performative practices find a way to position themselves on the side of subcultures and other minority collectives, but this time it no longer refers so much to what could be expressed with the sentence “we talk about them for us,” but with “we talk about us for you,” or, “we talk about us for us.” (2012, p. 218)

This freedom to search for a personal style capable of reflecting the vision and subjective experiences of each director is an ongoing collective endeavor at the Escuela Audiovisual de Mujeres Al Borde. It is fortified by the perspectives of the team as it participates in the creative process of elaborating the audiovisual script of each short film. All the films are written and directed by the person who has lived the experience. That person narrates it and is the main character. However, behind the scenes, each film has been collectively crafted and supported by the intimacy generated within the transitory community that conforms the production crew of each edition of the Escuela. Thus, we encounter films like El encuentro (The Meeting) (Quito, 2016), where Gabrielle, its protagonist and director, meets Diana, the girl she was, represented through a small cardboard doll that comes to life and whose images are briefly animated in stop motion. This magical encounter also sheds light on sensitive themes, such as the memory of child sexual abuse, processes of healing and the closure necessary for a loving gender transition. In the documentary El despertar a una realidad multicolor (Awakening to a Multicolored Reality) (Bogotá 2011), by Andrea Sartá, the “main scene is that of the family lunch, where Sartá surprises her mother, grandmother and younger sister with the question, “What do you think, that I like women?” The question first generates silence, which is broken by her sister’s giggles, and then gives way to an extremely moving dialogue where the main surprise is that the young director finds that her family is willing to embrace her dissidence. In Impuesto de salida (Exit Task) (Quito 2016), the personal archives of director Jorge Medranda, consisting of letters and photographs, create a counterpoint to the homoerotic geography of Quito. Through his voiceover and epistolary connection with what occurred thirty years earlier, he reconstructs the strength he had to come out as gay, in an Ecuador that had criminalized homosexuality. The film Déjà vu (Cali 2019), by Ian Anabel, is the memory of their movement between genders, exploring audiovisual metaphors that give a

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sense of the fragmentation and multiplicity that were experienced. This includes a mini essay with parts of their body, ending with images of their breasts and the scars of reduction surgery. Ian draws a smile on the scar: a brief moment of respite, within the constant vertigo of their non-binary transition. The resonances and emotional connections that each of the Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde films generate in the lives of those of us who intervene in their production and exhibition are sustained by the autobiographical pact (Lejeune); a way of reading the film that recognizes it “necessarily traversed by the value of truth, where the imprint of an “I” forged in the observation of one’s own life story is recognized” (Lagos 2012, p. 66). This observation is a continual throughline throughout the entire process of the Escuela Audiovisual de Mujeres Al Borde. Lovingly and collectively, we observe ourselves, find our stories, and ways to tell them. That is why each of the audiovisual pieces produced is endowed with an authentic style, triggered by the collaborative, rather than an individualistic process. The following reflection, written by Ian Anabel Arias, director of Déjà vu, describes how the complex exercise of self-narrating by using their own voice and image was fundamentally sustained and driven by the affective bonds, emotions, complicit relationships and community-based transfeminist pedagogies: The seventh [edition of] the Escuela Audiovisual de Mujeres Al Borde appeared when I was struggling internally to delineate myself, to define a self-image, to make decisions about the social, symbolic and corporal representation that I had and wanted for myself. I had to discover who I was, what I had been, what I was going to become. I was faced with the challenge of telling my life story, finding a language to communicate experiences that I had not been able to put into words. The process was aimed at discovering and defining what to tell and how to tell it. There I was producing the memory of my transition between genders. My colleagues helped me to take stock of my stories: the incessant search, my multiple selves, all of it in tension bodily changes, and questions that arose from such an uncertain place. We collaborated by giving each other ideas, pushing each other to reach conclusions, contributing other ways to say things, and investigating our own ways to do so. It was above all an emotional process, where we deployed reflective processes of the memories we scrutinized, to translate them and manage to communicate a little bit

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of that intimacy. In the cinematographic exercise of telling the story of my body, a small and temporary relief materialized, which I was needing four months after the operation [referring to breast reduction surgery].

Indeed, autobiographical documentary filmmaking leads us through the multiple layers of silencing that the cis tem has placed on our stories. As Ian expresses, it is an emotional task, which in turn enables other processes, all necessary to find and recover one’s own voice, as well as to discover and create our own vision, and our capacity to observe and narrate ourselves from them. Self-narration is perhaps the most relevant form of political agency in the practices of LGBTQ+ communities, manifested in “poetry, autobiographical narratives, self-portraiture, bodily interventions, the staging of gender (…) [the] affective spaces for the circulation of memory practices” (Ramírez 2015, p. 106). Every time our embodied point of view chooses to focus on that which does not fit the norm, it can create other conditions for visibility-existence, bursting into the collective imaginary and emotions with all that which is “illegible,” ready to betray, mock, dazzle, disconcert the hegemonic gaze and thus open paths allowing us to see ourselves.

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Ramírez, Ana Lucia. “Lo que estos cuerpos tienen que decir: cine comunitário desde los bordes del género y la sexualidad en América del Sur.” La Otra Cosecha 1 (2018): 28–34. https://maizalaudiovisual.files.wordpress. com/2018/09/loc_analucia2018.pdf. Ramírez, Ana Lucia. “Memorias fuera del género: Cuerpos, placeres y políticas para narrarse trans.” Master’s thesis, Universidad de Chile, 2015. http://rep ositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/131413. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Sentamans, Tatiana. 2017. “Redes transfeministas y nuevas políticas de representación sexual. Estrategias de producción,” 177–192. In Transfeminismos. Epistemes, fricciones y flujos. Txalaparta: Tafalla. Umaran, Amaia Nerekan and Iratxe Fresneda Delgado. “Glocal cinema: el caso de Loreak, embajadora mundial del cine en euskera.” Área Abierta 17 (2017): 267–289. https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ARAB/article/view/54835. Wallmapu Festival Internacional de Cine y Artes Indígenas Website. https:// www.ficwallmapu.cl/.

Filmography Agila, Jessica. Mi voz lesbiana. Ecuador: Al Borde Productions, 2016. https:// mujeresalborde.org/creacion/mi-voz-lesbiana/. Arias, Ian Anabel. Déjá vu. Colombia: Al Borde Producciones, 2019. https:// vimeo.com/416805036. Castellanos, Diana. El encuentro. Ecuador: Al Borde Producciones, 2016. https:/ /vimeo.com/315670595. Hooper, Tom. The Danish Girl. United Kingdom and United States: Focus Features, 2015. Kechiche, Abdellatif. Blue is the Warmest Colour. France, Belgium and Spain: Wild Bunch, 2013. Lee, Ang and Annie Proulx. Brokeback Mountain. United States: Film Entertainment/Focus Features, 2006. Medranda, Jorge. Impuesto de salida. Al Borde Producciones. Ecuador, 2016. https://vimeo.com/163950517. Pierce, Kimberly. Boys Don’t Cry. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999. Ramírez, Ana Lucia. Bajo la piel. Colombia: Al Borde Producciones, 2002. https://mujeresalborde.org/creacion/bajo-la-piel-2002/. Sarta, Andrea. Despertar a una Realidad Multicolor. Colombia: Al Borde Producciones, 2011. https://vimeo.com/40938997. Videography Al Borde Producciones https://vimeo.com/albordeproducciones.

CHAPTER 8

Ojo Semilla: Weaving Feminisms Through Community Cinema Diana Coryat, Carolina Dorado Lozano, and Karla Valeri Morales Aguayo

My body becomes the immediate referent of life oppressed or liberated, whether in rural or urban communities. It is in this body where the daily effects of violence, but also of emancipation, are found. Lorena Cabnal (2019, 114)

The co-authors of this text are scholar-practitioners that have been part of the collective construction of Ojo Semilla and other colectivas. D. Coryat Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] C. D. Lozano (B) Independent Scholar, Bogotá, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] K. V. M. Aguayo Independent Scholar, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_8

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Ñañaridad: Our Point of Departure In Ecuador, to affectionately refer to a sister, a compañera, or a very close friend, we usually use the term ñaña, which comes from hermana (sister). Expressing complicity, the word springs forth between laughter, tears and revelations. We began to express the feminist concept of sisterhood as “ñañaridad” during one of our first Ojo Semilla meetings.1 This itinerant audiovisual laboratory would not be possible without it. Ñañaridad has led to the interweaving of voices, experiences, realities and stories of diverse women, toward recontextualizing our past and envisioning our present and future lives. Ojo Semilla’s laboratories have taken place in different cities and towns across Ecuador. In each edition, a group of women from Ecuador and Latin America travel to a specific community to create films together with women from that place. This chapter focuses on the residency held in February 2020 in the Valle del Chota, an Afro-descendant ancestral territory. While we were unaware at the time, it took place under the looming shadow of a global pandemic. The subsequent lockdown forced us to premiere the short films that we created that week in virtual spaces and continue to build relationships with each other remotely. Two years later, thanks to the ñañaridad that we forged, we were finally able to screen the films before a live audience with several of the makers present. As we watched the films together on a big screen, many emotions pulsed through us, especially when several women in the audience provided their feedback by saying “I feel represented in these films, by these women.” In this chapter, we put Ojo Semilla’s audiovisual practices in conversation with feminist pedagogies, theories and concepts. We analyze why community-based filmmaking has taken a feminist turn and trace how Ojo Semilla’s feminist, community-based, intercultural and decolonial pedagogies have opened spaces for Afro, Mestiza, Indigenous, rural and urban women to collaboratively shape their own narratives and aesthetics. After recounting the history of Ojo Semilla, we discuss specific exercises and workshops that prepare the group for audiovisual creation. We analyze three specific workshops (Circle of Women, Traces of Women and the Collective Scripting process) and how they facilitated the production of the three films produced in Chota: Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas 1 Cine Comunitario Ojo Semilla: “Mujeres, género y feminismos” (Community Cinema Ojo Semilla: “Women, Gender and Feminisms”). See http://ojosemilla.elchuro.org/.

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(Carillas: strong and fierce women), El retumbar de las voces (The roar of our voices) and Mujer Montaña (Mountain Woman). We consider it essential to write about this practice and the collectively hewn reflections that have emerged from it, as part of a dialogue with other feminist film collectives that we actively work with. We also seek to communicate with other feminist activists and film scholars since this practice, located at the intersection of activism and filmmaking, often remains outside of their sightlines. Additionally, these emergent audiovisual practices can be situated within a cohort of small(er) cinemas, thus we address makers and scholars interested in a broad array of grassroots audiovisual forms of expression.

Toward a Feminist Community Cinema The twenty-first century has seen increased visibility of women and feminists working in film and media production across Latin America (and the world).2 Contributing to these efforts are many recently formed associations that advocate for pay equity and greater attention to diversity with regards to gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age and ability. Other groups seek accountability for the discrimination and sexual violence that women in these industries have faced. Additionally, feminist film scholars are investigating the historic role that women have played in film production since its invention.3 This work is part of a broad range of activities that constitute of a new wave of vibrant feminist movements. Community filmmaking, although it has been around since the 1980s in Latin America, is not often discussed, understood or even of interest to most national film industries.4 Part of the reason is that its aesthetics and methodologies have been developed in peripheral contexts, and its collectively authored, horizontal modes of production yield work that

2 Fenner and Mennel (2022) propose that intersectional feminisms are proliferating in many film industries around the globe, some of which are addressing structural racism, gender violence and sexual predation. 3 Three such groups carrying out this kind of work in the Andean region are: MUSA (Movimiento de mujeres del sector audiovisual de Colombia), RAMA (la Red de investigación del audiovisual hecho por mujeres en América Latina) and Killary CineLab, who have produced research about women in cinema in Colombia from 1960–2018. 4 See Gumicio Dagron (2014) for a discussion of how community filmmaking fits in to independent and alternative filmmaking in Latin America.

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does not fit neatly into conventional film categories. While we deeply value its legacy and recognize that community-based feminist filmmaking comes out of this tradition, we also have seen how patriarchal structures are often reproduced, from the leadership model of the organizations to the process and even the products. Working within this sector, many of us have struggled to ensure that women are recruited in equal numbers, and that once there, they feel comfortable enough to fully participate. We have witnessed several instances where this has not been the case. For example, in mixed groups, the issue of gender-based violence is often not raised, while in women-only spaces it is often one of the first themes that participants want to explore in their films. In the past few years, several community-based feminist film collectives (often called colectivas ) have been established in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.5 These audiovisual colectivas are created by and for women of diverse geographies, ethnoracial identification and social class. While they respond to local contexts, they all present opportunities for participants to meet, learn filmmaking skills and create fiction and non-fiction narratives. They are spaces of political and social debate that include topics such as the kinds of feminisms with which different members identify. They produce audiovisual content from a feminist sensibility about issues that affect them directly including sexual and reproductive rights, gender-based violence and the defense of territories impacted by extractivism.6

Ojo Semilla: The Possibility of Creating Ojo Semilla: Laboratorio de Cine y Audiovisual Comunitario (Ojo Semilla: Community Film and Audiovisual Laboratory) began in 2017 when a group of Indigenous and Mestizo young men and women came together to make films about their communities’ efforts to defend their territories against oil drilling, mining and other extractive projects. The

5 In addition to Ojo Semilla, other colectivas embarking upon similar work include: AfroComunicaciones and Corpanp in Ecuador, La Partida in Colombia, Vivas Grabando and Sandia Digital in Mexico and Al Borde in Colombia-Chile, and countless others. 6 Feminist, Afro, Indigenous and ecological activists have joined as allies in broadly defending the rights of Nature. Relatedly, many feminisms make explicit the connection between defending bodies and territories, and naming women’s bodies as the first territories to be defended.

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concept behind the name Ojo Semilla (literally “Eye Seed”) is that participants return to their communities to plant seeds containing their skills and vision (see Acosta 2018). The idea of the laboratories is to gather for a week, during which time we live together, write scripts collectively, and create short films. Once we have conceived, shot and edited the films, we host a screening on the final day of the laboratory for ourselves and the community that has hosted us. To reach that final day entails a journey involving many complex layers of collaboration and co-creation. In those first few laboratories, which were mixed gender, we began to discuss the need to create similar spaces expressly for women. In part, this was because young women were often not recruited in equal numbers by their communities. Also, once there, women sometimes did not participate to the same extent as the male participants for a variety of reasons. Fortunately, the dream to create a women-only laboratory soon became a reality. Since 2017, Ojo Semilla’s itinerant laboratories have taken place in Indigenous, Afro-descendent and Mestizo regions in Ecuador. After the first two Ojo Semilla laboratories in Peguche and Sangolquí took place, there have been four feminist editions, taking place in Esmeraldas, Saraguro, Peguche and most recently in the Valle del Chota in February 2020.7 Ojo Semilla seeks to create films informed by a rights- and genderbased perspective. Many participants are already involved in movementbuilding, whether that involves advocating for reproductive justice, denouncing feminicides or defending their territories against oil and mining exploitation. Ojo Semilla intentionally puts together laboratories that are intercultural, intergenerational and intersectional. Working in distinct territories is another key feature of the laboratories. They are designed so that the women and organizations that host the laboratory can strengthen their local work and expand their networks. Local and visiting women live and work together, sharing knowledge among each other and with the community. The Valle del Chota audiovisual laboratory brought together forty Black, Indigenous and Mestizo women that came from cities and towns across Ecuador, including two Afrodescendent regions and four distinct Indigenous territories and languages. 7 Esmeraldas is located on the Pacific Coast and has a large Afro-descendent population; Saraguro is an Indigenous village in the south of Ecuador; Peguche is a small Indigenous village in Imbabura province; Sangolquí is a largely Mestizo town in the valley near Quito; Valle del Chota is an Afro-descendent territory.

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Ojo Semilla also invites women from other countries and in this case, participants from Colombia and Brazil also attended. Post-laboratory reflections and evaluations have strongly indicated that the women participants have found immense value in creating in an intercultural setting that contains multiple realities and perspectives. It is from these complex spaces where we recognize the different ways of being, doing and existing, and we collectively build new ways of interacting that contribute to the decolonization of our practices.

Intersecting Pedagogies and Practices Ojo Semilla’s pedagogy integrates elements of popular education,8 community filmmaking and plural expressions of feminism. These practices encompass a wide range of theories and methodologies, none of which claim to be universally valid. Rather, they are all subject to continual construction and debate and depend upon local contexts and histories. In this section, we briefly discuss how they intersect in Ojo Semilla’s practice. Both popular education and feminist pedagogies emphasize the emancipatory potential of education, forged through dialogue, reflection and the collective construction of knowledge. Neither focuses solely on rational thought, rather they value diverse ways of knowing, for example through the body, emotions, experiences, orality and historical memory. Popular education and feminist pedagogies both emphasize systemic analysis as a path toward changing oppressive social structures and by challenging how specific histories have been interpreted and represented. For example, a popular education workshop might reconstruct historical memory from non-hegemonic or “submerged”9 perspectives, such as from a worker’s, Indigenous or a Global South perspective. A feminist, intersectional analysis would expand on this by examining the historical role of women, especially those that are Black, Indigenous and Mestiza. Both pedagogies affirm oppressed people’s collective agency that powerfully shapes history. Claudia Korol, writing about feminist pedagogy, proposes that: 8 In some academic disciplines in North America, popular education is referred to as critical pedagogy. 9 For Macarena Gómez-Barris (2017, 1) “submerged perspectives” are those that “perceive local terrains as sources of knowledge, vitality, and livability.”

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In this mutual interpellation of theory and practice, it is essential that the greatest number of ways of approaching knowledge come into play, and that along with rationality, colonized by hegemonic educational and communicative processes, there is space for affectivity, feelings, intuition, and the senses. Feminist pedagogy recuperates from popular education the centrality of the body in the educational process, the playful dimension, education through art, psychodrama, the theater of the oppressed, dance, song, and dialogue from various emancipatory ideological perspective… (Korol 2016, 23)10

Community-based filmmaking has been influenced by popular education, and more recently by feminist pedagogies. Paolo Freire,11 a Brazilian educator and philosopher, brought popular education methodologies to many settings, most notably adult literacy programs. When teaching adults to read and write, he distinguished between different ways to approach literacy: functional and critical literacies. He argued that functional literacy “generally give[s] people access to a predetermined and pre-established discourse while silencing their own voices” (Freire and Macedo 2005, 55). On the other hand, a critical literacy process implies “a language of possibility, enabling learners to recognize and understand their voices within a multitude of discourses in which they must deal…” (54). As such, in a critical literacy program, participants learn not only to read and write words (functional literacy); rather, through discussing the very conditions of their lives, they can “read and write the word and the world” and also learn to actively write and rewrite it: … [R]eading the word is not preceded merely by reading the world, but by a certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it by means of conscious, practical work. (Freire and Macedo 2005, 35)12

Community-based filmmaking is a form of critical literacy in that it goes beyond mere technical media training. Rather, the acquisition of media tools is part of an intentional process in which participants reflect on

10 Translation by authors. 11 Freire’s work has been critiqued for decades by feminists, who point to the lack of

an analysis of patriarchy as an oppressing force, among other issues. 12 See Coryat (2014) for a discussion of critical literacy and how that process plays out in community filmmaking.

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their personal lives and struggles, and how they relate to their socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts. This work leads to a re-reading and rewriting of our lives, which is also evident in Ojo Semilla’s pedagogical practices and the films that have been collaboratively produced in the laboratories. Once the films are produced, Ojo Semilla brings them to neighborhoods, community centers, schools, universities and cultural centers that are interested in seeing films from a gender perspective, and critically analyzing machismo, racism, sexism and other interlocking forms of oppression.

Toward a Feminist Audiovisual Praxis Ojo Semilla’s pedagogy is anchored in feminist concepts that include: selfcare; sisterhood (ñañaridad); the personal is political; bodily and territorial autonomy; and reconstruction of historical memory that includes Black, Indigenous and Mestiza women. Like many contemporary feminisms, it emphasizes the reproduction of life, referring not only to sustaining human life but also the rivers, forests and seeds. It also encourages intercultural and intersectional dialogue and analysis. Even before the collectively written stories are filmed, these transversal concepts and principles are transformed into praxis,13 through rituals, bodily movement and dance, writing exercises, dialogue, mapping work and storytelling. These practices interrogate the historical silences, exclusions, and forms of violence women have experienced. They seek to transform dominant narratives and aesthetics into those that resonate more closely with our lives. In this and in the following sections, we share some of the exercises from Ojo Semilla laboratories, and how they prepare the ground for audiovisual creation. Prior to telling stories and turning them into collective scripts, we dedicate time to getting to know each other and to building trust. Through different exercises, including self-portrait making and community mapping, we talk about where we come from and the struggles that we face in each of our territories. We set aside at least one evening to sharing print, multimedia and other products that our collectives have produced and documentation of our collectives in action. This work sets

13 Praxis refers to putting feminist theories and principles into action.

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in motion an ongoing dialogue in which we discover our commonalities as well as differences. We discuss how patriarchal violence has impacted us all, but also how we are affected differently according to our social class, race, geography and many other factors. Such intercultural and intersectional work fosters intimacy as well as generative tensions. Taken together, these practices invite us to shift from an individualistic focus to one that is collective, as we affirm that “no estás sola” (you are not alone). Claudia Korol’s notion of feminist pedagogy resonates deeply with our experiences: Feminist pedagogy assumes group work as a basic need so that the pain produced by unlearning oppressions can be shared and sustained in collectives. It also seeks a systematic interpellation between theory and practice, which allow a reading of individual and social experiences, and new stories to be written with an emancipatory horizon. (Korol 2016, 21)14

With respect to the generative tensions mentioned above, both feminist and critical pedagogies require an ongoing interrogation of power dynamics, not only those that are institutionalized and intentional, but also those that are unintentional. While we aspire to create an intercultural and intersectional setting, multiple kinds of power imbalance are produced, related to systemic disparities related to race, class, education, sexuality and the ways in which patriarchy has differently affected each one of us. We will briefly mention just a few of them here, acknowledging that we could write a chapter dedicated to this theme. With respect to language, while multiple languages are spoken by the participants, the laboratory’s main language is Spanish. The Indigenous women whose second language is Spanish are at a linguistic disadvantage here. Another challenge is to equally include all voices and ideas. Some of the participants have much less experience speaking out in groups or engaging in audiovisual creation, while others are seasoned cultural organizers and filmmakers that have done so for years. These and many other generative tensions emerge throughout the process, and in the best-case scenarios become part of our collective learning and evaluation. Another dimension of the work is spiritual. Ojo Semilla invites participants of diverse cultures, spiritualities, territories and languages to lead rituals throughout the week. Some are planned and others emerge when 14 Translation by authors.

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the need arises. There are rituals for the opening and closing of the laboratory; ones that help us to connect to ourselves and support each other; and others that provide a space for healing from the multiple forms of violence we have experienced. Transversally present in these discussions is the question of bodily autonomy, what it means to make decisions about our lives, and to fully exercise our sexual and reproductive rights. We analyze the multiple impositions and pressures we have been subject to, including heteronormativity, criminalization of abortion and forced maternity. In small and large groups, we explore how our personal and political struggles intersect, making connections between our life experiences and forms of patriarchal, state, economic and political violence, including familial violence, reproductive injustice, feminicide, extractivism and capitalism. One of the ways we promote debate about different life options is by discussing case studies of specific situations that women encounter. A critical practice shared across feminisms is a focus on our bodies as sites of joy, pain, knowledge, sexuality and historical memory. In a simple, yet powerful exercise, participants are asked to walk across the room and make connections by looking into each other’s eyes, and experimenting with different movements and emotions (dancing, laughing and hugging). In other exercises, we unpack what we have been taught about our bodies, such as seeing them as sinful and shameful. In the Valle del Chota laboratory, a visiting facilitator from Colombia led a workshop in which we identified where our bodies have been violated, as well as how they have protected us, given us pleasure or offered wisdom. The exercise included drawing the outline of a woman’s body on a large newsprint that was laid out on the floor. Each woman received two markers, one blue and the other red. We were asked to use the blue one to mark areas on the image of the body where we have felt joyful or strong. We used the red markers to indicate regions where we have felt weak, vulnerable or violated. Once we finished, we stood back to take in how those marks overlapped in many places, and where there were more red or blue ones. We then were asked to compose a letter to our past or present selves or to another person in which we recounted a time when we bravely confronted a situation, or when we forgave or let go of other situations. This exercise required a lot of time and care, as it opened wounds about different instances of aggression and violence, as well as memories of overcoming challenging situations. Indeed, we needed to create another space later in the week for healing, led by women among us that are healers.

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Ojo Semilla focuses on the recovery of women’s stories, experiences and historic memory. We honor our ancestras (women ancestors) by recounting their strengths and struggles and narrating how their stories connect with ours. To encourage this reflection, we have created several workshops. In one of them, entitled Circle of Women, we focus on the women that have been part of our daily lives. Even before the participants arrive at the laboratory, they are asked to bring with them photos or drawings of women that they admire. They often bring images of their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, friends and teachers. We ask each participant to talk about the actions they generated that brought about changes, small or large, for themselves, for other women and their communities. Themes that have emerged from the various stories include independence, strength, liberation from violence and unhealthy family relationships. This exercise is grounded in our daily lives and emphasizes how women close to us have contributed to history and to improving women’s lives. In a related workshop called Traces of Women, participants are given cards with photos or drawings of women and are asked to imagine who they were and what they accomplished. In most cases, these women and their stories have not been widely recognized or valued. After imagining who they might be, the participants turn the card over to read about the woman in question. Then, working in small groups, we create short theatrical pieces that creatively interpret the woman’s story. In the Chota laboratory, one of the women whose story was highlighted was the littleknown historical figure, Martina Carrillo (born 1750, died after 1778) from Chota, an enslaved Black woman who fought for some measure of justice on the plantation where she labored. She traveled to Quito in 1778 to denounce the harsh conditions on the plantation and was severely punished for this act. Her character and story, known by just a few local women, were integrated into one of the short films produced later that week. In Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas (Ojo Semilla 2020b) (Carillas: strong and fierce women),15 Martina Carrillo visits the young protagonist, named Africa, in a dream. In the film, we learn that she is confronting racism because she does not want to straighten her hair, and instead prefers to wear an African-style headwrap. In a stopmotion dream sequence, Martina Carrillo (who is usually represented with a headwrap) counsels her: 15 This film, in Spanish with English subtitles, can be accessed on the Ojo Semilla YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U57WILBFe-g.

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What crown is better than a turban? This one that I proudly wear is a symbol of resistance, freedom, courage and identity. (Carillas: mujeres fuertes y aguerridas (Ojo Semilla 2020b) (Carillas: strong and fierce women)

In reference to the making of Carillas, one of the facilitators highlights the relevance of this kind of process in the creation of new narratives: It is only when we can internalize these stories that we discover that we are inheritors of these struggles, of these historical constructions where we see ourselves. To be able to shape these new narratives and tell stories from our experiences and histories, struggles and achievements, and that counter the negative, stereotypical ways we have been depicted … brings us dignity….While this story was the result of a collective script from diverse women, it is a story that comes from the region where we were filming, with local women guiding us in the telling of that story. (Jacqui Gallegos, AfroComunicaciones, Transcription from a virtual gathering, September 2020)

Two years after its production, in an audience discussion after a panel on cinema, history and the construction of memory,16 a member of the audience, who was analyzing the absence of Afro Ecuadorians, expressed the following: I speak from my place of enunciation as a Black woman. There is always talk of memory, of constructing...it was always repeated to me. Among all these spaces I looked for my image but I couldn’t find it...or faces that represent the women with whom I grew up, Black women. Black women were always represented to us from the servitude, or we were the women who served or we were the hypersexualized women…. Then I discovered community cinema…I remember a short film by Ojo Semilla that featured Martina Carillo. It was the first time I saw the faces of Black women and the first time I saw myself represented in those short films that I saw each of the women who have always accompanied me. Our ancestors also contributed to the construction of memory and continue to contribute. (Mishell Mantuano, July 28, 2022)

16 Panel: Cine, historia y construcción de memoria, July 28, 2022 at Universidad Polytecnica Salesiana, Quito, Ecuador.

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These are just some examples of how Ojo Semilla’s pedagogy links feminist concepts and principles to stories that are grounded in our lives and histories, and why they matter.

The Female Gaze: Audiovisual Narratives and Decolonial Aesthetics In Ojo Semilla, we talk about setting in motion “the possibility of doing.” Participants are often surprised to discover that they can write a script and use a camera to tell their stories, given that filmmaking is often perceived as an activity that is out of reach of all but the most privileged, and often dominated by men. However, community filmmaking invites us to value the people and resources we have within our reach; in Ojo Semilla this consists of the women and their stories. The creation process becomes a tangible activity as the participants become writers, directors, camerawomen and editors of their own films. Many participants do not have previous experience in audiovisual production, so the laboratory includes basic training in using a camera, recording audio and music, composing shots and sequences, constructing a set for a stop-motion animation segment and editing. Appropriating these technical tools is one of many steps toward the collective construction of images and aesthetics. Once, we have engaged in the exercises previously discussed, we begin to select the themes that we want to explore, and stories that we want to tell. We discuss how (or if) we have been represented by others, what it means to represent ourselves, and the responsibility of creating stories that depict women’s lives with sensitivity and dignity. Writing collective scripts allows us to reframe our daily experiences and the obstacles we have faced, without losing sight of our strengths and achievements. The challenge is to shape a story that incorporates the ideas, voices and stories of a diverse group, without excluding anyone’s input. At this point in the laboratory, there are many long conversations and debates. Eventually, stories begin to take shape in which the participants feel represented. While many feminist film theorists write specifically about the documentary form, we find it necessary to think beyond a single format. In the first place, community feminist filmmaking is a mode of production and is not linked to a specific genre. Ojo Semilla’s productions make use of an array of genres, including documentary, fiction, experimental, music video, video poem and animation. What they have in common is that they

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all draw from the lives, experiences and imaginaries of the nascent filmmakers. Also, they clearly activate the female gaze, conceptualized by Lisa French (2021, 1) as “a plural idea that each woman will have her own singular gaze, but a major influence on each woman’s creative expression is her female subjectivity – the experience of living as female.” Elsewhere, French proposes that a key marker of the female gazeis “where female agency is privileged, and shaped by a female ‘look’, voice and perspective” as well as other factors such as culture, race, class, sexuality and age, among other identity markers (2021, 54). In Ojo Semilla’s Chota laboratory, many ideas for films were generated over several days. We eventually settled on three broad themes and split into groups according to the interest of each participant. Three short films were produced: Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas (Carillas: Strong and Fierce Women) focused on women from Chota, highlighting the region, with its people, artisanal production of masks, and music and dance rhythms called Bomba. Carillas is a short fiction largely based on the stories of two participants, both Black women from Chota (in the story they are mother and daughter). In the film, each woman has something weighing on her and needs to make decisions that will give her more control over her life. The mother, a mask maker who would like to have more income and less economic insecurity, begins to learn about her rights as a worker by becoming active in a women’s organization that advocates for labor justice. Her daughter, Africa, needs to decide how she wants to deal with racially motivated pressure she has been receiving to conform to other people’s ideas of how a Black woman should dress. As described in the previous section, Africa receives some ancestral wisdom and strength from an ancestra, Martina Carillo, in a dream. The other two films represented the intercultural and interregional mix of women, knitting together their experiences. El retumbar de las voces (The Roar of our Voices) (Ojo Semilla 2020a) is a music video sung in Indigenous languages and scored with Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous voices and rhythms. It is a joyous celebration of women that maintain their ancestral legacies, defend their bodies and territories and claim the right to make their own decisions. In one part of the music video, women exclaim: If I want to be a mother, or if I want to wait My body and my land will not be abused I am a woman who does not lower her gaze

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In defense of the land El Retumbar de las Voces (The roar of our voices).

Mujer Montaña (Mountain Woman) (Ojo Semilla 2020c)17 is a video poem that expresses self-love and sisterhood among diverse women. Themes of films produced in other Ojo Semilla laboratories include a fictional piece, Ella vendrá (She will come) (Ojo Semilla 2019a), about an Afro-Ecuadorian community awaiting the arrival of the first Black woman president to their village. The short fiction film with an animated sequence, En el mundo marino caben todos los mundos (In the Marine World all Worlds Fit) (Ojo Semilla 2019b), centers on women’s decisions about whether or not, or when, to bear children. Me dijeron que no (They Told Me No) (Ojo Semilla 2018), a fictionalized account of a participant’s real-life story, explores the theme of family and societal pressures to conform to gender norms when selecting a profession. In the video poem Awcha (Ojo Semilla 2019b), which signifies hair in the Kichwa language, the women use their hair as a common thread in the story, as they thematically explore the body, territory and ancestral knowledge. Their hair becomes a symbol of resistance against the symbolic-cultural impositions of racial and sexist systems.18 Many of Ojo Semilla’s films have an expressive, poetic quality that resonate with decolonial feminisms and the study of countervisual19 aesthetics. By decolonial feminisms, we follow Yuderkys Espinosa Miñosa (2019, 13) who proposes that rather than a specific kind of feminism, decolonial feminisms constitute a field of action that center the perspectives of women with the least privilege in any given context. Bringing decolonial feminisms into the study of cinema, (Calderón- Sandoval and Sánchez-Espinosa (2021) analyze aesthetic choices of filmmakers through

17 Mujer montaña can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEuBsh Yr9wA. 18 Ojo Semilla’s films can be seen on its YouTube channel. See https://www.youtube. com/channel/UCUWek35pFjCMEsVFW3wZdvg/videos. 19 For Mirzoeff, countervisuality implies a resistant vision, one that by claiming its autonomy, de-authorizes the dominant form of visuality. For Mirzoeff, visuality “was held to be masculine, in tension with the right to look that has been variously depicted as feminine, lesbian, queer or trans” (2011, 475).

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various lenses, including those of performativity and reflexivity.20 In one such analysis of two films, they extend the work of several feminist theorists and film scholars. Drawing on Judith Butler’s notion of performativity and the way in which feminist new materialist authors like Monica Cano and Karen Abad extend Butler’s work, they propose that the power of film language is that it can help manifest new ways of being and acting in the world. This way of understanding filmmaking is significant for Ojo Semilla as the pedagogical process and the resulting audiovisual work are inseparable. Regarding reflexivity, they find useful Bill Nichols’ characterization, which: [E]mphasizes the subjective and affective dimensions of our knowledge of the world, usually combining imagery and autobiographical aspects, yielding to an ‘expressive quality that affirms the highly situated, embodied and vividly personal perspectives of specific subjects’. (Nichols 2010 [1991], 203) as quoted in (Calderón-Sandoval and Sánchez-Espinosa (2021)

These intertwined lenses, performativity and reflexivity, resonate with the kind of work that has been produced at Ojo Semilla. In many of the films, women take concrete actions that activate new directions in their lives. We suggest that these empowering narratives are intimately tied to the act of re-positioning and re-presenting ourselves as active agents in the context of the discussions, exercises and storytelling. The visually poetic images found in these films indeed are often drawn from the biographies of the participants. To be clear, we don’t teach or discuss these or any feminist and film theories at Ojo Semilla; the resulting films likely have more to do with the pedagogical elements, interpersonal dynamics and creativity that develop in each laboratory.

20 (Calderón-Sandoval and Sánchez-Espinosa (2021) examine diverse feminist authors, theories and concepts in complex and layered ways. This chapter only briefly touches on two of those conceptual lenses.

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The Collective Scripting of Mujer Montaña (Mountain Woman) A critical aspect of the laboratory that shapes the scripting process is examining the relationship that we have with our bodies and inquiring the extent to which it is based on the construction and circulation of the dominant images of women. It becomes important to speak from the body, as oppressions are felt there; as are the resistance to and rejection of homogeneous Western and patriarchal notions of “being a woman.” Through the exercise of self-representation, the filmmakers portray themselves in ways that are closer to their realities and contexts, often choosing to highlight their active roles as friends, sisters, mothers and neighbors; as land defenders that are connected with Nature; or within the context of other struggles such as access to education or decent working conditions. Mujer montaña (Mountain woman) is a video poem that brings together many feminist principles: sisterhood; the defense of the body and territorial defense; a centering on sensuality and pleasure experienced by different kinds of women and their bodies; the scars we bear; our rootedness in grassroots struggles; and a spiritual connection to our land, ancestors and historic memory. Like with all collective scripting processes, the production script itself is preceded by a lot of discussion, debate and hard work. In this case, there were many stories that the participants wanted to narrate, and many images they wanted to film. As a way to bring them together, they decided on an exercise that helped tie their many stories together. This exercise, called Exquisite Corpse,21 is based on each person writing a line of a poem, and presenting an image to the collective. The resulting video poem is one of many micro-stories, in which each woman contributes words, images, feelings and emotions, often autobiographical. The video poem in it is entirely reads: Quality of love, according to what it means to be a “good woman” A good woman, blue body full of scars where each mark tells a story I am a woman, I am a goddess A goddess who loves without time or limits Woman of fertile mind and womb That blooms and bleeds,

21 Interestingly, this exercise was popular with Surrealist artists in the 1920s that wanted to create collaboratively (see moma.org/collection/terms/exquisite-corpse).

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Like the earth that chooses what emerges from it My body, my territory, my ancestors The pleasure is mine, it is ours I touch myself and the earth gets wet. Woman, mother, sister and daughter with the right to decide My hips move with the rhythm of freedom And break my chains so as not to forget I refuse to put my life in the hands of an unworthy man. Furious woman that dreams, lives, cries Smiles, dances, flies Fly my sister Fly, sister of all of us Fly, our sister

I am a Latin American woman My dreams smell of the people I am the color of my struggle. I am black woman I am a woman.

Mujer montaña, produced by twelve women in Ojo Semilla’s Chota laboratory, visually and sonically, represents a diversity of women of different generations. Its images include women whose bodies don’t necessarily conform to traditional norms or a male gaze, looking in mirrors at themselves and outward to each other, playing Bomba rhythms, moving to music, embracing each other, singing and talking, all set in nature, with flowers, mountains and water. In the final shot, the women are sitting together in the water, holding their hands up toward the sky. In discussion with a filmmaker that was a guest facilitator in this laboratory, she shared an important observation about film aesthetics and language. She found more potential for the participants to develop their own aesthetics and cinematic language in genres that are more open and experimental, such as the video poem Mujer Montaña and the music video El retumbar de las voces . As each woman exercised her imagination about how she wanted to express herself symbolically in certain scenes, she relied more on intuition and visuality and less on rationality or conventional filmic language. On the other hand, the fictionalized narrative Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas , while it undoubtedly privileges

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a female gaze, uses a more pre-established cinematic language that is familiar to all participants. As we have described in this section, the films produced evoke sisterhood, collective creation, desiring bodies, alternative realities and affirmation of the right to choose motherhood or not, wear our hair as we would like and work in the livelihoods that we have chosen.

Conclusion The exercise of listening to and accompanying each other in this practice has allowed for intimate spaces to spring open, ones that invite us to awaken our senses and see ourselves from the inside out. For this reason, creating alongside incredible women in each laboratory becomes a fresh discovery, where distinct realities travel through us, question us and challenge us to interrogate our pedagogies and practices. Ojo Semilla’s practices emphasize that the impacts generated in feminist community cinema lie not only in the productions themselves but can be found in all its stages of development. All moments, from designing the laboratory to screening the films with audiences are indispensable when creating collectively. Feminist community cinema is a plural construction in which images, sounds, words and aesthetics are often the result of micro-stories about our personal experiences. They transport us to places that are full of untold stories. The experience of Ojo Semilla has been a voyage, a walk that transforms us and flows through us, that is constantly nourished by each teaching and learning experience. Each laboratory and each film are constructed mainly from what each women present has been able to contribute. For this reason, it has been important to insist on methodological flexibility which allows us to respond to the different needs that emerge in these spaces of exchange. Feminist filmmaking provides us with a set of tools that assist us in affirming that “the personal is political” where we can link our private and public lives and create in a way that goes beyond mere participation, but where we can make our voices and our demands heard and felt.

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Bibliography Acosta, Ana María. Ojo Semilla. Desde abajo hacia arriba nacen otras historias. La Otra Cosecha. Maizal. Número 1, 2018. https://maizalaudiovisual.wor dpress.com/la-otra-cosecha-2/la-otra-cosecha/. Cabnal, Lorena. “El relato de las violencias desde mi territorio cuerpotierra.” In En tiempos de muerte: Cuerpos, rebeldías, resistencias, edited by Xochitl Leyva Solano and Rosalba Icaza, 113–126. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2019. http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl/collect/clacso/index/assoc/D14 695.dir/En_tiempos_de_muerte-cuerpos_rebeldias_resistencias.pdf. Calderón-Sandoval, Orianna, and Adelina Sánchez-Espinosa. “Feminist countercinema anddecolonial countervisuality: subversions of audiovisual archives in Un’ora sola ti vorrei (2002) andPays Barbare (2013).” Studies in Documentary Film 15.3 (2021): 187–202. Coryat, Diana. Critical Youth Media Pedagogy: A Case Study of Global Action Project. Sunnyvale, CA: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2014. Dagron, Alfonso Gumucio. “Aproximación al cine comunitario.” In El cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe, edited by Dagron, 17–72. Bogotá: Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, 2014. https://library.fes.de/ pdf-files/bueros/la-comunicacion/10917.pdf. Espinosa Miñosa, Yuderkys. Ed. Feminismo descolonial: Nuevos aportes teoricometodologicos a más de una década. Quito: Abya Yala, 2019. Fenner, Angelica, and Barbara Mennel. “Introduction: The Singular Plural of Feminist Film Practice.” Feminist German Studies 38, n.o 1 (2022): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1353/fgs.2022.0003. Freire, Paulo, and Donaldo Macedo. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. New York: Routledge, 2005. French, Lisa. “The ‘Female Gaze’.” In The Female Gaze in Documentary Film: An International Perspective, 53–70. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Gómez-Barris, Macarena. The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Korol, Claudia. Ed. Feminismos populares, pedagogías y políticas. Buenos Aires: El colectivo, Editorial Chirimbote, América Libre: 2016. https://www.biblio tecafragmentada.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Feminismos-populares. pdf. Lagarde, Marcela. “El género,” fragmento literal: ‘La perspectiva de género.’” In Género y feminismo. Desarrollo humano y democracia, edited by Lagarde, 13–38. Madrid: Horas y Horas, 1996. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “The Right to Look.” Critical Inquiry 37, n.o 3 (2011): 473–496. Ojo Semilla Website. http://ojosemilla.elchuro.org/. Ojo Semilla Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ojosemilla-cineco munitario2997.

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Filmography Ojo Semilla. Me dijeron que no. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2018. Ojo Semilla. Ella vendrá. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2019a. Ojo Semilla. En el mundo marino caben todos los mundos. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2019b. Ojo Semilla. El retumbar de las voces. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2020a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lOfH2tcEiQ. Ojo Semilla. Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2020b. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= U57WILBFe-g. Ojo Semilla. Mujer montaña. Ecuador: Ojo Semilla Film and Audiovisual Laboratory, 2020c. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEuBshYr9wA.

CHAPTER 9

From the Festival-as-Event to the Festival-as-Process: A Journey Through Community Film Festivals in Colombia Natalia López Cerquera

Introduction In the last two decades, there has been a worldwide proliferation of specialized film festivals, which has led to the creation of alternative spaces for the circulation and exhibition of audiovisual productions. This has certainly been the case in Colombia. The first community film festival was created in 2007, and by 2021, six of these festivals were established in different regions of the country: the Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María (Montes de María Audiovisual Festival) in Carmen de Bolívar; the Festival Nacional de Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca (the National Community Film and Video Festival of the Aguablanca District) in Cali; the Festival Internacional de Cine y Video

N. L. Cerquera (B) Cali, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_9

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“Ojo al Sancocho” (International Alternative and Community Film and Video Festival “Ojo al Sancocho”) in Bogotá; the Festival de Cine y Video Comunitario “Miní Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque” (Community Film and Video Festival-Miní Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque) in San Basilio de Palenque; Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13 “La Otra Historia” (Comuna 13’s “The Other History” Film and Video Film Festival) and the Festival Internacional de Cine Comunitario Afrodescendiente Kunta Kinte (Kunta Kinte International Afro-descendant Community Film Festival), these last two both held in Medellín. The circulation of audiovisual works from this diverse community filmmaking sector is challenging since “if Latin American auteur cinema itself faces serious problems to reach the screens of the region, this is even more so the case when it comes to films emerging from collective participatory processes” (Gumucio 2014, 17). It is precisely the community film festivals, most of them led by the same organizations that organize a range of community-based processes that are the most important sites for the circulation of these films (Aguilera and Polanco 2011a, b). Following Alfonso Gumucio (2014), throughout Latin America there has been an emergence of community film screenings and festivals that foster spaces for national and international exchanges. In this way, the scope of these cinemas is widened beyond their local audiences. Given that community film festivals are a growing national phenomenon, I conducted research between 2017 and 2019,1 seeking to characterize these festivals in terms of their significance and projected impact, particularly from the perspective of the organizers that created them. To this end, and from a multi-sited perspective, I extensively studied the progression of the aforementioned six festivals, and in the second stage of research, I focused on the longest-running festivals. This chapter focuses on the main findings of this research, based on the understanding of these festivals as long-term processes that go beyond the temporality of the event, and that are constructed from a territorialized notion of the audiovisual, in what I call the festival-as-process. I analyze three moments in this complex process. The first foregrounds the notion of community cinema and how it relates to festivals as scenarios 1 This research was co-funded by the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History) and the Secretaría de Cultura de Cali (Secretariat of Culture of Cali) and linked to my master’s thesis in Antropología visual (Visual Anthropology) at Flacso-Ecuador.

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that promote the circulation of these films in the Colombian context. This is followed by a contextualization of these festivals, which allows a discussion of their origins. The third section focuses on the concept of the festival-process, insofar as they set in motion a series of pedagogical and educational processes that are designed to strengthen certain communities.

Reflecting on Community Cinema Through Its Festivals Despite being a term that is gaining visibility, the concept of “community cinema” has not been fully theorized. It is associated with ways of thinking about and creating audiovisual works that are categorized as alternative, marginal, participatory, peripheral, indigenous, popular and precarious, among other terms. As Clemencia Rodríguez (2008) observes, each of these categories “emphasizes a different aspect and is connected to different theories of the democratization of communication” (11). In Latin America, there are three noteworthy volumes that have contributed both theoretically and methodologically to the discussions of community cinema. The first of these is the volume Cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe (2014), whose editor, Alfonso Gumucio, gathers case studies from different Latin American countries. The second volume is Cine comunitario en Argentina: Mapeos, experiencias y ensayos (2017a), edited by researcher Andrea Molfetta. Third, in the Colombian context, there is the research project “Experiencias de apropiación colectiva de tecnologías audiovisuales en Cauca, Nariño y Valle del Cauca,” (“Experiences of collective appropriation of audiovisual technologies in Cauca, Nariño and Valle del Cauca”) conducted between 2009 and 2011 by Camilo Aguilera and Gerylee Polanco.2 It is also important to mention the contributions made by Clemencia Rodríguez, a Colombian communication scholar, who conceptualizes these collective processes as “citizens media” (Rodríguez 2008, 11). The research conducted by Aguilera and Polanco (2011a) in Colombia and Molfetta’s (2017a, b) work in Argentina acknowledge that in the

2 This research project resulted in two publications (Polanco Uribe and Aguilera Toro 2011a, b).

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audiovisual processes that are classified as “community,” such practitioners’ rarely distinguish between different categories, using several terms interchangeably. For example, in the case of Aguilera and Polanco’s research, they clarify that they use the term “community video” because “it is the term most used by those who work in this sector, but the words alternative, popular and, less frequently, free, inclusive, cultural and educational, are also used” (Aguilera and Polanco 2011a, 17). Molfetta has found that “the notion of community cinema appears at the beginning of a social process that proposes community communication as a major goal,” thus directing its objectives and the ways to reach them through thinking of “the common” and the collective (Molfetta 2017a, 44). According to Gumucio, who has been invested in these processes, community cinema is based on the right to communication and therefore: Community cinema and audiovisuality are expressions of communication and artistic and political expression. In most cases, they emerge from the need to communicate without intermediaries, to do so in a language of one’s own that has not been predetermined by others, and whose aim to fulfill in society the function of politically representing marginalized, underrepresented or ignored collectivities. (Gumucio 2014, 18)

Within this framework, the filmmaking process would lack meaning if during production, pre-existing social processes were not facilitated, social ties strengthened and the dynamics that favor empowerment proposed. We are discussing, then, not only a film but a film-process. Thus, they are related to “emerging processes that are reconfigured and re-signified to the extent that particular subjectivities and their modes of sociability also do so, according to the conditions established in each territory” (Grünig 2017, 425). From perspectives such as those of Mohaded, Gumucio, Aguilera and Polanco and Molfetta, lo comunitario and the audiovisual experience is also closely linked to the construction and/or strengthening of communities, their identities and territories. In this context, it is frequently related to the “different communities that seek to express their identities from their own territories; that is, its practitioners refer to a cinema through which the community tells stories for its members and for others” (Grünig 2017, 416).

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Community cinema takes place in both rural and urban contexts. However, several case studies indicate that they have some characteristics in common, including emerging from the peripheries (Aguilera and Polanco 2011b, 16). In this type of context, Barrera (2017) suggests that “in some cases they flourish with little effort because they tend to occur in territories already implanted with a deeply rooted historical trajectory. A history of struggles, sometimes won, sometimes lost, but where community processes have always been present” (73) and from which the inhabitants have historically faced multiple problems, among them: [D]enial or distortion of a self-image, a lack of images made by and for it, a lack of knowledge about the communities’ past, the absence of collective projects, environmental pollution, a lack of access to education, jobs and recreational opportunities, poverty, violence, armed conflict, forced displacement, absence of spaces for political participation, etc. (Aguilera and Polanco 2011a, b, 25)

Particularly in the Colombian context, there is a close relationship between the emergence of this type of initiative and the armed conflict. As will be discussed below, the advent of audiovisual, collective and community processes is connected with the need to resist different types of violence and propose the reconstruction of the social fabric, which has deteriorated in certain regions of the country. Clemencia Rodríguez (2008) has made important contributions to this discussion based on her analysis of the intersection between the appropriation of technologies, citizen media and armed conflict in Colombia. In this regard, she observes: When a community, a collective, or an individual appropriates a technology such as radio, video, television, or photography, it is appropriating ways of producing signs, codes, images and sounds to recount its reality on its own terms. Citizen use of information and communication technologies turns us all into crafters of meaning and for this reason they have a great potential among communities where war has destroyed the everyday networks of meaning. (Rodríguez 2008, 14)

An examination of community cinema can lead us to explore multiple perspectives. In the framework of this study, I propose that it is necessary to consider three related elements: (1) collective models of production;

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(2) the conception of cinema as a process; and (3) community cinema’s situated character, which leads it to respond to the problems and particularities within specific contexts.

Community Film Festivals: Bringing the Peripheries into Focus The study of film festivals remains an emergent research topic. As Aida Vallejo (2012) suggests, scholarly interest in this field has led to the study of these festivals as complex phenomena, focused less on the films themselves but rather on the relationships and dynamics that are constructed through these festivals. Indeed, it is a complex task to characterize these festivals, as they take on very different forms and functions around the world. However, in general terms and from an anthropological perspective, it could be said that festivals are “socio-cultural practices that take place sporadically in different geographical locations” (Vallejo 2012, 60). Following Peirano and Vallejo (2017) and Stringer (2001), it is useful to understand festivals as sites of mediation in which the interests and meanings of specific groups are constantly negotiated, and in which sociocultural relations are established and reinvented (Stringer 2001, 43). Despite their ephemeral nature, film festivals ultimately operate as nodes where different social actors linked to the field of cinema converge, and who year after year meet and interact (Vallejo 2017, 277). Among the various perspectives about community film festivals, those that highlight the potential of festivals as platforms for the alternative dissemination of films are highly relevant, especially as those works do not usually circulate easily nor are they able to access commercial exhibition spaces (Elsaesser 2005; Iordanova 2013; Vallejo 2014; Peirano 2016; Nichols 2013). Chilean researcher María Paz Peirano understands festivals as facilitators of visibility, distribution and financing within alternative circuits (Peirano 2016, 115). She also points out that they serve as training grounds for directors and producers in peripheral areas, particularly in Latin America, as these kinds of spaces are in short supply. Vallejo asserts that the influence of the festivals is decisive for many of these productions, as oftentimes they are the only exhibition spaces available (Vallejo 2014, 167). This alludes to what she calls minority film practices (Vallejo 2014, 15), which fall in the category of what Coryat

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and Zweig (2019) refer to as “small(er) cinemas” which include film and video productions produced by community, activist, amateur, indigenous, Montubio, Afro and women’s groups, as well as regional actors. Some studies about festivals around the world have focused on them as being produced by and directed toward diverse peripheral communities. The volume Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities, edited by Dina Iordanova et al. (2010), analyze festivals from the peripheries that operate from logics that are different from those of the large festivals with industrial approaches. The authors propose a reading of the role that these small festivals play for minority communities that usually do not have access to the means to create cinematographic narratives about their lives and immediate contexts (Dina, Iordanova et al. 2010, 288). Festivals from the periphery are brought to life by cultural organizers and audiences that gather together in front of and on the screen foster and build community (Iordanova 2010, 13). These are produced in social contexts that, despite their diversity, have many elements in common, mainly due to the socio-historical backgrounds that condition their symbolic and material realities. They are often linked to migrant, refugee, indigenous and LGBTIQ+ groups. For Iordanova, although the socio-political agendas of these festivals are diverse, as are their levels of visibility, access to resources and degree of marginalization of the places in which they take place, they make visible the communities they represent (Iordanova 2010, 16–17). In this study, the community film festivals are closely aligned with the typology mentioned above. I analyze the periphery at two broad levels that intersect. In the first place, I examine peripheral communities and contexts, insofar as their socio-historical dynamics are embedded in processes of marginalization, invisibilization, segregation and violence. These dynamics are deeply linked to the very emergence of these festivals and, in turn, constitute the site of enunciation from which many of the narratives emerge. In the second place, a festival’s peripheral condition is also constituted by the type of films it screens and the kinds of logics it manifests, which contrast with the centrality of the commercial film industry and the type of works it prioritizes. In this sense, as suggested by Aguilera and Polanco, the films that circulate in the festivals studied herein are created from a multiplicity of peripheries, among them: “popular sectors, ethnic ‘minorities,’ women, youth, etc.” (Aguilera and Polanco 2011b, 16).

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Contexts and Emergence of Community Film Festivals in Colombia According to figures from the Dirección de Cinematografía del Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia (Directorate of Cinematography of the Ministry of Culture), as of 2020, according to what was registered in SIREC,3 there are eighty-three film festivals and exhibition spaces in Colombia, and these have a presence in fifty municipalities in the country (Dirección de Cinematografía 2021). The emergence of many of these festivals are specialized, characterized by a segmentation of the type of productions that are exhibited in these events, either by theme or genre, with categories such as “short films, social, gender, environmental, ethnic, community and regional production, and children’s audiences, among others” (Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia 2017). Fifty-one of these festivals are linked to the Asociación Nacional de Festivales, Muestras y Eventos Cinematográficos y Audiovisuales (National Association of Festivals, Screenings and Filmic and Audiovisual Events of Colombia, ANAFE). They use the following distribution categories: independent, commercial and community. As the number of festivals around the world has proliferated, scholars have become increasingly interested in them as objects of research, especially in European contexts. Even though there are fewer studies in the Latin American context, research about festivals is on the rise. In the Colombian case, there are few such studies and as D’Abraccio (2015) suggests; very little critical analysis or assessment of festivals has been carried out. Circulation, audience reception and appropriation of community cinema are also areas that are still under-researched. Despite the fact that in Latin America, studies that analyze community cinema has increased in the past few years; the scholarly work around this is surprisingly scarce in relation to the number of collective and organizational experiences linked to audiovisual culture. Most of the research carried out so far focuses on production, modes of collaboration within the field and the narratives that are constructed.

3 The Sistema de Información y Registro Cinematográfico (Film Information and Registration System, SIREC). This statute, created by Law 814 of 2003, is intended to support policy monitoring and decision-making processes for national cinematography and stipulates that all festivals must be registered in this information system for each festival edition.

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In Colombia, research by Aguilera and Polanco (2011a, b) has shown that in the Departments of Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca, there are at least 131 collectives related to this method of making and conceptualizing the audiovisual. This led the authors to conclude that “this is a growing phenomenon both in terms of the number of people and collectives and in terms of forms of organization and visibility” (Aguilera and Polanco 2011b, 23). Their research also revealed that it is the organizations themselves that have been responsible for proposing and facilitating the circulation of community films. Most film festivals in Colombia “respond to the needs of the industrial or artistic sectors: ‘In these festivals many films are left out because they do not meet the minimum technical requirements or because they do not meet certain commercial expectations, and they are discriminated against’” (Aguilera and Polanco 2011b, 279). On top of this, there are the expenses incurred by filmmakers such as shipping copies of their films and attending the events. Therefore, the creation of community film festivals provides an alternative that facilitates the exhibition of these works as well as creates spaces for encounters with communities and other grassroots projects. As shown in Table 9.1, there are six community film festivals in Colombia. The first is the Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María,4 which was created in 2007. In 2008, the Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca emerged, as well as the Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario “Ojo al Sancocho.” As of 2019, these festivals have had ten and twelve editions, respectively. Subsequently, in 2011, the Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13 “La Otra Historia” was founded in Medellín, and it has had nine editions as of 2019. These festivals all have competitive categories and a juried selection process that designates official selections. In 2015, the Festival de Cine y Video Comunitario-Miní A GuatiáSan Basilio de PalenqueFestival de Cine y Video Comunitario-Miní A Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque was founded, and since its inception it has had three editions at the time of writing. In 2016, the Festival Internacional de Cine Comunitario Afrodescendiente Kunta Kinte was created, 4 It should be clarified that although this festival does not define itself as a community film festival, as it adheres mainly to a broader affiliation linked to social cinema, its characteristics are congruent with this type of festival and its organizers recognize that the activities and significance of the festival have an important community component.

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and it has had four editions by 2019. It should be clarified that not all of these are international festivalsInternational festivals, which means that within the competition sections of the official selections some receive only national films, as is the case of the Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca and “La Otra Historia.” This information can be seen in Table 9.1.

Table 9.1 Community film festivals in Colombia Name

Year of emergence

Number of editions

Location

Organizers

Festival de Cine y Video Comunitario-Miní A Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario “Ojo al Sancocho” Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca-FESDA Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María

2015

3

San Basilio de Palenque, Mahates. Bolívar Ciudad Bolivar, Bogota. Cundinamarca District of Aguablanca, Cali. Cauca Valley Carmen de Bolívar. Bolívar

Kuchá Suto Collective

2008

13

2008

11

2007

9

Festival Internacional de Cine Comunitario Afrodescendiente Kunta Kinte Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13, La Otra Historia

2016

5

Medellín. Antioquia

2011

10

Comuna 13, Medellín. Antioquia

Sueños Films

Asociación FESDA

Colectivo de Comunicaciones Montes de María Línea 21 Corporación Afrocolombiana de Desarrollo Social y Cultural Carabanú Full Producciones

Sources Festival websites and author’s fieldwork. During 2020, five of the festivals had virtual editions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This table was created by the author (information updated as of February 2021)

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Background, Objectives and Significance of Community Film Festivals These festivals are linked to grassroots organizations and initiatives that were already established in the communities where they are based. Their work constitutes political practices that are enacted in the territories with various purposes, among them, to value and enhance local initiatives, but also to create a space for the visibility of the territory and its communities. In each festival, the organizers’ ties with the territory are expressed in different ways. In the cases of the Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario “Ojo al Sancocho” and the Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca and the Comuna 13 Festival, they are based in peripheral districts of large cities, which share similar characteristics and socio-spatial dynamics, such as the Aguablanca District in Cali, Ciudad Bolívar in Bogotá and Comuna 13 in Medellín. As for the Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María, its territory is a region, specifically of the Montes de María, which was deeply marked by the armed conflict that had affected much of the country, leaving its inhabitants stigmatized in many ways. The Festival Internacional de Cine Afro y Comunitario—Kunta Kinte and the Festival de Cine y Video Comunitario-Miní A Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque arose from the need to elevate narratives of Afro-Colombians and put the theme of representation on the table, acknowledging that while territory is important, it intersects with questions of identity. Among this festival’s objectives are to question the representations and dynamics that have historically stereotyped, exoticized or rendered invisible Colombia’s Afro population. It emphasizes the recognition of differences and the construction of possibilities for peace. The festival also seeks to generate spaces for the dissemination and preservation of the memory of the country’s ethnic communities and the exchange of knowledge of traditional practices in its territories. While the designation of “community” might seem obvious due to the kinds of productions that are featured in the festival program, there are other integral aspects of the work. Beyond exhibition, the festival organizers offer multiple opportunities for exchanges between organizations and social actors linked to community audiovisual culture at the local and in some cases, international level. These encounters, which also include training and capacity-building, lead to the construction of new meanings, broader discussions of various issues and contexts, and the cultivation

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of new audiences, who in turn have the opportunity to see their lives reflected back at them. All these kinds of encounters offer the potential to build and strengthen ties and networks, and interaction among people from different contexts. Finally, their production logics seek to be consistent with the long-term relationships and processes already underway in the communities where the festivals take place.

Communities of Meaning: Publics and Participants The attendees of these festivals have different profiles and backgrounds. One group comes from barrios, or popular neighborhoods and sectors, where the festivals take place. Another group consists of people interested in community audiovisual culture. The latter group is made up of those invited to the festivals, as well as people from the cities and/or the region where the festivals are held, as well as citizens from other parts of the country. As Vallejo (2012) points out in her analysis of festival circuits, these are scenarios in which there is not only circulation of audiovisual works, but also of diverse kinds of publics with different profiles (Vallejo 2012, 94) such as academics, filmmakers and cultural organizers. Although the festivals’ publics are diverse, the target audiences for the six festivals analyzed here are the inhabitants of the territories. Another shared characteristic of the festivals is that the largest percentage of audiences is made up of children and adolescents who, in many cases, are also part of the training programs that are linked to the festivals. The secondary audience, those interested in community audiovisual culture, connects with local publics. In this regard, as Peirano suggests, such encounters give shape to alternative audiovisual circulation (Peirano 2017, 72). This dynamic is very strong in the Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario “Ojo al Sancocho” and in the Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María. Year after year, local, regional, national and international community actors and organizations converge in the activities programmed by the festival. In fact, these two festivals annually allocate significant resources to facilitate visits and lodging of both local workshop participants and visiting groups associated with the films, whether they are producers, directors or actors.

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Community Film Festivals as Territorially-Situated Experiences The six festivals analyzed here take place in five different municipalities: Cali, Medellín, Bogotá, Carmen de Bolívar and Mahates. The reasons for their emergence coincide in multiple ways. Among them: the need to create free spaces for discovery and exhibition of community cinema in order to promote processes of visibilization of communities that have been deeply stigmatized and marginalized. Among the characteristics that unite the community cinema sector is the idea of cinema as a process, which is crucial for understanding the ways in which its significance and practices are configured. Images are constructed in a participatory manner, in the film is not “of individual use, but rather consists of collective and projects, its operation extending to other social fields, valuing it more as a cinema-process than as a manufacturer of an audiovisual ‘product’” (Molfetta 2017b, 432). As asserted by Molfetta and Aguilera and Polanco, it implies a practice that exceeds the interest of making films. Community video, beyond making films, strengthens its social fabric, collective thinking and memory. Consequently, the audiovisual process becomes part of strategies of education, communication, political resistance, identity construction, etc. (Aguilera and Polanco 2011a, 75)

The articulation of these elements configures a differentiating factor of community film festivals, which can be condensed in what I have called festival-process. Daniela Anaconas, member of the Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca (FESDA), points out that these festivals are not just events, rather they are processes of “training and need to be understood from that vantage point so that they can really be valued as festivals.”5 To a large extent, the festival organizers’ work would lack meaning if it were not understood as a process, and if there were no connection with the territories in which their work is carried out. This fosters sustainability and encourages them to continue transforming themselves year

5 Daniela Anaconas, interview by author, February 16, 2018.

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after year. The priority on building long-term processes in the communities is expressed by Carolina Dorado, member of the Festival Internacional “Ojo al Sancocho,” as follows: You have to have a process, and create a process with the community, and that is what finally gives you success in carrying out your activities [...] So I think it is important that the festival happens once a year, but all year long we are present in the sector, we are in the territory, working with people and with the community…. the team that creates the festival is made up of people from the community who have been there, who know the territory, who know how to do it.6

The same is true for the other festivals that are analyzed here. For FESDA, initially the training component was linked to the Mejoda Collective and in alliance with other organizations that have been present in the District of Aguablanca. Although this festival does not have a formal school and activities of this type are intermittent, year after year they are carried out according to the available resources on the one hand, and the dynamics in the barrios, on the other. Since 2015, “Historias en Azul” (Stories in Blue), an audiovisual training project for children has taken place in the Charco Azul neighborhood of the Aguablanca District. In the Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13 “La Otra Historia,” the Full Producciones Audiovisual School trains children and young people from Comuna 13. Among its objectives are: to strengthen coexistence, assertive communication, the formation of new filmmakers and the construction of peace through audiovisual media. The primary objective is to contribute to the training of new audiovisual producers in order to preserve and promote multicultural exchanges through film and audiovisuals.7

The Festival Internacional de Cine Comunitario Afrodescendiente Kunta Kinte seeks to contribute to the self-recognition and empowerment of the Afro-descendant community of the city of Medellín. The festival organizer the Corporación Afrocolombiana de Desarrollo Social y Cultural (CARABANTÚ) (Afro-Colombian Corporation for Social and Cultural 6 Carolina Dorado, interview by author, March 9, 2018. 7 Full Producciones (2019). Escuela Audiovisual. https://www.fullproducciones.com/

escuela-audiovisual/.

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Development) leads training processes that take place throughout the year in the barrios of Moravia, Mirador de Calasanz, 8 de Marzo, Santa Cruz, Limonar and Nuevo Amanecer. The Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María has been produced by the Colectivo de Comunicaciones Montes de María Línea 21 (Montes de María Communications Collective Línea 21) for more than 20 years. It embodies what Clemencia Rodríguez calls citizens media, as it is “used by civilian populations to reestablish traditional solidarities and recreate new forms of solidarity, to re-appropriate public spaces that had been abandoned by collective terror and to organize collective actions against the armed forces” (Rodríguez 2008, 14). This would be impossible to achieve if the collective and the festival were not long-term processes. It is evident in all of these festivals that the audiovisual component is connected to pedagogical and formative processes. And, as festival-processes, they are articulated with other initiatives within the communities, and in this way, they enhance local experiences that already exist.

Final Considerations Community film festivals in Colombia are designed to foment close relationships between peripheral territories and audiovisual practices. As manifestations of the festival-process, they do not solely identify as an event, but rather are rooted in processes that take place in different communities throughout the year. They are created as festivals from the peripheries, where the peripheral is not only conceived in a socio-spatial issue, but also correlates with the organizers of the festivals, the audiences to whom they are directed and the types of images that circulate. These festivals, then, operate as more than platforms and amplifiers of audiovisual experiences. Rather, they open spaces to share, connect and strengthen community cinema at the national level. In this sense, they propose ways of seeing—in terms of the content being exhibited— and encounters—in terms of those who attend—that differentiate them from other festivals. As meeting spaces, they generate and/or strengthen communities. In these festivals, the meanings attributed to community cinema and community itself are deployed at various levels and are in dispute and in constant resignification. Hence, the experience of developing these festivals has led those who organize them to recognize that community

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cinema in each territory has its own specificities but also commonalities that make it possible for them to connect to each other. In addition to their commitment to the local, these festivals serve to legitimize community cinema not only by exhibiting it, but also by building a discourse around it, visibilizing and naming it. Among the achievements of the festivals are that, from an institutional standpoint, the field of community cinema and the processes themselves are recognized. This, in turn, generates other kinds of legitimacy, not only for the films that are selected for exhibition, but also for the very exercise of producing and thinking about community cinema from the periphery.

Bibliography Aguilera, Camilo and Gerylee Polanco. Video comunitario, alternativo, popular. Apuntes para el desarrollo de políticas públicas audiovisuales. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011a. ———. Luchas de representación: prácticas, procesos y sentidos audiovisuales colectivos en el sur-occidente colombiano. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011b. Barrera Pignone, Jorgelina. “De mapas y cámaras. Antropología visual y mapeo colectivo, metrologías que visibilizan las experiencias y estrategias del cine comunitario y social de Córdoba.” In Cine comunitario argentino, edited by Andrea Cecilia Molfetta, 53–76. Buenos Aires: Teseopress, 2017. Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. “Nuevo cine ecuatoriano: pequeño, glocal y plurinacional.” post(s) 5 (2019): 70–101. https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index. php/posts/article/view/1592. D’Abraccio, Guillermo. Resistencias ante el analfabetismo audiovisual formación de públicos en Colombia: Un abordaje desde los festivales de cine y los cineclubes. Documento inédito de investigación: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Manizales, 2015. Dina, Iordanova, Ruby, Cheung and Ginsburg, Faye. “Cover reviews.” Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals andI Imagined Communities, edited by Dina Iordanova and Ruby Cheung. St. Andrews, Scotland: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2010. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2005. European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. Full Producciones. 2019. “Escuela Audiovisual.” https://www.fullproducciones. org/. Gumucio, Alfonso. El cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe. Bogotá: Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, 2014. https://library.fes.de/ pdf-files/bueros/la-comunicacion/10917.pdf.

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Grünig, Ana. “INVICINES, el cine de los invisibles. Subjetividades políticas en pantalla para pensar el audiovisual comunitario en Córdoba.” In Cine comunitario argentino, edited by Andrea Celia Molfetta, 405–426. Buenos Aires: Teseopress, 2017. Iordanova, Dina. The Film Festival Reader. St. Andrews, Scotland: St Andrews Film Studies, 2010. ——— and Ruby Cheung. Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities. St. Andrews, Scotland: St Andrews Film Studies, 2013. Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección de Cinematografía Website. 2021. http://www. mincultura.gov.co/areas/cinematografia/SIREC/Paginas/default.aspx. Molfetta, Andrea. “Antropología visual del cine comunitario en Argentina. Reflexiones teórico-mitológicas.” In Cine comunitario argentino: Mapeos, experiencias y ensayos, edited by Andrea Celia Molfetta, 77–104. Buenos Aires: Teseopress, 2017a. ———. “Cine comunitario y revolución molelcular.” In Cine comunitario argentino: Mapeos, experiencias y ensayos, edited by Andrea Celia Molfetta, 427–447. Buenos Aires: Teseopress, 2017b. Nichols, Bill. “Global image in the age of late capitalism (1994).” In the The film festival reader”, editado por Dina Iordanova, 29–44. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2013. Peirano, María Paz. “Pursuing, resembling, and contesting the global: the emergence of Chilean film festivals.” New Review of Film and Television Studies 14, n.o 1 (2016): 112–131. http://www.festivalesdecine.cl/wp-content/upl oads/2020/06/ARTICULOFESTIVALESCHILENOSPUBLICADO.pdf. Polanco Uribe, Gerylee and Aguilera Toro, Camilo. Video comunitario, alternativo, popular: apuntes para el desarrollo de políticas públicas audiovisuales. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011a. https://bibliotec adigital.univalle.edu.co/bitstream/handle/10893/20180/Video_com_altern ativo_popular.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. ———. Luchas de representación: Prácticas, procesos y sentidos audiovisuales colectivos en el suroccidente colombiano. Cali: Programa Editorial Universidad del Valle, 2011b. http://videocomunidad.univalle.edu.co/descargas/Libro_Luc has_de_representacion.pdf. Red de Cine Comunitario de Latinoamérica y el Caribe. 2020. https://cineco munitarioenr.wixsite.com/cinecomunitario/criticas. Rodríguez, Clemencia. Lo que le vamos quitando a la guerra: Medios ciudadanos en contexto de conflicto armado en Colombia. Bogotá: Friederich Ebert Stiftung, 2008. Stringer, Julian. 2001. “Global cities and the international film festival economy.” In Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, 134–44. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.

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Vallejo, Aida. “Festivales cinematográficos. En el punto de mira de la historiografía fílmica.” Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine 39 (2014): 11–42. https://revistas.uam.es/secuencias/article/view/5838/6290. ———. “Festivales de cine documental: Redes de circulación cultural en el este del continente europeo.” PhD dissertation, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2012. https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/10305. Vallejo, Aida and María Paz Peirano. Eds. Film Festivals and Anthropology. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.

CHAPTER 10

Eco-Territorial Cinema: An Intercultural, Translocal, and Expanded Community Process Yadis Vanessa Vanegas-Toala

Community Cinema and the Media Culture of the Eco-Territorial Turn In the last two decades, a series of resistance movements that question the overexploitation of Nature related to “neo-extractive development” (Svampa 2011) have arisen in Latin America. In these struggles, diverse political actors have adopted novel forms of collective action from networked cooperation. This trend has been theorized by Svampa (2019) as the “eco-territorial turn,” which results from the “innovative mix of various politico-ideological formations: the indigenous-peasantcommunity nexus and the autonomous narrative matrix in an ecologist key and, more recently, the feminist” (2019, 44). In Ecuador, this hybrid militancy brings together social actors from different sectors: urban and rural spaces; indigenous and Afro-descendant communities; various social

Y. V. Vanegas-Toala (B) Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_10

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movements; NGOs, feminists; environmentalists; academics and intellectuals; as well as civic and alternative media. An emergent media culture of communication practices in “defense of life and territory” has arisen in this scenario (Coryat 2019). Communication practices that recognize and politicize the fight for territory have proliferated, as a basis to fight for collective rights relating to culture and nature (Vanegas-Toala 2020a) and to the struggles related to the notion of territory.1 Indeed, Fernández Bouzo and Bruno Besana (2019) propose that ecological movements and networks should incorporate community cinema as a strategy for raising awareness about environmental justice claims. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have generated social-communicative transformations in the forms of production, circulation, distribution and exhibition, which have made it possible to reach new publics at diverse local, regional and global spaces. As such, I propose that eco-territorial community cinema constitutes a mediatedpolitical-cultural mechanism that transforms the notions of belonging to a community. These symbolic mediations (Martín-Barbero 1987) generate territorial and eco-political awareness from intercultural processes, due to the diversity of actors that participate cooperatively in a translocal dynamic. In Ecuador, territorial defense has been a central axis in the political agenda of native peoples, and it also has shaped indigenous and community audiovisual production. This chapter focuses on Etsa-Nantu/ Cámara Shuar, an audiovisual laboratory created in 2013 for the purpose of making visible eco-social conflicts in the Cordillera del Condor in the Amazon. Another emblematic case of eco-territorial cinema is that of the Kichwa Sarayaku people, which have been instrumental in shedding light on its anti-extractivist struggles. This Amazonian community began to make films in the 1980s, motivated by the uninvited incursion of an oil company onto their territory. They first began audiovisual training in alliance with NGOs. Subsequently, they initiated their own processes of production and self-affirmation (Álvarez 2014, 364). Since then, the Kichwa Sarayaku has been one of the key referents of indigenous and 1 Such disputed meanings range from the extractive economic rationality in which land is assumed to be productive or non-productive (Svampa 2019) to an environmental rationality, as spaces for reproducing life and culture (Leff 2004; Porto-Goncalves and Leff 2015; Moreano et al. 2017).

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community cinema. The Kichwa director Eriberto Gualinga is a wellknown filmmaker. Some of his films include: Soy defensor de la selva (2009) and Kawsak Sacha, la canoa de la vida (2018). In both cases, the community has participated actively through its production company, Selvas Productions. At a symbolic level, its films have positioned its Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest) cosmovision; at a legal level, the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (ICHR), in 2010, issued a historic resolution in its favor, in which it ruled on the expulsion of the CGC oil company and the removal of the explosives placed in their territories.2 Other recent community and indigenous film projects in Ecuador that focus on eco-territorial defense include: Ojo Semilla, Laboratorio de Cine y Audiovisual Comunitario.3 Created in 2015, it provides training in audiovisual production to Afro-descendant, indigenous and mestizo youth in urban and rural areas of Ecuador. Renowned national and international filmmakers help facilitate the production processes through popular education methodologies, with an emphasis on community feminism and territorial defense. Sacha Manchi Escuela Ambulante de Cine y Video Comunitario,4 created in 2017, seeks to promote collective artistic creation in production and postproduction training, as well as the exhibition of films and videos in Ecuadorian Amazonian communities. Tawna,5 an Amazonian production company led by indigenous directors that was created in 2020, pursues territorial defense by developing films based on its own perspectives and cosmovision.

Small Cinemas, Expanded Community, and Activist Communication Practices Historically, Latin American community filmmakers have recognized a communication rights framework and relatedly, audiovisual sovereignty, as sites where marginalized communities express their political struggles based on their own worldviews, aesthetics and language, without intermediaries (Gumucio-Dagron 2014, 9). The Latin American and Caribbean

2 Regarding the case of Sarayaku, see http://sarayaku.org/caso-sarayaku/. 3 See http://ojosemilla.elchuro.org/. 4 This is an initiative of the Aldhea Foundation and the Agencia Ecologista Tegantai. See http://sachamanchi.aldhea.org/. 5 See https://tawna.org.

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Community Cinema Network, created in 2014, proposes that community filmmaking seeks greater well-being through self-representation and making visible their realities (Red de Cine Comunitario de América Latina y el Caribe 2020). In Ecuador, Pocho Álvarez (2014) attributes the rise of community cinema to those social actors that have historically been discriminated against, mainly native peoples. Indeed, both community and indigenous cinema emerged in the context of the creation of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in 1986 and the uprisings of the indigenous movements. These struggles took place during the nineties and constituted a demand for the recognition of collective, territorial and cultural rights, and the self-determination of indigenous peoples.6 Another outcome of these political processes was the recognition of audiovisual sovereignty and the democratization of communication (Álvarez 2014). Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig (2019), in their article about New Ecuadorian Cinema, which emerged in the 1990s, proposed the category “small cinemas” to refer to community, guerilla and indigenous cinema, and activist documentaries. These “small cinemas,” eclipsed by the mainstream national film sector, constitute a form of audiovisual agency. Located on the margins of the nation-state, they question the monocultural “national.” Coryat and Zweig propose a paradigm shift toward a “plurinational” cinema that visibilizes the cultural diversity of a country with fourteen nationalities and eighteen legally recognized pueblos (Coryat y Zweig 2019, 78). In Ecuadorian community cinema, a locus of debate has been the meaning of community, which generally has been associated in a reductionist way to work by indigenous, peasant and rural populations. At present, the notion of community has moved beyond ethnic and geographic essentialisms. Indeed, contemporary studies understand it as community-based, audiovisual communication practices, where mainly grassroots populations participate and have control in decision making, in cooperation with (not led by) networks of various actors that support and drive the process (Fernández Bouzo y Besana 2019). For Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron (2014), community cinema boosts what is commonly

6 These indigenous insurgencies led to the declaration of Ecuador as a multicultural country in the Constitution of 1998. The principle of interculturality was established in the Constitution of Ecuador of 2008 (current).

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shared as political objectives, which gives rise to what is called a “community of interest.” Similarly, Gerylee Polanco and Camilo Aguilera (2011) suggest that the political meanings interwoven in community cinema are performative of the political and social transformations that the community wants to see. Thus, at stake is the historical-cultural recognition of the community, understood as a political project that is not free of conflict nor of essentialist romantizations. Pocho Álvarez (2014) concurs when he emphasizes that community cinema should be understood as a social process of collective meaning-making that gives sense to their demands. The conception of “expanded community” (Polanco-Uribe y Aguilera-Toro 2011) enables an understanding of the notion of a network for collective action, from the cooperative logic on which community cinema is historically based. Generally, it is nourished by the participation of organizations from the third sector, academics or professional filmmakers. The production, circulation and exhibition dynamics of eco-territorial community cinema may also be interpreted as “hybrid media activism” (Treré 2019), which situates the communication practices of social movements in a media ecology framework. The hybrid nature of contemporary communication practices refers to the fact that activists interact with and from a broad range of technologies (old/new), spaces (physical/digital), actors (human/non-human), communication process (internal/external) and channels (corporate/alternative). This has an impact on both its symbolic dimension and its production and subsequent circulation and exhibition. Upon this foundation, I propose that the notion of expanded community in an eco-territorial and intercultural key implies that audiovisual community practices generate an “embodying” of the defense of the territory, according to the common interests of various actors that exchange knowledge and feelings through intercultural dialogue. Moreover, this activity has a multisited character which enables a translocal field of action. These practices occur in local territories where the productions take place, and in regional and global territories where circulation, distribution and exhibition occur in specialized festivals and academic circuits. This dynamic generates an expanded territoriality and “new expanded territorial awareness” (Vanegas-Toala 2020a, 138), manifested in both physical and digital spaces, connecting urban and rural realities in a symbiotic flow that includes the use of analog and digital technologies and processes.

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Etsa-Nantu/Cámara-Shuar: Laboratory of Audiovisual Creation Founded in 2013, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar7 is an audiovisual laboratory for the territorial defense of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The collective is co-directed by the indigenous leader Domingo Ankuash and the mestiza activist filmmaker Verenice Benítez. The laboratory is independent; it is not part of the organizational structure or communication system of the Interprovincial Federation of Shuar Centers (FISCH) or of the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA). It facilitates self-directed, collaborative processes of filmmaking in alliance with academics, environmentalists, professional filmmakers and non-profit institutions. Its productions include documentary and fiction films, which are characterized by collective and intercultural practices. The following testimony evidences how such an alliance is articulated and the objectives pursued by this laboratory: We have lived in this territory before colonial times. When invasions started, news began to appear and we have seen a lot of journalists [...] they have recorded us, questioned us, etc. But we have proven that when they ask us about territory, education, mining and oil, they arrive from the city and say two or three little things in which they are interested and leave, or they don’t even stop. Then, I realized that it is useless to make my speech to the press. […] The media do not tell the truth about what happens in the territory, like what happened with the assassination of (indigenous activists) Bosco Wisum, José Tendenzt, and Fredy Taish, and with the eviction from Nankintz […] So, we saw the need to create our own communication system to be transmitted on air, to say what we feel and that everything gets aired. For me, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar is a weapon. With a rifle, you kill physically, but with our camera, you can silence liars with the truth. (D. Ankuash, personal communication, August 7, 2018)

Domingo Ankuash’s testimony denounces hegemonic communicational practices, which tend to marginalize socioenvironmental conflicts. His powerful “communication-weapon” metaphor evidences the need to

7 See www.camara-shuar.org and their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/EtsaNantuC%C3%A1mara-Shuar-196949173846620/.

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expand the principles of sovereignty and self-determination to the realm of communication. This group’s films make visible the socio-ecological conflicts faced by the Shuar in the Cordillera Amazónica del Cóndor. The open pit mining megaprojects (including “Mirador,” “San Carlos Panantza” and “Fruta del Norte”) occur within the context of an aggressive extractivist policy promoted by the former government of Rafael Correa (2007–2017) and subsequent governments.8 According to Eduardo Gudynas (2011), economic dependence on the exportation of primary commodities—oil, minerals, hydrocarbons, among others—of Latin American progressive governments, generated a contradictory process of “progressive neoextractivism.” Ironically, this “commodities boom” (Svampa 2019) took place despite the price decline of commodities in international markets, and the severe socio-ecological conflicts. Paradoxically, in Ecuador, the extractive policy contradicts the constitutional legal innovations that recognize the rights of Nature and Buen Vivir9 The collective, territorial and cultural rights of native people have been systematically violated. The Shuar people have suffered forced territorial eviction, militarization, declaration of a state of exception, assassination of social leaders, criminalization of social protests and censorship of their freedom of expression (Báez et al. 2016; Sacher 2017; Foro Social Panamazónico 2017). These problems have been made invisible or marginalized by commercial media. For this reason, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara-Shuar plays a critical journalistic role in offering counterinformation through their communication practices. The Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar laboratory team has twenty community members, mainly, from the Centro Shuar Kupiamais and, to a lesser extent, from the Centros Shuar Shiram-Entsa and Ayantz. It has two different kinds of production:

8 The Correa administration promoted an extractive policy through the Mining Law (2009) and the National Plan for the Development of the Mining Sector (2016). Fifteen percent of Ecuador’s national territory has been concessioned to the mining industry, thus violating the right to the Free and Informed Prior Consultation, embodied in the Convention 169 of the ILO and in the Constitution of Ecuador (2008). At the time of writing, twenty-six mining megaprojects, all in different stages, are being carried out in Ecuador. 9 “Buen Vivir” or “Vivir Bien” expresses a set of South American perspectives that share radical questions to development and other components of Modernity, and at the same time offer alternatives beyond it” (Chuji et al. 2019, 188).

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1. Activist documentaries: Nankints, La otra historia, ¿Quién mató a José Tendetza? (2017), Genealogía de un territorio en disputa (2017), José Tendetza, defensor de la Cordillera, Tundayme (José Tendetza: Defender of the Cordillera del Cóndor, Tundayme) (2015), Alternativas vivas (2015), Visita inesperada (2014) and Sarayaku (2014). The threats of the extractive industry on the Shuar’s territory are re-contextualized and problematized in these documentaries, evidencing the socio-ecological conflicts from the voices of the indigenous and mestizos that live in the areas affected by extractive projects. The documentary Nankints, La otra historia is an example of this category. It reconstructs the Shuar collective memory through oral narratives in which a genealogy is constructed of the community’s ancestors and territories. From the voice of Shuar women and men, refugees at the Centro Shuar Tink, victims of the forced eviction of Nankints in 2016 is told by recounting the militarization and declaration of a state of exception, which dispossessed them of vital cultural spaces. The community members confront the “official” version of President Correa about land ownership. On the one hand, the president used private and state media platforms to claim that these territories were not ancestral. On the other hand, indigenous people revealed the historic violation of human, collective and territorial rights of the Shuar people. In the final analysis, the documentary evidences the tension between the indigenous cosmovision and the modern rationality of the extractive policy as a form of continuing colonization. 2. Documentaries and fiction films based on Shuar culture: Aja Shuar (Franklin Mankash 2014), Secar la pecera (2014) and Bañar al río (2014). They document daily experiences about the material relationship of indigenous people with the jungle through agriculture and fishing, as well as symbolic relationships in which that interaction is sustained under an animistic precept of nature. Iwianch (2014) and Tsunki (2014) present mythologies of the Shuar culture that depict non-human characters that correspond to spirits of the jungle, evoking the Shuar cosmovision and defending a non-Western rationality.

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For example, the documentary Aja Shuar narrates traditional forms of garden cultivation in a daily Shuar scene. While women harvest, they sing ritual songs to Nunkui, the spirit of the garden. The female work is material, symbolic and spiritual; it evidences the importance of the defense of the territory as a space for reproducing life as it enables harvesting, and at the same time as a cultural space where the cosmovision of the Shuar people is embodied. Benítez explains this audiovisual product as follows: “Mankash portrays the garden and tries to translate it, but he is basically talking about the social relationship that the plants have between one another; he depicts a portrait of the garden as a character and as a living being interacting with another” (Benítez, 2018). The laboratory has different production modalities: collective, indigenous and mixed creations. In the collective and mixed productions, participants such as academics and activists get involved, and they collaborate in the research stage. In the indigenous modality, members of the Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar team present their own narratives or collectively assume the creation of scripts. Its working method is principally collaborative-participative, between indigenous and non-indigenous groups, among which the production roles are distributed. From this working method, the community territorially exceeds one geographic location, as well as a single ethnic identity process. This study uses multilocal ethnography (Marcus 2001), which examines the configuration and circulation of meaning through practices that are produced in a discontinuous and itinerant manner in different territories and temporalities. However, such practices are interconnected through the subjects’ actions at multiple places and moments of activity. This methodology expands the traditional ethnographical methods anchored in a territorial centrality. It collects relational and systemic dimensions that enable the mapping of connections and associations that arise at different locations (Marcus 2001, 112). Thus, this methodology is ideal for studying the communication practices of EtsaNantu/Cámara Shuar, which includes a production process in Amazonian territory, and diffusion in national and international cities. From this methodological lens, a field study was conducted, with participant observation and semi-structured interviews at various sites. In the rural area, the Centro Shuar Kupiamais, located in the province of Morona Santiago, was visited in August 2018, during the preproduction process of the filming of the documentary Nankints, la otra historia (Nankints: The Other Story) (2019). In the urban area, fieldwork was

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carried out at several sites including the academic conference “Alternative Communication and Mining Conflict,” which took place in Quito on January 24, 2018, and was organized by the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana. Another site was the film series “Mega-Mining and Resistance,” held in Quito on February 2, 2018, and organized by the cultural foundation Ocho y Medio. Similarly, film analyses are offered below, taking as samples two documentaries from the collective Etsa-Nantu/ Cámara-Shuar: Nankints, La otra historia and Aja Shuar (2014). In terms of circulation, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar films have been exhibited in different spaces: in the Amazon, academic forums, militant activist spaces and national and international community cinema festivals. The laboratory has become a referent for eco-territorial conflicts. Thus, the collective plays the role of being a “bridge,” a connective device between different territories and subjectivities. This way of working is consistent with Treré’s (2019) reflections about activist media practices, in that they involve the interaction of a wide range of technologies, actors, spaces and content. In this case, the notion of expanded community coalesces around a common political objective of eco-territorial and ethnic-cultural defense. The notion of expanded community is apparent in Etsa-Nantu/ Cámara Shuar’s organizational structure and modes of working. As a hybrid collective with both indigenous and non-indigenous members, it fosters intercultural relationships and generative dialogues between different forms of knowledge. There are also transformative lessons about ways of conceiving the “other” and conceptualizing the community: communion as common-union. Shuar leader Domingo Ankuash describes it as follows: We get to know the heart between cultures. Years ago, my father came up against mestizo invaders; he thought that all mestizos were enemies. Now, it is different. Many of our allies are mestizos (…) We have been including other cultures in the defense of our territory”. (D. Ankuash, personal communication, August 7, 2018)

Thus, the production, circulation, distribution and exhibition dynamics of community cinema are permeated by the convergent logic of the eco-territorial turn in which the emancipatory potential operates from a double flow process: the “greening of the indigenous struggles” (Leff 2004) and the “emergent indigeneities” as form of plural political action

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in which various groups support the claims of indigenous people (De la Cadena y Starn 2009).

Small Cinemas in the Middle of the Jungle In the visit to the Kupiamais community, the topic of conversation was the expulsion of the leader Elvis Nantip, which had been addressed a few days prior in an assembly comprised of communities and grassroots organizations. The demand for his removal was due to his support for mining, in FISCH’s name, after signing an agreement with the Chinese consortium ExplorCobre S.A. (EXSA). Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar spoke about the conflicts during this assembly, carried out on August 4, 2018. They insisted that the president did not have the power to go against the FISCH General Assembly, the highest decision-making body. In the context of planning the filming of the documentary, a Shuar indigenous leader that was in hiding due to having been criminalized by the state, briefed Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar’s foreign members and collaborators on the strategic logistics for getting footage of the EXSA mining camp, which had set up its operations on what was the territory of the Shuar community of Nankints (militarized following the forced and violent eviction of the community). That evening, in the house of one of the community members, the Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar team set up a makeshift movie theater. They removed a hammock and used its hooks to install a white sheet on the wall. Using that setup, they screened various animated short films with anti-mining themes: Payada pa Satán (Balseiro and Balseiro 2013) and La abuela grillo (2013). Both of these films analyze the megamining industry and its negative effects on Nature. Late at night, there was a screening of the documentary Zapatistas, crónica de una rebelión (Víctor Mariña and Mario Viveros 2007), which presents a retrospective view of the 10-year anniversary of the uprising of the Zapatista Army of Nacional Liberation (EZLN). At the end of the screenings, children, youth and adult attendees discussed the socio-ecological conflicts produced by mining. The next day, there was a General Assembly of the Centro Shuar Kupiamais, whose purpose was to discuss the divisions inside of the FISCH. One of the goals of the assembly was to discuss the Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar project becoming part of the Centro Shuar Kupiamais, with the

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purpose of institutionalizing the initiative. However, this topic was postponed for a future assembly given the current dispute. In this regard, Polanco and Aguilera’s (2011) reflections on community are useful, as they emphasize that it should be understood not only as culture and history, but also as conflict. The community is constantly interrogating its common interests, which are not always defended equally by all members. An idealization of the eco-territorial turn might assume that the organizational processes of activist networks are harmonious. In reality, they are marked by disputes of meaning and power. With the Shuar crisis of political representativity, it was difficult to institutionalize the laboratory. Even within the Centro Kupiamais itself, there are members that are associated with the extractive industry. Returning to the fieldwork experience, in that same afternoon, those who took part in the laboratory got together to consensually agree on filming responsibilities according to the skills and interests of the members of the team. For example, a youth bilingual in Shuar and Spanish volunteered to translate, and others got involved spontaneously with other production roles. Despite the conflicts related to political representativity and internal divisions, it is evident that the organizational practices of Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar go beyond audiovisual creation and act as a catalyst for political agency in eco-territorial struggles. Its activist productions are symbolic mediations; at the same time, they lead to political agency and the strengthening of political organization for the “community of interest” that opposes extractivism. Despite not being integrated into the Shuar political structure, the “expanded community” generates a process of self-representation activated through audiovisual-communicational sovereignty. In this context, Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar’s symbolic and material mediations were apparent in two particular moments. The first was the filmic record of the base communities that had demanded the dismissal of the FISCH president. They viewed the footage not only as “raw material” for a documentary, but as a legal document that had evidentiary value. In the second instance, the improvised film screening opened a space for political education about territorial and self-determination rights of indigenous people. In other words, a process of thinking as a community was activated with film as a pretext. Hence, there is a logic of “communication that goes beyond communication” (Polanco-Uribe y Aguilera-Toro 2011) in a collective political process.

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Small Translocal Cinemas Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar works in a variety of networks with collaborators. The laboratory integrates individual actors, such as indigenous, mestizos, foreigners, community leaders, environmentalists, academics, popular communicators and filmmakers, as well as institutional actors, such as the Aldeah Foundations (France and Ecuador), and various environmentalist and community communication collectives such as El Churo (Ecuador). This form of cooperative work constitutes a reconfiguration of networked collective action, which enables projecting its work in diverse territories that range from local, regional, national and international arenas. Thus, there is the possibility to foster rural–urban alliances and, in turn, intercultural relationships among the diverse actors in politicalcultural environments and matrices. To understand this articulation, in the following paragraphs I analyze the aforementioned academic events in urban territories as examples of the laboratory’s exhibition practices. Three eco-territorial defense collectives took part in the academic conference “Alternative Communication and Mining Conflicts” (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana 2018): Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar, Laboratorio de Medios Libres and Minka Urbana. It took place in the context of the popular referendum proposed by the government of President Lenin Moreno (2017–2021), which included a question about mining.10 Verenice Benítez, co-director of Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar and Raúl Ankuash, Vice President of the Asociación Shuar de Bomboiza, both attended. They screened two of the laboratory’s productions: Genealogía de un territorio en disputa (2017) and ¿Quién mató a José Tendenza? (2017), which presented the investigation conducted by Raúl Ankuash about the impunity surrounding those responsible for the death of the Shuar leader José Tendenza in 2014 when he had been leading protests to stop ECSA’s Mirador project. Here, I consider some questions and responses by the collective about this incident.

10 Question 5: “Do you agree with amending the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador to prohibit without exception metal mining in all its stages, in protected areas, intangible zones and urban centers, in accordance with what is established in Annex 5?” The “yes” vote received 68.62% and “no” received 31.38% (National Electoral Council, 2018).

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Question 1 (put forward by a university student from the audience): “What is your stance with respect to the question of the popular referendum regarding mining?” which, according to Ankuash, was answered as follows: The question of the popular referendum asks if we do not want to give more concessions (territory). What other concessions are they going to give, if concessions for the whole territory have already been concessioned! The first thing I would ask the government is that they remove all of the mining companies that are set up in our territory. Then, we can sit down to talk. When they call us to talk, they do not call those of us that are in the community, those of us who really struggle and suffer daily. They call four leaders that live in the cities (…) It is not easy for us to stand up and say that we do not want mining; they have told us that we are opposed to the development of the country. We ask ourselves, what do they mean when they tell us about development: I just want them to look at the Amazon, how developed are the inhabitants after more than forty years of oil activity, which are forty years of poverty. Now they want to do the same, but with gold. (…) In (the province) Zamora Chinchipe, ten years ago you could fish, bathe in the river and walk peacefully; you could do everything. Today, you cannot even walk around because the ECSA company guards and controls everything together with the police and the military. (R. Ankuash, public intervention, January 24, 2018)

Question 2: Posed by a female public official from the Consejo de Regulación, Desarrollo y Promoción de la Información (CORDICOM),11 who attended the event (as it was open to all). “It is assumed that the Law (in reference to the Organic Law of Communication, 2013) recognizes public, private and community media. In this context, what are these media that you call free and alternative? (…) What is their social role?, i.e., what do they represent? Where are they located?” In her questions, one could sense that her rebuke was directed to pointing out that alternative and self-managed communication media, such as was the case of Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar, operate outside the Law of Communication, since they are not classified in any of the categories of communication media recognized by the government through this law. 11 CORDICOM was the public institution regulating the Ecuador’s communication policy.

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The following were the responses of two of the panelists, Raúl Ankuash and William Sacher, French academic and then member of the antiextractivist collective Minka Urbana and collaborator of Etsa-Nantu/ Cámara Shuar: Raúl Ankuash: Let us remember that the Shuar radio station La Voz de Arutam,12 which belongs to the FISCH, was raided by order of the state and it even took away the frequency. The frequency was returned (…) but nothing can be discussed on that radio station about mining, precisely, because it is a topic that they do not want us to discuss. For this reason, we created Cámara Shuar, where we are communicating about the topics we are interested in. The objective of Radio Arutam is supposedly to benefit communities, but now we cannot even convene an assembly there to talk about territorial defense, nor can we say that we are going to a protest against mining. The state, through radio control, imposes its model, and prohibits everything that is against the government. (R. Ankuash, public intervention, January 24, 2018) William Sacher: The fact that they [the government] sent CORDICOM officials to film this event and presentations demonstrates that this space is not an ordinary one, but one in which what is said and debated is important. The same thing happens with communication media that contribute to public opinion so that people are informed about what happens in the territory. (Sacher, public intervention, January 24, 2018)

It is clear that Ankuash does not feel represented by Radio Arutam, due to the political dismantling carried out by the state and the extractive industry. The exchange sheds light on communicational sovereignty as a basis for collective action, as well as on community cinema as an agent of communication rights. Similarly, it emphasizes the fracture between the grassroots organizations, comuneros and sindicalists, and the institutional representatives of the FICSH, who ingratiated themselves with the extractive industry. This makes it clear that the conflicts due to territorial disputes have evidenced the urgency of communicational sovereignty, as conceived by Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar. Finally, their strong criticism of the development model that leads to the depredation of Nature not only implies a post-development stance, but also underscores the urgency of

12 The Voz de Arutam (107.3 FM), the community radio station of the FISCH (Interprovincial Federation of Shuar Centers), has been the subject of censorship in moments of major conflict between the community and extractive industries.

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recontextualizing the country to an intercultural perspective, in dialogue with indigenous rationalities regarding their relationship with Nature. The second event under analysis here, the “Mega Miningand Resistance” film forum, held at the independent movie theater Ochoymedio in Quito (February 2, 2018), also took place just prior to the popular referendum. The screening featured the premiere of the documentary film Hugo, territorio rebelde (Hugo: Rebel Territory) (2018) by Pocho Álvarez. The film portrays an eco-territorial conflict in Intag (Imbabura, Ecuador). It features the Ramírez brothers, Javier and Hugo, who were criminalized by the state for opposing the Llumiragua mega-mining project, operated by the Codelco company. Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar also screened Genealogía de un territorio en disputa (Genealogy of a disputed territory) (2017) and Visita inesperada (Unplanned visit) (2014). The latter depicts the intrusion of Chinese officials from the ECSA company during an assembly in the Shuar community of Carlos de Numpaim, also affected by the Mirador project. They also screened a fragment of Aja Shuar (2014), a documentary that portrays the daily life of the Shuar through their traditional agricultural system, directed by indigenous filmmaker, Franklin Mankash. They also screened Tsunki Aumantsamu (2014), a short fiction film that recounts the cosmogonic origin story of the Shuar, who according to the legend arose from the Tsunki water spirit. This event was full, reaching the space’s maximum capacity. A dialogue with filmmakers Pocho Álvarez and Verenice Benítez was to follow. However, Domingo Ankuash and the Ramírez brothers became the protagonists of this event. Their participation was announced at the very last minute as a security measure, as they were being persecuted by the government for their protest activities. Various members of the grassroots group Defense and Ecological Conservation of Intag (DECOIN) were also in attendance. These community leaders who also were defending territory participated in the debate, calling on the urban audience to join them as allies in this struggle. These spaces contribute to an analysis of how the eco-territorial turn operates through community cinema exhibition, with its intercultural and networked practices. The Ramírez brothers, who are mestizos, and Domingo Ankuash, who is indigenous, have a shared history of struggle to defend their territories; in the first case in the Sierra and in the second, the Amazon. Likewise, these cases evidence how the rural–urban

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alliances generate consciousness and social mobilization processes against mega-mining. The dynamics generated through audiovisual defense of territory are consistent with Rosanna Reguillo’s (2017) argument that the organization of contemporary social movements has shifted from an affiliative character linked to prescribed identities (workers, indigenous, students, women, among others) toward a configurative character where the axis is the connectivity that enables the synergy of various social actors who are organized in networks of resistance (Reguillo 2017, 62). Community cinema in an eco-territorial key is configured as a politicalcommunicational practice of organizational strengthening and as a place of encounter and exchanges between diverse actors who share political meanings. Thus, the dynamics of production, circulation, distribution and exhibition of community cinema activates a translocal logic.

Conclusion Emerging communicational practices play a central role in the collective action repertoires in activist networks of the eco-territorial turn (VanegasToala 2020b; Vanegas-Toala et al. 2020). In this context, community cinema has been reconfigured beyond ethnic and geographic essentialisms in light of the notion of the “expanded community,” where different actors, technologies and spaces interface in an intercultural and translocal dynamic. It is traversed by organizational, political and aesthetic practices that permeate its audiovisual praxis. It also strengthens intercultural exchanges; at the same time, it is an act of self-representation of the community involving its cosmovision and oral narratives recounted in its own language. From the holistic view proposed by “hybrid media activism” (Treré 2019), the reading I propose here of the Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar community cinema considers it as part of the media ecology of emerging communicational practices of the eco-territorial turn.

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Vanegas-Toala, Yadis Vanessa. “Comunicación y el giro ecoterritorial en red campo-ciudad.” In Comunicación y ciudad. Lenguajes, actores y relatos, edited by Narcisa Mendranda-Morales and Nelly Valbuena-Bedoya, 123–42. Quito: AbyaYala, 2020a. https://books.scielo.org/id/9jbn9/pdf/medranda-978997 8105702.pdf#page=125. ———. “Mobilización Transmedia #SOSPuebloShuar: Prácticas Comunicacionales y Repertorios Estratégicos del Activismo Ecosocial.” In Comunicação, Cidadania e Movimentos Sociais – Vivências, edited by Caroline Kraus Luvizotto and Isabel Ferin Cunha, 138–162. Aveiro, Porgugal: Ria Editorial, 2020b.

Filmography Alvarez, Pocho. Hugo. Territorio Rebelde. Ecuador: Independent, 2018. Balsiero, Antonio, y Carlos Balsiero. Payada pa’ Satán. Argentina: Tronco, Animal Music, 2013. https://vimeo.com/134616827?embedded=true&sou rce=vimeo_logo&owner=422332%0A06%0A. Benítez, Verenice. Nankints, La otra historia. Ecuador: El Churo Comunicación. Lush Cosmetics. Global Green Grants Found. Minka Urbana, 2019. http:// www.camara-shuar.org/. Benítez, Verenice. Personal Communication. Interview by Vanegas-Toala Y. V. Quito, Ecuador: June 23, 2018. Chapón, Denis. La abuela grillo. Nicobis Animation Workshop, Center Animation Pedagogic. Bolivia and Denmark, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AXz4XPuB_BM. Creación colectiva Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar. Bañar al río. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2014a. http://www.camara-shuar.org/. ———. Iwianch. Aldeah, Pluiefilms. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2014b. http://www. camara-shuar.org/. ———. Secar la pecera. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2014c. ———. Tsunki. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2014d. ———. Visita inesperada. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2014e. https://vimeo.com/890 11119. ———. Genealogía de un territorio en disputa. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2017a. https://vimeo.com/199301874. ———. Quién mató a José Tendetza? Ecuador: Cedhu, 2017b. Etsa-Nantu/Cámara-Shuar. Alternativas vivas. Ecuador: Núa Films, 2015. https://vimeo.com/175541274. Gualinga, Eriberto. Sachata Kishipichik Mani: Soy defensor de la selva. Ecuador: Sarayaku Producciones, 2003. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnLvVN sUmnY.

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———. Kawsak Sacha, La canoa de la vida. Sarayaku, Ecuador: Selva Producciones, 2015. https://vimeo.com/273674796. Mankash, Franklin. Aja Shuar. Ecuador: Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar, 2014. http://camara-shuar.org/. Mendoza, Carlos, y Víctor Mariña. Zapatistas, crónica de una rebelión. Mexico: Canal Seis de Julio, 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6j 7e1uK5cQ.

CHAPTER 11

Notes Toward a History of Amateur Filmmaking in Guayaquil Libertad Gills

Introduction Amateur cinema is a “small” cinema not only because it has been historically marginalized as a “minor” cinema and often “overshadowed” by larger industrial cinemas (Coryat and Zweig 2017, 269), but also quite literally because of the smaller film formats chosen by amateur filmmakers, including Super 8 mm film, 16 mm and digital video. In Ecuador, it could be said that amateur cinema is further reduced (made even “smaller”) given the national context and the arguably nonexistent film industry,1 as well as by what has been described as “the absolute lack of institutionality and infrastructure that existed in Ecuador until 2006” (Coryat 1 According to Coryat and Zweig (2017), “…The [film] sector still cannot be considered an industry as it mainly a freelance one, largely made up of small production houses and loosely organized through various associations and guilds” (p. 273).

L. Gills (B) Universidad de Las Artes, Guayaquil, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] Universitá della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_11

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and Zweig 2017, 271), which is often blamed for the country’s relatively low film production. Even after 2006 when the first film law (Ley de Fomento del Cine Nacional) came into effect and the National Council for Cinematography (CNCine) was created, amateur cinema continues to be overlooked not only by the Ecuadorian government as far as investment and national film funds are concerned, but also by many Ecuadorian filmmakers and film researchers who prefer to dedicate their attention to the nation’s process of industrialization and professionalization. In this chapter, I propose to look at the history of amateur cinema in this country, with a particular focus on Guayaquil. It is my main argument that some of the country’s most creative and experimental films have been made by amateur filmmakers in smaller and nonprofessional film formats. The port city of Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador but less connected to state financing than the capital city of Quito, is of interest in this regard, as it has produced some of the country’s most prolific amateur filmmakers.

Amateur Filmmakers in Guayaquil: Another History of Ecuadorian Cinema This chapter maps a few of the most interesting amateur filmmakers of Guayaquil in order to revert what can be considered the systematic wiping out of amateur film from “official” accounts of Ecuadorian film history and in an effort to tell a parallel history of amateur film beginning with Ecuador’s first known narrative filmmaker from the 1920s. Consequently, this article hopes to push forward the “opening up of new research paths” that Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young and Barry Monahan call for in their introduction to Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web from 2014: “A greater emphasis on the importance of microhistories and on alternative, nonmainstream, private and communal practices of memorialization has allowed for an opening up of new research paths that, in turn, invite fresh appraisals of the significance of home movies and, more broadly, amateur film” (Rascaroli 2014, 1). The “fresh appraisals” of amateur film that my article proposes look beyond the idea of amateur cinema as merely a kind of “marginal” cinema or as a cinema which has fallen prey or victim to a larger industrial cinema, and which therefore needs to be “discovered” or placed in the center by academia. Alternatively, attention to amateur film in Ecuador allows connections to be made with amateur cinema in other cities and countries of Latin America, as well as to experimental and avant-garde film practices around the world.

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As another history of Ecuadorian cinema begins to open to the reader, it is my hope that other names and titles will be recalled and remembered and that these can find a home within the larger collective cartography of amateur filmmaking, which this chapter will begin to map out. This chapter has been written in what is perhaps a non-conventional style for academia. I have decided to tell this “other,” parallel history of amateur cinema in Ecuador in a narrative form, beginning with early cinema and concluding with filmmakers working today, and drawing connections between the filmmakers included here. I am aware that there have been many other amateur filmmakers in Guayaquil, but I have chosen to focus my analysis on these artists primarily because their work is accessible, because of the connections that can be made between them, and finally because they each represent a different time in Guayaquil’s history. As a result, by telling the story of each of these amateur filmmakers, I am also telling another history of Guayaquil.2

From Augusto San Miguel to Gustavo Valle There have been relatively few attempts to tell the story of Ecuadorian film history. One of the most important has been by Vásquez et al. (1987), sociologist, film historian, and author who worked for several years first as assistant director (1981–2012) and then director (2012– 2017) of the Cinemateca Nacional.3 Her extensive research on Ecuador’s

2 My analysis is based on different sources, including many primary resources, for lack of academic studies on some of the filmmakers in question. For Augusto San Miguel, we turn to Wilma Granda’s extensive writings on the subject, as well as a fascinating conversation with Granda for the purpose of this article for which I am very grateful. For Eduardo Solá Franco, previous research by Rodrigo Kronfle, María Belén Moncayo, Fernando Mieles and Pilar Estrada has been very helpful for our analysis. I am especially grateful to Martin Baus, co-creator and co-director of the experimental film research collective Guayaquil Analógico, who contributed to the chapter in the research and examination of Solá’s writings. On Joseph Morder, I have to thank Morder himself for an interview held in 2015, as well as Dominique Buhler for her text and interview. As for Gustavo Valle, this will be the first academic text published about his work. The author is preparing a longer piece dedicated entirely to his work which, in many ways, will be a continuation of the ideas expressed in this chapter. I thank Valle for the long conversations throughout the past two years, as well as for his friendship. 3 Granda’s published books include El cine silente en Ecuador 1895-1935 (1995), El Pasillo: Identidad sonora (2004), and La cinematografía de Augusto San Miguel, Guayaquil 1924-1925, Los años del aire (2007).

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silent film period and film pioneer Augusto San Miguel (1905–1937) is unequaled in its contribution to the study of early Ecuadorian cinema. Given that most of these films have been lost, including all of San Miguel’s filmography, consisting of six films made between 1924 and 1925,4 —a production level unheard of in today’s national film scene—her writings on the subject represent a gigantic investigative effort and provide an enormous wealth of information about this previously unknown period in Ecuadorian history. Granda provides not only a portrait of San Miguel, who is considered Ecuador’s first filmmaker and from Guayaquil, including his life and films, but also speaks to the context in which these films were made: Guayaquil in the 1920s. She writes, More than elaborating a character, San Miguel gave me the opportunity to elaborate a context, to recreate a context because I was fundamentally interested in the city [of Guayaquil]. And I was interested in making the argument, if you will, that even though San Miguel had economical resources, he did not have access, he was an improvisado (makeshift) in matters of art and culture, surrounded by powerful writers of the 1930s.5

Granda tells the story of a man who was adventurous and independent, someone who was not easily domesticated and who therefore did not “fit” into a fixed definition of an artist nor into Ecuador’s cultural elite. He was a photographer, radio broadcaster, journalist, art critic, poet and playwright. He worked in the bullfighting, newspaper and film businesses. San Miguel tried his hand in several areas, succeeding in some, failing in others. With three fiction and three documentary titles to his name, all of which premiered in a period of eight months (1924–1925), Augusto San Miguel intended to industrialize Ecuador’s national cinema (Granda 2006). His three fiction films—El Tesoro de Atahualpa (The Treasure of Atahualpa) (August 1924), Se necesita una guagua (A Child is Needed) (November 1924) and Un abismo y dos almas (An Abyss and Two Souls) 4 The six films produced by Augusto San Miguel include Ecuador’s first three narrative films El Tesoro de Atahualpa (August 1924), Se necesita una guagua (November 1924), Un abismo y dos almas (February 1925) and the documentaries Panoramas del Ecuador (Panoramas of Ecuador) (November 1924), Actualidades quiteñas (Actualities of Quito) (November 1924) and Desastre de la vía férrea (Railway Track Disaster) (November 1924), presented with each narrative film. 5 Unpublished interview with Wilma Granda by Libertad Gills, Guayaquil (May 2020).

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(February 1925)—all of them genre films, including a western and a comedy, were, according to Granda, thinly veiled social critiques that took on popular, anti-bourgeois and contemporary subjects of particular interest to the masses, stories which may have been inspired by the news articles from the journals and newspapers that he founded and regularly wrote for. They spoke directly to the spectator, notes Granda, often crossing the divide between documentary and fiction (Granda 2007, 139). His films were self-financed, and he was director, producer, and even actor in his films, at a time when the division of labor on the movie set and the idea of the “film professional” did not yet exist. Although he worked in 35 mm film, which was standard at the time, it is not difficult to see San Miguel as an amateur filmmaker, and not only because everyone was an amateur back then, in the sense that they were all autodidacts, pioneers of a new art form, formed in the practice and not academically by an institution, but for other reasons as well. These reasons connect well to other amateur filmmakers that followed him: first, for his decision to make films on his own, to self-finance them and most importantly, own the means of their production, which secured— to a degree of course—his independence; second, because his filmmaking was neither a fixed nor permanent activity, it was part of a plethora of cultural and technological interests that he experimented with in his life; and finally, because of the idea that San Miguel was an improvisado in the arts, to use Granda’s term: a person who did not fit into an elitist definition of an artist, but rather someone who tried his hand in different areas, drawn to them, it appears, by a fascination with the arts in general and to their relation with politics and as a tool of communication with the masses. Ultimately, his attempt to industrialize film in Ecuador failed: in 1929, the exhibition of foreign “superproductions” was announced for the entire year (Vásquez et al. 1987, 20), and Hollywood cinema and European cinema begin to monopolize the Ecuadorian screens, creating a block for national distribution that many might argue continues to the present. San Miguel died at the age of 32, leaving his family bankrupt. To this date, all of his films remain lost. After San Miguel, Guayaquil’s next prodigious amateur filmmaker also emerged from the upper classes. And like San Miguel, he was a multifaceted artist, precisely the kind of artist who became a rarity in the modern age of professionalization and specialization. He was a painter and an illustrator, a sculptor, novelist, poet, playwright and set designer. He directed plays and ballets in self-financed film productions starring his

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friends. Eduardo Solá Franco (1915–1996) was the son of a Catalonian father and a Guayaquil-born mother who “lived the life of an educated, privileged, twentieth-century bourgeois” (Moncayo 2017, 214). Despite his apparent privilege, Solá Franco never found success professionally as an illustrator in the film industry in the United States when he tried out at Paramount in 1938 and again at Disney in 1939. Although currently his paintings are rarely excluded from major national art exhibits, his first exhibition in his country of birth was considered a complete failure. His work was unappreciated and misunderstood and he was not accepted by the culture elite of the time. To this day, Solá Franco remains relatively unknown as a filmmaker. He is not studied in film schools in Ecuador, nor regarded as one of Ecuador’s film pioneers. This might be because Solá Franco is considered first and foremost a painter; his films, if they are considered, come second. Another reason might be because, as far as we know, his films were shot entirely on the amateur formats of Super 8 and 8 mm formats. In his words, he made “fifty (non-commercial) films that cost less than $50 each,”6 presumably between 1959 and 1985, but possibly from as early as 1946,7 shot on 8 mm or Super 8 film with a Nizo Heliomatic 8 during his recurrent travels (mostly in Catalonia and Italy, but also in Chile). “Patently experimented,” he writes in his journals, “all of these films were short and silent, inspired by surrealism, and dealt with themes from classical tragedy without formal preconceptions.”8 I have italicized the words in the first part of the sentence because they tell us a bit about the form of the films (both determined by the format itself) and I have emphasized the last words of this quote because they indicate the absence of any kind of technical film training in Solá Franco’s work. With or without the training, however, Solá Franco’s films are explorative and experimental in their narrative structure, themes and form. Several of

6 Solá Franco, “He pasado por todo: Solá” in Hoy. Quito (November 4, 1991). Cited in Moncayo (2017, 220). 7 This date is suggested by Rodolfo Kronfle (in “Eduardo Solá Franco: El impulso autobiográfico,” Bienal de Cuenca, 2016), although he also says that there is no evidence of his early work in film. The fact that these dates remain uncertain and that they differ from one text to another is indicative of just how much is still unknown about Solá Franco’s filmmaking. 8 Eduardo Solá Franco, Diario de mis viajes por el mundo, Quito: Banco Central del Ecuador, 1996, 193–194. Cited in Moncayo (2017, 220).

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them are narrative films that dialogue with Greek and Roman mythology both in their plots and playful art direction designs, including elaborate costumes presumably designed by Solá himself, who also designed the title cards. Of his fifty or more films, only a handful can be found at the Cinemateca Nacional in Quito and one in particular, El ritual (The Ritual) (1974) is available through the Cinemateca’s online digital archive. Never once succeeding to receive funding for his films, Solá made lowbudget and self-financed films, which is one of the recurring traits of the amateur filmmaker. It is evident that these films were not made for money; they were not shown, for example, in commercial movie theaters to paying audiences, but rather projected at the openings of Solá Franco’s painting exhibitions.9 In this respect, the films were another facet of the artist’s work, like dramaturgy and novel writing. Although the idea of “film as hobby” is often associated with the conventional definition of the amateur filmmaker, it would be difficult to call the ongoing production of more than fifty films a mere hobby. “Siempre me gustó el cine…,” writes Solá in his autobiography Al pasar, meaning “I always loved cinema…” (Solá Franco 2008, 54). An avid cinephile, Solá Franco was a great admirer of the French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic Jean Cocteau, whom he met in 1947. He writes about this meeting in great detail and describes Cocteau’s work in a way that tells us much about the kind of artist he longed to be himself: “In poetry, theater, as in film; as a painter, novelist, and in all the branches of the arts, [Cocteau] made provocative and trailblazing works. Many tried to imitate him without success, for he had been born with the great gift of a refined imagination with which he created his own world. He did not only amuse and wonder, but he was also able to dive deeply into himself…” (Solá Franco 2008, 140). Cocteau’s invitation to visit him on the set of Les Parents terribles (1948) gave Solá Franco possibly his first experience on a film set that was not in Hollywood. According to Moncayo, Cocteau “radically shaped his role as a filmmaker,” including his camerawork, editing and directorial style, as well as “the decision to be a one-man band behind the camera” (Moncayo 2017, 220).

9 According to Moncayo (2017), these projections took place in Rome, London, Washington, DC, and Guayaquil at Café 78 and the Casa de la Cultura (226).

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Why did Solá Franco, with all his economic resources, choose the amateur film format of Super 8 mm? The reasons, we can imagine, are several: he was inevitably drawn to the independence that the format provided since Super 8 can be easily manipulated by a single person, without the aid of a professional film crew; as a format which does not usually permit the simultaneous recording of sound, Super 8 mm also provided him the opportunity to experiment primarily with the visual language of cinema, in the way that his favorite silent films had done before; and finally, the mobility that the camera provided, making it possible for Solá Franco to shoot films freely and all over the world. In other words, his preference for the amateur film format extends beyond the well-known low-cost aspect, which tends to always be emphasized when one hears of amateur filmmaking. He chose Super 8 mm also for the freedom that it provides as well as its aesthetic and formal aspects, which are coherent with his interests as a predominantly visual artist. In contrast to San Miguel, Solá Franco was able to make films without having to think of them as a source of income or possible wealth. The relative ease of the amateur film format (compared to 35 mm) makes this possible. For Joseph Morder (1949-present), Super 8 means “freedom, an absolute freedom” (Bluher 2014, 226). While Solá Franco became a cinephile in his childhood in Catalonia, French-born Morder became a cinephile during his childhood in Guayaquil. He received his first Super 8 mm film camera as a gift from his mother in 1967 at the age of 18 and has gone on to shoot more than 900 films, mostly on Super 8 and 8 mm, and more recently video and cellphone cameras, as well as on professional formats including 16 mm and 35 mm, making him “one of the most prolific filmmakers in France” (Bluher 2014, 207). Dominique Bluher, the main scholar on Morder’s work, writes, “To my knowledge, no other filmmaker has utilized so many forms of personal filmmaking: genuine and fake diaries; portraits of family members and friends; an autobiographical film recounting the painful story of his Jewish family and his childhood in Ecuador; autofictions combining nonfiction with reenactments; fictions adopting the form of a filmed journal or a filmed letter; and autobiographical found-footage films about his early years in South America and his arrival in France” (Bluher 2014, 207). In addition to his autobiographical work, he has also made fiction films on 16 and 35 mm, as well as fiction films on Super 8, his term for “fictions that are not obviously autobiographically inspired” (Bluher 2014, 207).

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Although he is known as a French filmmaker, Morder shares a personal history with the city of Guayaquil, which is at the heart of his identity as a cinephile as well as his filmmaking practice, which remains quite unknown. Guayaquil, the city of his childhood, is the city which he continues searching for, and reaching toward, no matter where he goes. In an interview in 2015 he said, “Wherever I am, I need to find a place that reminds me of Guayaquil” (Gills 2015). For Bluher, this state of anatopism, the spatial equivalent of anachronism, or the confusion of being in one place and believing one is in another, is not only an aspect of Morder’s life but it is a central part of his films and his film practice. As Bluher (2014) explains, “The concept of anatopism is less used than anachronism, because it most often comprises some anachronistic aspects. But the distinction seems to me important because it sheds light on a phenomenon that Morder discovered while shooting his autobiographic films, and which he reused in his fictional work” (p. 217). Guayaquil is the place where he wants to be but the place where he is not. His films reflect this distance: they sometimes take place in Guayaquil, but they are not filmed there, they long to be there and this longing is reimagined in film form. The best example of this would be Mémories d’un juif tropical (Memories of a Tropical Jew) (1988) which is an autobiographical film about Morder’s childhood, set in Guayaquil, but filmed entirely in France. This spatial and temporal gap between being and desire is repeated in several of his films, not only concerning Guayaquil, but also Poland, China and India. And it has marked the way that he makes his films, which is considered to be his particular style of filmmaking, described in the following way by Bluher: “The country of our childhood can re-emerge at the sight of a building, of a body movement, a play of light, a color sparkle, a smile” (Mocayo 2017, 218). All this to say that Guayaquil is—and will always be—a central part of Morder’s work, not only in his formation, but also in the themes that he chooses and ultimately, in the forms that his films take. Although like Solá, he is most passionate about 1930s Hollywood cinema, and even though he himself filmed a few times in professional formats, including on 35 mm, Morder always dreamed of being, primarily, an amateur filmmaker and this is where his affinities lie. As he explains, “…When I started filming, I couldn’t imagine that one day I would become a professional filmmaker. I thought I would continue all my life to make films as an amateur, that I would have a profession and make films on the side, like a Sunday painter. I wanted to make films, but at

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that time cinema meant Hollywood. It was an Olympus, for Gods, inaccessible” (224). At first, he made two kinds of movies: on the one hand, films that were adaptations of big Hollywood productions, especially by Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, Samuel Fuller, Raoul Walsh and John Ford. And on the other hand, he made home movies in which he would film his holidays, family, and friends, and these films which only years later became film diaries (Bluher 2014, 224). He makes the first type of filmmaking with the intention of screening the films for an audience, while the latter were more personal films for himself and his friends. However, in 1976 when he was invited by the programmer Joël Valls to screen his films at the Cinémathèque Française, Valls chose his Super 8 mm diary film Avrum et Cipojira (Avrum and Cipojira) (1973) over his adaptations. Morder was left surprised: “I couldn’t understand why this film would be of any interest. It was a private film, a true home movie, with zooms, unfocused shots, etc. –everything I have tried to avoid ever since” (Bluher 2014, 225). The audience’s overwhelmingly positive response to the “private film” made Morder reconsider the home movie: “This is when I realized that this film is not just a home movie to be seen by the family…” (Bluher 2014, 225). After this, he “started thinking differently about shooting in Super 8.” Morder continues to film in Super 8, although these days he seems to prefer his cellphone camera. According to Morder, in many ways it is very similar to Super 8. When Morder was screening his home movies to a packed theater in Paris, Gustavo Valle (1948-present) was competing in the first amateur film contests in the city of Guayaquil. Interestingly, these contests were organized by the municipality and took place in the port city before anything similar ever happened in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito. In 1970, the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana in Guayas began its own “Cine Foro” or cine-club directed by Gerard Raad which continued for about twenty years and was formed by many of the city’s cinephiles. The amateur film contests, also directed by Raad, began as early as 1974, consisted of money prizes, providing the city with at least a few years of

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amateur filmmaking production.10 For Valle, a journalist and photographer, these contests were the push that he needed toward getting involved in cinema. Formally untrained, Valle made three films on 16 mm for these contests—El subamericano (The Sub-American) (1976), Naturaleza muerta (Still Life) (1977), and De cómo engañar a los muertos (How to Cheat the Dead) (1979)11 —which won top prizes in the competitions and made strong impressions on the contest judges. His first film is about a man who works as a clown entertaining a children’s party in order to pay for his girlfriend’s abortion and the second is about a woman who watches a soap opera on television while her husband has an affair with his best friend. They are dramatic social realist films, often using parallel montage to intercut two different emotionally intense actions occurring at the same time in different parts of the city. He filmed on location and with nonprofessional actors. The stories he told—after all, Valle is also a writer—were very much grounded in the reality of Guayaquil and reflect Valle’s background in journalism. A critic at the time was not pleased with the storyline of El subamericano, claiming that the film was advocating abortion. As is documented by Fernando Mieles in his film Descartes (2009),12 Gerard Raad recalls Valle as “el Pasolini ecuatoriano,” the Ecuadorian Pasolini. It is important to mention here that these films were not made by Valle alone, but by a small filmmaking team, assembled and directed by Valle. On Naturaleza Muerta, for example, Valle got help from Chilean filmmaker Lucho Costa and Argentine photographer Jorge Massuco, two artists who had fled the military dictatorships in their home countries. They shared their equipment with Valle and assisted him technically in the production of his films. The contests came to an end in the early 1980s and, with very few exceptions including an unfinished film and a documentary short, Valle stopped making films.

10 It has been difficult to determine the precise dates of the contests or their exact duration. Thanks to a newspaper cut-out preserved by Valle which dates the contest as 1974, we know that the festival was around from as early as this date. Valle begins to participate in 1976 and makes three films in total; his last film made in the contest is from 1979. I imagine that 1979 was the last year of the contests, but this is not certain. 11 De cómo engañar a los muertos (1979) remains lost. 12 For more about this film and other films by Fernando Mieles, see Libertad Gills

(2017).

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Unlike San Miguel and Solá Franco, Valle comes from a working-class background. For Valle, the art of filmmaking, with the costs of buying film, developing, printing and the necessity of putting together a crew with equipment, had to have an economic impulse; otherwise, there was little reason to do it. Without the incentive of a cash award, filmmaking became difficult, if not impossible. As Valle explained in an interview with the author: “After [the contests] I wrote a couple of scripts and presented them to friends, but they were too busy or their camera was already taken, or you had to pay the camera persona. So, the truth is that I lost a lot of time, a lot of time. I stopped filming.”13 After many years away from film, in the year 2016, following the purchase of his first digital handycam, Valle returned to amateur filmmaking, lured by the possibility of making films on his own and without the necessity of expensive equipment. He made Casa abierta (Open House) in 2017, an essay film about security and surveillance in Guayaquil. That year the film was picked up by the filmmaker and programmer Francisco Álvarez for the Cámara Lúcida Film Festival in Cuenca. In 2020, filmmaker and sound artist Martín Baus collaborated with Valle on a sound version of El subamericano (1976). The film was screened at the Festival Internacional de Cine de Guayaquil in 2021, where Valle received an honorary award. In his retirement, Valle has turned to experimental cinema as an option for making truly independent films. As he no longer needs to buy film, borrow film equipment or ask friends to help out, filmmaking is no longer tied to an economic necessity. There are new expenses of course, including computers, hard drives and digital equipment, but these are much easier to acquire in Ecuador today than are, for example, film cameras, celluloid film and chemicals needed to develop film. In digital video, Valle is able to free himself economic preoccupation and of the idea of film as income. In a sense, digital video has provided Valle the chance to discover the true meaning of amateur filmmaking, whose etymology derives from the Latin amare (to love), which both Morder and Solá Franco discovered in Super 8. We can only imagine what Ecuadorian film history would be today if San Miguel had also had that second opportunity.

13 Unpublished interview with Gustavo Valle by Libertad Gills, at the Universidad de las Artes (Guayaquil), held on January 29, 2020.

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Conclusions In this chapter, I have attempted a historical account of amateur filmmaking in Guayaquil, starting from the popular cinema of Augusto San Miguel and ending with the experimental explorations in video by Gustavo Valle. This history, parallel and overlapping at times with Ecuador’s official film history, remains quite unknown internationally and even nationally.14 In this text, I hope to contribute to the grouping together of these filmmakers and artists who have long been separated and thought of individually, and yet who have not been thought about in relation to one another and under the concept of “amateur filmmaking.” By thinking of them together in this way, I hope to demonstrate that another history of Ecuadorian filmmaking is possible, a history of amateur filmmaking, which draws a connecting line between the popular genre films of San Miguel and the Greek tragedy-inspired Super 8 films of Solá Franco, between the autobiographical films of Joseph Morder and the experimental videos of Gustavo Valle. From San Miguel to Valle, I have traced this parallel history which connects Ecuadorian cinema to the French multidisciplinary artist Jean Cocteau as well as to migrant filmmakers fleeing from military dictatorships in neighboring Latin American countries and demonstrates that the nationalist lens with which cinema is often thought about in Ecuador is far too small to encompass the far-reaching and internationalist magnitude of amateur filmmaking. This can also be said about the discipline-specific lens which considers filmmakers those who dedicate themselves only to making films, and often ignores the work of multi-talented artists like Solá Franco. Through a transdisciplinary approach, which allows us to connect genre filmmaking made for the masses (San Miguel) and narrative filmmaking (Valle) to more intimate forms of filmmaking like the autobiographical or diary film (Morder), and films made with friends (Solá Franco) with experimental videos (Valle), I also hope to break some of the categories that hold artists

14 There are exceptions of course. Filmmaker Fernando Mieles has contributed immensely to the telling and remembering of film history in Guayaquil through his films on Gustavo Valle (Descartes 2009) and Joseph Morder (Aquí soy José 2004). A very different approach is that by Javier Izquierdo in his film about Augusto San Miguel (Augusto San Miguel ha muerto ayer 2003), based on Granda’s research, and which does not seek to create a documentary portrait of the artist, but rather reflect on the fiction and legend surrounding Augusto San Miguel, especially regarding the most sensationalist and haunting aspects of his story.

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to fixed definitions and which continue to separate their work from being considered in relation to the work of another. Amateur filmmaking can take many forms and its history begins at the very origin of cinema itself. This is true for amateur filmmaking around the world, and it is true for amateur filmmaking in Guayaquil.

Bibliography Bluher, Dominique. “Joseph Morder, the ‘Filmateur:’ An Interview with Joseph Morder.” In Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web, edited by Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young and Barry Monahan, 223–228. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. “New Ecuadorian Cinema: Small, Global and Plurinational.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 13, n.o 3 (2017): 1–45. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321247715_New_ Ecuadorian_cinema_Small_glocal_and_plurinational. Gills, Libertad. Cine silente en Ecuador 1895–1935. Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana/Cinemateca Nacional, UNESCO, 1995. ———. “El pasillo ecuatoriano: Noción de identidad sonora.” ÍCONOS 18 (2004): 63–70. https://revistas.flacsoandes.edu.ec/iconos/article/view/ 3118/2000. ———. La cinematografía de Augusto San Miguel: lo popular y lo masivo en los primeros argumentales del cine ecuatoriano. Guayaquil 1924–1925. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, 2006. ———. “Joseph Morder: Tienes que aceptar ser un niño y no comprender todo.” El Telégrafo, December 14, 2015. https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/ noticias/2015/1/joseph-morder-tienes-que-aceptar-ser-un-nino-y-no-compre nder-todo. ———. “De Tábara (2003) a Persistencia (2016): El cine sobre arte de Fernando Mieles.” Fuera de Campo 1, n.o 5 (2017): 20–39. http://www.uar tes.edu.ec/fueradecampo/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/FDC05-ART01. pdf. Granda, Wilma. La cinematografía de Augusto San Miguel: Guayaquil 1924– 1925. Los años del aire. Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 2007. Moncayo, María Belén. “‘Fax Factory’ Studios: Solá Film.” In Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America, edited by Jesse Lerner and Luciano Piazza, 212–231. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. Rascaroli, Laura, Gwenda Young, and Barry Monahan. “Introduction. Amateur Filmmaking: New Developments and Directions.” In Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web, edited by Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young and Barry Monahan, 207–222. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

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Solá Franco, Eduardo. Al pasar. Guayaquil: Casa de la Cultura Núcleo del Guayas, 2008. Vásquez, Teresa, Mercedes Serrano, Wilma Granda, and Patricia Gudiño. Cronología de la cultura cinematográfica (1849–1986). Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1987.

Filmography Cocteau, Jean. Les Parents terribles. France: Les Films Ariane, 1948. Izquierdo, Javier. Augusto San Miguel ha muerto ayer. Ecuador: Independent, 2003. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_gL82Fpok. Mieles, Fernando. Descartes. Ecuador: Gato Tuerto Producciones, 2009. https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_5XqxWIZ4. ———. Aquí soy José. Ecuador: Pepe Yépez, 2004. Morder, Joseph. Mémories d’un juif tropical. France: 5 Continents, La Boîte à Images, Trans Octo Vision. Distribuidora: La Boîte à Images, 1988. https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9VDhbEZFeo. ———. Avrum et Cipojira. France: Independent, 1973. San Miguel, Augusto. Un abismo y dos almas. Ecuador: Independent, 1925. ———. Panoramas del Ecuador. Ecuador: Independent, 1924. ———. Actualidades quiteñas. Ecuador: Independent, 1924. ———. Desastre de la vía férrea. Ecuador: Independent, 1924. ———. Se necesita una guagua. Ecuador: Independent, 1924. ———. El Tesoro de Atahualpa. Ecuador: Independent, 1924. Solá Franco, Eduardo. El ritual. Ecuador: Independent, 1974. Valle, Gustavo. Casa abierta. Ecuador: Independent, 2017. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=DoWd6Wq2DMs. ———. De cómo engañar a los muertos. Ecuador: Independent, 1979. ———. Naturaleza muerta. Ecuador: Independent, 1977. ———. El subamericano. Ecuador: Independent, 1976. Valle, Gustavo and Martin Baus. El subamericano. Ecuador: Independent, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3G7rhy8ni0.

CHAPTER 12

Ay De Mí Que Ardiendo,…¡Puedo! An Extensive Note on María Galindo’s Bastard Cinema Viola Varotto

“Woe to me that I remain burning, Woe that I do not hope to relieve myself, Woe that they cannot get me out, Woe that I could and I can no longer, Woe that pain is so terrible, Woe that there is no one to return to, Woe that I have to burn forever, Woe that I cry out and I get a corresponding answer of woe, Woe you never have to see God.” This is an inscription found in the mural painting El mural del infierno (Mural of Hell) (1802) in the Church of Huaro (Peru) and it reiterates what appears in a text found in a fresco in the Church of Carabuco (Bolivia), which alludes to the laments of those condemned to suffer the pains of hell. The artistic influences between Peru and Bolivia were active because of the Potosi-Lima/ Arica trade route. The title of this article is an appropriation of the author of the mural inscription. V. Varotto (B) Isole, Lima, Perú e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_12

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There is always a concrete possibility of understanding things, what is understood does not scandalize. At most, one can refer to judgement, which is legitimate, but scandal is not. The one who is scandalized is someone who sees something different in himself and, at the same time, threatening to himself. It is not only something different, but something that threatens the person, either physically or in the sense of the image that this person has constructed of himself for himself. Therefore, scandal is the fear of losing one’s personality, it is a primitive fear. Alberto Moravia, Comizi d’amore (1965), by Pier Paolo Pasolini

They are not congresswomen, ministers or presidents; They are simple street vendors. Some are migrants; others are fugitives; all are somewhat illegal. And to top it off, they are also abortionists. ... No theory accompanies them. No ideology groups them together. No family claims them. No state counts them. We only know that they don’t count. María Galindo, 13 horas de rebellion

In 1992, Jaime Paz Zamora, founder of the MIR-Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Left Movement), was President of Bolivia. His rise to power was made possible thanks to a pact with his historical rival, President Hugo Banzer (1971–1978 and 1997– 2001), who decades earlier had not only imprisoned and killed several members of the MIR during his military government, but was also labeled by the same members of this movement as an enemy, a criminal and anti-popular.1 The seditious and contradictory nature of the Paz ZamoraBanzer alliance was in reality a coalition in opposition to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who a few years later would himself become president, with two disastrous, bloody and authoritarian presidencies (one between 1993 and 1997, and the other between 2002 and 2003). Thirty years after these 1 (Dirección Nacional Clandestina del MIR, 1973; El MIR contra Banzer). CEDEMA.

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ambiguous political agreements, the party MAS-Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism), led by Evo Morales, was overthrown in October 2019. Morales began his political activity as a cocalero (coca grower) trade unionist, and his political role had been marked mainly by the strong opposition to Banzer’s rightwing policies2 in the 1990s. Morales’ government—he served three consecutive terms—lasted until 2019, a year in which Bolivia saw an ideological gloom from which the MAS has not yet managed to recover,3 despite having won the 2020 presidential elections with another candidate. Morales’ defeat in 2019 led to the installation of an unlawful interim government, once again thanks to seditious political pacts and agreements made outside of legitimate electoral institutions. This administration has been called “transitional” and a good deal of public opinion has referred to it as a “coup government.” Likewise, its ideological characteristics have been reinforced and emboldened by the Bolivian extreme rightwing, which is undemocratic, militaristic and violent, and enjoys support from paramilitary groups. Bolivia’s new right has a marked tendency toward religious fundamentalism, as reflected in the first public appearance of interim President Janine Áñez (2019–2020), where she was shown holding a Bible.4 On January 30, 2020, a few months into this political crisis, Bolivian writer, filmmaker, radio broadcaster, graffitist, video artist and activist María Galindo would write her last column entitled La acera de enfrente for the Bolivian newspaper Página Siete, where she had been a contributor since 2010. Her article Sedición en la Universidad Católica 2 The 1996 march of coca workers from the city of Cochabamba to the city of La Paz, led by Evo Morales, demanded rights over coca leaf crops. This earned Morales the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in different opportunities without winning it, until today. 3 The structural crisis of MAS is exemplified by the current mayor of the city of El Alto, Eva Copa, who was obliged to separate from the party in order to run for mayor. In March 2021, with more than 70 percent of the votes, she was elected with unprecedented success. The internal crisis that MAS is going through is also highlighted by its militants who demand seeing beyond Evo Morales as the only ideological representative. Along with his controversial second and third presidential terms, the accusations of statutory rape against Morales that were formalized in 2020 have strongly weakened his leadership. 4 A video clip of Jeanine Áñez’s self-proclamation as president raising a Bible to the cheering audience is part of the introduction of María Galindo’s short film No nos maten por una silla (Don’t Kill Us For a Chair), a short audiovisual spot made for her radio program in the second half of 2020.

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had reported on and denounced the treacherous agreements involving national and international political personalities with no mandate of representation (Galindo 2020a). The column triggered Galindo’s split with the newspaper. These events are necessary for understanding the context in which Galindo has carried out her political and artistic work from 1992 to the present, whether individually or as a member of the anarcho-feminist movement Mujeres Creando. This chapter focuses on her audiovisual production, which Galindo has been able to develop, mature and transform during thirty years of activity. Galindo embodies the relationship between politics and art in a manner similar to that of intellectuals such as Pier Paolo Pasolini and Pedro Lemebel,5 inhabiting a territory that is a much broader geopolitical space than that marked by a border. Galindo was still a teenager when she joined a political party, the Organización Política Militar (OPM-Military Political Organization), led by Rafael Puente. The OPM, which emerged as an armed group based on the Cuban model, had the aim of overthrowing the state using military force.6 In Galindo’s words, “We were a kind of late 80 s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army).”7 Subsequently, in 1984, Galindo went into a self-imposed exile for more than six years in Italy where she received a degree in psychology at one of the universities in Vatican City. She did not return to Bolivia until 1990. The key to the creation of a new project for her was the awareness that “women, when we enter a public space, are sexual plunder […] and I began to want to form a kind of coalition of women within the

5 Pasolini was a poet, professor, columnist, film director, screenwriter, novelist and a militant member of the Italian Communist Party until his expulsion in 1949 for “immorality.” Pedro Lemebel was an artist, professor, performer, poet, novelist, columnist in several Chilean newspapers and radio broadcaster with his famous program Cancionero (Song Book), which ran from 1994 and 2002. Both Pasolini and Lemedel developed throughout their lives a political conscience marked by socialism, continuously moving between artistic and political action. They are referred to, in different ways, in María Galindo’s production. 6 See Galindo. “La violencia contra las mujeres no es un juguete” http://radiodeseo. com/analisis-de-spots-de-candidatos-a-las-elecciones-subnacionales-junto-a-isabel-braseidanina-quispe/. 7 ELN is the Spanish-language acronym for Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army). It emerged in the 1960s in Colombia and combined a Marxist-Leninist perspective with liberation theology.

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party” (QD Show 2017). The refusal of the OPM leadership to recognize women as an integral part of the political project led Galindo to separate from the group with which she had resumed relations upon her return from Europe. This definitive break with OPM contributed, in part, to the creation of a new project in 1992, the anarcho-feminist movement Mujeres Creando, based in the city of La Paz. Galindo’s work encompasses a wide variety of artistic languages: theoretical, pictorial, sculptural, radio and audiovisual works, as well as actionism in art. The range of her theoretical work includes self-published books by Mujeres Creando, in La Paz, some of which are collectively authored, and others are written solely by her. Galindo’s research appears regularly in a host of academic and nonacademic media. The self-published books by Mujeres Creando in Bolivia8 have for the most part had a concrete direct, simple style. While maintaining a style of prose accessible to a diverse readership, they still have considerable philosophical and intellectual content. They include texts on the history of the Mujeres Creando movement, pedagogical manuals, manifestos and syntheses of their research. Among the group’s pictorial works are those that inhabit public space, which Mujeres Creando refer to as graffiti: they are illegal interventions spray-painted on the walls in various Bolivian cities. They have a poetic style (from the point of view of the metric; in most of them, consonant rhyme is used) and contain concepts and ideas emerging directly from the movement. The authorship, signed on each graffiti, is always Mujeres Creando. These works reclaim the role of women in society, respond to specific historical moments, include easily memorized phrases, and are usually large-scale and placed in strategic locations in the city to facilitate access by different people whether on foot or taking private or public transportation. Galindo is the author of a collective pictorial work, Milagroso Altar Blasfemo , created with Danitza Luna and Esther Argollo. This mural was the subject of institutional censorship in the three countries where it has been painted (Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile), for explicitly representing the abuse of power by the church and the state. Argollo and Galindo have also made a monumental sculpture entitled Espacio para

8 Some of the titles include Machos, varones y maricones, Así como tu me quieres, yo no want to be yours, No se puede descolonizar sin despatriarcalizar (2013), No hay libertad política si no hay libertad sexual (2017), Soy lo prohibido and Feminismo bastardo (2020). The Spanish publishing house Traficantes de Sueños distributes María Galindo’s books in the European market.

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abortar, which due to its physical characteristics and dimensions has been installed and removed on several occasions. For example, this happened in the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, Brazil. This same sculpture was used as part of a collective action in the documentary 13 horas de rebelión (Galindo 2015). Since 2007, Mujeres Creando has broadcast its own voice, as well as that of thousands of citizens, through a mass media outlet: Radio Deseo. It is a space for the diffusion of ideas, debate, criticism and analysis with daily programming, seven days a week. Radio Deseo is broadcast from La Paz and is accessible worldwide through the Mujeres Creando’s web page.9 Finally, returning to audiovisual production, since its beginnings Mujeres Creando has used public space to stage symbolic actions carried out by members of the movement together with passers-by. These street performances have involved dance, song, theater, transvestism, symbolic elements, professional and non-professional actors. Importantly, they use spaces that symbolize state power as a backdrop, such as the institutional sites of the Bolivian police. I refer to the actions that Galindo has developed in museums, cultural centers and/or universities, as “institutional agitations” rather than “performances.” And among them are the Manifesto de sedición feminista, which was presented at documenta14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany, in 2017 and La jaula invisible at the Bergen Assembly, in Norway in 2019, and at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2020. Galindo’s audiovisual production should be understood, then, within these contexts. Accordingly, she has evidenced her capacity and desire for a certain conceptual, ideological and class “mobility.” As a downwardly mobile anarchist (abajista)10 with depatriarchal perspectives, her approach was strengthened upon her return to Bolivia following her experience in Europe as a student and worker. This inaugurated a new moment in what she describes as a “birth without parents.”11 Recalling what Donna 9 See Mujerescreando.org. 10 “I am ‘abajista’ because although I was born into an upper middle-class family, the

direction I took for my life was, instead of ascending, to descend socially. I go downward and good riddance to those who go upward.” See Pamela Valdéz Cuba (2020). 11 The quote continues: “Imagine a monster that devours that from which it is born. Or a process, where some, when dying, do not know whom they beget, others, when being born, do not know whom they kill.” See Peleshyán (2011, 17).

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Haraway (1991) refers to as “situated knowledge,” which emphasizes a subjective perspective rather than an objective or falsely objectifying one, Galindo, in the second half of the 1990s, began an ongoing video project. She produced a series of works that took full advantage of the technological resources of that era. She continues to navigate technologies fluidly, from prime-time programming on national television to the use of free-access platforms on the Internet. The corpus of Galindo and Mujeres Creando’s works could be presented in chronological order, but I find it is more useful to arrange them according to their mode of production and exhibition spaces starting with those that reflect an attention to the participation and access of wide audiences, such as television and online; to those limited. This includes those that and then those spaces that are limited to specific audiences, such as those in a movie theater or art institution. Creando Mujeres , Mamá no me lo dijo and 13 horas de rebelión are three television programs that were shown on Bolivian television in in 1998, 2001 and 2016, respectively. The first two aired on the freeaccess, open channel PAT or Red PAT (Periodistas Asociados Televisión or Associated Journalists Television), a television channel created in 1997 by Carlos Mesa Gisbert. In 2016, 13 horas de rebelión was shown on TVU or Televisión Universitaria (University Television), the channel of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Andrés (Higher University of San Andrés), which has its main headquarters in the city of La Paz. The film Creando Mujeres is composed of eight episodes, each with its own topic. Its recurring themes are women’s bodies and sexuality in the Aymara female world, masculinity, criticism of NGOs, racism among La Paz’s middle class and criticism of state institutions, such as the National Police and the Judiciary. These first audiovisual experiences were directed collectively, so each program was credited to the Mujeres Creando team, including the positions usually assigned to technicians for camera, editing and production. This practice would remain in effect until the group split up, which began in the year 2000 following changes in the collective’s make up. At around the same time, the group became conscious that “another aesthetic universe has opened up for us which is the audiovisual. The idea was to conceive of actions not only in an ephemeral way, but as a form of intervention in a medium such as television or cinema.” Mamá no me lo dijo premiered in 2003 (Mujeres Creando, La Virgen de los deseos 2005, 76). It was similar to the previous production but had a different approach to authorship. Going forward, Galindo was credited

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as director, screenwriter and editor of the audiovisual work, and individuals received credit for audio, still photography, art and cinematography. This program was conceived around four main characters: the prostitute, the saleswoman, the nun and la india (Indian woman). Each episode presented short narratives on the relationship between sexuality and work, sexuality and faith, sexuality and customs and sexuality and family. It premiered at the Bolivian Cinematheque in 2016 and was later broadcast on television on the same channel on which Creando Mujeres had premiered a few years earlier. The collective’s television experience would culminate in 2014 with the premiere of the television program 13 horas de rebelión, whose title is inspired by a poem by Galindo. Aesthetically, this program had an unusual and hybrid style, blending reportage, documentary, video art and “visual radio” with creative and communicational parameters. It’s authorial vision could be defined as anti-purist, or bastard cinema, the concept that I will introduce later in this chapter. It is complicated to speak of Galindo’s cinematographic referents because, to quote Haraway (1991) again, “[C]yborgs are not reverent […] The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential” (p. 151). However, it is possible to recognize in Galindo’s work the influence of Italian postneorealism auteur cinema that she feasted on during the years she studied in Italy. Galindo comments, “Of course, [I loved] all Fellini, all Pasolini. I lived in Italy for many years, and I have seen how in Rome cinema is part of people’s lives. There were movie theaters in all kinds of places (…). I savored it all, I got into all kinds of cinema. I am a consumer of images – the good, bad, regular and pathetic ones. I couldn’t say (what are) my references. I have a thirst for the audiovisual. And moreover, a taste for pornography and soap operas.” She continues, “cinema for me has not been cinema; rather it has been a sexual and emotional education, affective […]. I am interested, and I have not yet succeeded, in understanding the spirit of pornography. There is something in it, and I don’t know what” (Galindo, “Diálogo”, Facebook 2021a). Galindo’s personal way of thinking about the audiovisual influenced her practice of directing and editing. In her early films, the performance of professional and non-professional actresses as part of the same script evokes references not only to Pasolini’s films, but also to the

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Latin American cinematic tradition of characters playing themselves. It is worth mentioning, for example, Agarrando pueblo (Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina 1977), precursor to the manifesto against pornomiseria in Colombia but, above all, the performance of Bolivian actress Domitila Barrios de Chungara in El coraje del pueblo (Jorge Sanjinés 1971) playing herself,12 during what is known as the Massacre of San Juan in the tin mine Siglo XX, located in Potosí, Bolivia. In Galindo’s La puta, the whore is Eliana Dentone: sex worker and executive secretary of the sex workers’ movement in Chile at the time. In La monja, the nun is Rosario Adrián: a real-life nun who in the film celebrates mass in the Plaza San Francisco (La Paz) in front of a skeptical, but believing public that yields to the temptation to receive the Eucharist from her while she celebrates mass “in the name of the Mother and the Father; in the name of the son and the daughter and in the name of the Holy Spirit and Nature too.” This is a symbolic act, and it becomes even more so as it is simoniac and therefore heretical. In another example, the woman, who abandons her home and carries her desires in La Ekeka siempre fui yo (2013b), is Emiliana Quispe, a member of the Mujeres Creando movement and a chef who graduated from a prestigious institute in Bolivia that became a member of the collective when she left her home. All female characters, their interpretation of each role is profoundly expressive given that they are representing themselves. Yet, on some level, the fictitious scenario provides a kind of freedom that is not available in real life. In addition to understanding acting as a way of speaking in the first person, it is important to mention the ongoing participation of professional actors and actresses. Two examples are the Brazilian performer Pedro Costa in El desertor (The Deserter) (2015) and above all the Argentine-Bolivian actress Norma Merlo, who takes theatrical acting to the street. La Merlo, who passed away in 2021, had a close friendship with Galindo for more than twenty-five years. She was very active with the collective since the first films, playing a key role, often portraying the same character: a woman who opposes the rebellious females of the movement, providing a counterpoint to them by symbolizing conservatism, conformism and the rigid morals of a repressive and closed society.

12 At the invitation of Beatriz Palacios, wife of Jorge Sanjinés, María Galindo participated on several occasions in the film workshops of the Ukamau group.

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In exquisitely technical terms with respect to editing and distribution, and how it relates to the coherence of the work, the editing software that Galindo uses comes from the piracy market or is limited to programs that are freely available online and can be installed on home computers. Galindo uses the narrative and aesthetic resources of these particular tools in a way, reinforcing the position, which she has repeatedly expressed, regarding the uselessness of the “formal structures” that communication and film schools provide students to become professionals in direction, editing, cinematography, etc. Galindo, on the contrary, relies on and embraces autodidacticism and refines the use of these thanks to the creative dialogue with the other members of Mujeres Creando. Her films should be understood as pieces of individual authorship, but at the same time as projects that are always realized collectively and never alone. The transition from television to the Internet is recent and its arrival should be contextualized with the election of Evo Morales in 2005. During Morales’ presidency, dissent or any opposition to MAS online was increasingly restricted in Bolivia, until reaching explicit forms of censorship. He went from being a figure that was “the first Indigenous president” of Bolivia to a caudillo or warlord who centralized everything around his persona and image. Morales suffered a slow disavowal by those who elected him and by the MAS party militants themselves. Since the beginning, Galindo’s position was very critical of Morales, and it became even more. This was not only because the contradictions in strictly political and ideological terms were made explicit. On the one hand, the discourse about women’s participation in the government became mere propaganda, and on the other, there were grievances made against women who were close to Morales13 and other members of MAS. Galindo’s audiovisual work explores questions of rape, sexual and machista violence, and their relation to political power. She also examined the objectification of women, especially Indigenous women but also women of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as the homophobia and misogyny of MAS. Not surprisingly, this work was not given airtime on Bolivian television. It is at this juncture, between 2014 and 2015, that Mujeres Creando created its first YouTube and Vimeo channels, where its activities could be seen. 13 Evo Morales has been criticized for misogynistic, sexist and homophobic statements in public. His affective relationship with Gabriela Zapata began when she was a minor. In 2020, there was a denunciation of another relationship between Morales and a minor, and this has become an official accusation of statutory rape.

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Other channels were created specific to the audiovisual material that also began to be produced in Radio Deseo. In November 2015, Galindo inaugurated her YouTube channel to which Galindo herself, who manages her social media accounts, using them in a similar way to the way you could use an archive. “In this channel,” she said, “I share part of my audiovisual work, a work that is intrinsically related to the political work of Mujeres Creando. Just as we take the public space, just as we take the streets, just as we take the word, we also take hold of the camera and the audiovisual space to make a collective self-portrait of our presence in the space. Creativity is an instrument of struggle and social change is also a creative act.” The material on the YouTube channel is arranged in chronological order, so the works recorded by third parties for the author (including, for example, El parlamento de las mujeres,14 lectures, presentations and/or actions filmed by others), as well as the work by Galindo herself, are interspersed. It is important to emphasize that the presence of the Mujeres Creando movement on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter was not meant to be an alternative to television insofar as Bolivia is a country where the Internet, unlike television, is still a means of communication for those who have the economic resources to access it. However, social media have been an effective response to the forms of censorship mentioned above. At the same time, between 2004 and 2015, Galindo made three documentaries that were aimed to be shown on television: Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo (2004b), Amazonas, mujeres indomables (2009) and 13 horas de rebellion (2015). Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo was considered lost, although it has recently resurfaced in the video libraries of six universities, none of them in Latin America. My comments about the film are based on what I have been able to reconstruct in dialogue with the director and from some brief notes. Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo reconstructs the experience of Bolivian women who have had to leave the national territory to work in countries where there is a very high demand for care workers of children and the elderly, as well as for house cleaning and day labor

14 The Parlamento de las Mujeres was an initiative of Mujeres Creando and took place in several cities in Bolivia. It consisted of a dialogue during the October 2019 crisis that was inspired by The Parliament of Bodies by philosopher Paul B. Preciado as part of the public program of documenta 14 in 2017.

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work in the agroindustry. Galindo’s film mainly focuses on female Bolivian exiles in Spain who are engaged in domestic care work. Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo refers to the condition of non-voluntary migration, in that the women who had to leave Bolivia did so due to the pressure of the demand for debt repayment. This situation was precipitated by international organizations’ programs of “microcredits that are oriented to the informal sector—trade and services—where women are the majority” (Vaca 2009) in Bolivia, Peru and other Latin American countries. This kind of program brought about self-serving alliances between financial entities and NGOs, whose loans had interest rates that reached usurious levels (there was research conducted in Bolivia by Mujeres Creando in collaboration with Organización de Deudoras). The degeneration of neoliberalism led not only to the practice of self-exile, but also cases of suicide due to accumulated debts. Amazonas is a documentary made in the Buenos Aires district Bajo Flores, a peripheral neighborhood where a group of women, “Las Amazonas,” created a mutual defense group to protect themselves against physical, psychological and sexual aggression in their community. The medium-length film is narrated in a testimonial style in which the relationship between the cinematographer (Galindo herself) and Las Amazonas is direct, confessional and includes an exchange of defense strategies that they put into action when faced with machista attacks or violence, in search of justice enacted by themselves. The film’s handheld shots are interspersed with photographic collages superimposed as wreaths or floral arrangements, slow-motion images of canned hearts cooking in kitchen pots, which serve as a visual thread. Also inserted are slow-motion images of the streets of Bajo Flores, along with intertitles in order to reinforce some of the film’s ideas. The entire film, which lasts just over 44 minutes, is scored with a mixture of instrumental music and the audio of Las Amazonas in dialogue with Galindo. This strategy allows viewers to enter into the same intimate atmosphere that is established throughout Amazonas. 13 horas de rebelión premiered at the Cinemateca Boliviana in 2015, and screenings of it have been programmed in various international festivals and universities (in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Spain and elsewhere). Recently, it was shown at the Cultural Center of Spain in La Paz, Bolivia, as part of a research project on cinema made by women of Imagen Docs, in collaboration with the Festival de Cine Radical (Radical Film Festival). The documentary is 73 minutes long and consists of five short films:

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Pasarela feminista, Violencia machista y poder politico, Uteros ilegales, El desertor and La Ekeka siempre fui yo. The shorts are woven together with visual transitions, similar to the aesthetic strategies that Galindo had used for Amazonas. In this case, it is an audiovisual thread entitled Rebelión, in which a naked woman dances through the aisles of a market, on the roofs of the city and at the door of an open church, “doing so through an exaggerated, subversive gesture that places a woman’s vulva at the center of the whole drama.”15 13 horas de rebelión, whose title comes from a poem by Galindo that is quoted in one of the epigraphs for this chapter, is a complex film that deserves separate consideration. It is important to understand 13 hours of rebellion within the context of the works of Creando Mujeres and the format used in Mamá no me lo dijo because it maintains the organization by chapters or actions, although with a desire to capture everything in a full-length film by using the visual transition Rebelión, which makes the transition between short films more fluid and without interruptions. On the other hand, its content deals with more specific political and social themes, as in the case of Violencia machista y poder político or El desertor, in which Galindo uses archival material for her first “found footage” works. Her position is explicitly critical of the monopoly of Evo Morales’ image in Bolivian politics. As a caudillo, his persona was used only for propagandistic purposes, deifying a politician who was in decline. In both shorts, masculinity is presented as a disputed territory. 13 horas de rebelión recovers and gives mature expression to bastardism: the film distances itself from any idea of cinematic purism or filmic tradition. Rather, it resorts to elements that have already been “contaminating” other fields of thought and creation, such as Esther Argollo’s monumental sculpture Espacio para abortar, which is presented in the short Uteros ilegales as a trigger for the action. Likewise, Emiliana Quispe’s sculpture functions as a living, thinking and speaking presence in La Ekeka soy yo. The Ekeka is also a small ceramic sculpture by Danitza Luna, which the collective presents every year on the occasion of the Feria de la Alasita.16 The premiere of 13 horas de rebelión represented a very important moment for the city of La Paz. The attendance was massive, and the 15 See http://mujerescreando.org/13-horas-de-rebelion/. 16 This is an annual event that takes place in the highlands of Bolivia and Peru. It is

characterized by the sale of miniatures that symbolize the wishes of those who buy them. The most sold object is the Ekeko, a male Aymara deity that carries the miniatures.

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screening itself was an unprecedented success. However, the Cinemateca Boliviana’s management of the premiere was auspicious; they renounced any responsibility for the event, and with sine qua non conditions that required Galindo to sign an agreement that, in case of intervention by police and/or government officials, the Cinemateca would bear no institutional responsibility. Years later Galindo, along with Esther Argollo and Danitza Luna, would be subject to another and more explicit form of institutional censorship by one of the most powerful art institutions in Bolivia: Museo Nacional de Arte (the National Museum of Art).17 These events illustrate how artists in Bolivia (and in many countries that claim to be democratic) live in a repressive and controlling environment, with a government that is opposed to criticism, ideas and the political use. As the Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas observed: “A sense of beauty is always dangerous and antagonistic to any dictatorship, because it implies a realm extending beyond the limits that a dictatorship can impose on human beings. Beauty is a territory that escapes the control of the political police. Being independent and outside of their domain, beauty is so irritating to dictators that they attempt to destroy it whichever way they can. Under a dictatorship, beauty is always a dissident force, because a dictatorship is unaesthetic, grotesque; to a dictator and his agents, the attempt to create beauty is an escapist or reactionary act” (quoted in Manrique 2020, xviiii). Far from being escapist, the audiovisual and artistic work of Galindo has, over the years, taken a turn that I would say is apostate: the possibility of creativity as a fundamental element of artistic work can occur only on the outer edges of official discourse and of the institutions that legitimate it. Above all, Mujeres Creando’s work is distant from the official discourse, and from legitimating non-governmental institutions or international cooperation agencies if on the one hand these organisms often affirm state policies, proposing a development mixed with the philowestern vanguard (whether North American or European), on the other hand they enact new forms of cultural colonization. To conclude this mapping of Galindo’s audiovisual work, we will briefly consider some of her works that have been created for museums. Here I will refer to the audiovisual triptych that has been part of the exhibition Principio Potosí in the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and later

17 The censorship refers to the Milagroso Altar Blasfemo from 2016 (NdR).

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exhibited at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, National Museum of Art and National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (2010), the last two both in La Paz. She commented at the time: “I am working on the place of women during the process of conquest and colonization, which is not a remote place from 400 years ago, but one that continues to represent that non-place of women, that place of subordination. The womb of Latin American Indigenous women has been the site where violent and sexual penetration that has been constructed, giving rise to a completely bastardized Latin American society” (see Principio Potosí. Artistas y contextos 2011). The three films that make up this group are, América (2010), La Virgen Barbie (2010a), and Virgen Cerro (2010b). The setting is the city in La Virgen Barbie and Virgen Cerro. Here, the two virgins declare their alienation from these places that, according to the official historical narrative, they inhabit. Virgen Barbie is transformed into a chola (a word that describes Andean women, often used in a pejorative manner, although in Bolivia women have appropriated and re-signified this term for themselves) after a slow and painful process that strips her of their privileges: “That the wombs of white women can give birth to brown daughters. May the dark-skinned women have blonde sons, and may love and pleasure mix us, and mix us, and mix us, and mix us until we dissolve the lineage of nobles, masters, and the people who own the world. I do not want to be the mother of God, of that white, civilized and conquering God.” Meanwhile, the Virgin Cerro leaves the Cerro Rico de Potosí (a mountain city located in the southern highlands of Bolivia), deconstructing the religious symbols present in the painting, until she literally “descends” to the market, a vibrant place of women, children and passers-by. América functions as a link between the two other short films. The protagonist, who is played by the brilliant late Norma Merlo, leaves the street and appears on a stage in a fictional theater that is América. This character rejects the baptism, a symbol of identity, from an open window on an already bastardized geopolitical map of America. The painting suggests a new baptism, and a theatrical-style spotlight is placed in an apparently secondary part of the scene. It is the brothel Infierno, part of a larger mural work in which the Peruvian painter Tadeo Escalante portrays El juicio final (The Last Judgment) (1802–1809) in the small Church of

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Hauro (Cuzco, Peru), located on what was known as the “silver route.”18 From the underworld, América speaks: “To change my name, you did not baptize me, but by violating me you imposed another name on me. You hoped to subdue me and make me forget who I am. But I know that I do not belong to you, I know that I am not a piece of you, that I am not a part of you. I am another continent, another place in the world, another person, distinct, different. I don’t remember my name, but I know who I am.” She addresses the spectator, to remind him or her of her condition as a bastard without parents, symbolically reborn from the courage of the Virgin Barbie and the boldness of the Virgin Cerro. There is a group of audiovisual works by María Galindo that is unknown because it has disappeared, and this includes Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo, mentioned earlier. There is also unedited or unfinished material, such as the research that was conducted in the Pluri-National Legislative Assembly, of which there is still some raw audiovisual material, consisting of interviews with parliamentarians that were conducted between 2015 and 2016. The interviews revolve around issues such as gender identity, sexuality, homophobia and class discrimination. This material is available on María Galindo’s YouTube channel. Moreover, her research on this project resulted in the 2018 book No hay libertad política si no hay libertad sexual. Finally, in 2020, Mujeres Creando took the initiative to propose the Virgen de los Deseos (the group’s headquarters in La Paz) as a place of refuge for a group of Bolivian women stranded on the border with Chile. The returning Bolivians were forced into a reverse exile due to the economic difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Mujeres Creando’s offer to shelter migrants, which was made public through Radio Deseo, can be related to their film Las exiliadas del neoliberalismo, which depicts stranded women, domestic workers who worked in Chile who had arrived at the border on foot. The prospect of having the women carry out the quarantine in Mujeres Creando’s house would have provided Galindo with a creative possibility to make an audiovisual diary of the cohabitation during this period of confinement. However, Jeanine Áñez’s 18 During the viceroyalty, precious metals extracted in Potosí (Bolivia) were transported along the Ruta de la Plata (Silver Route) to Arica and Lima (Peru), on their way to Spain. The route to reach the Pacific Ocean initially followed the ancient Inca roads of the qhapaq ñan (the Andean Road System).

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transitional government had barred her from reentering the country, justified by the health crisis linked to the pandemic. This project was never realized.19 Galindo inhabits and sometimes creates, in a transversal manner and with perspicacity and vitality, spaces for politics, mass communication and journalism, art, cooking, the written press, cinema and photography, literature and poetry, pedagogy and the enjoyment of community life; this has allowed her to judiciously observe and analyze the slow decline of the Bolivian left on the one hand, and the inroads made by the new extreme right on the other. Finally, her work has contributed to the consolidation of thirty years of Mujeres Creando’s existence, an anarchist and feminist movement that, to paraphrase Paul B. Preciado (2020), “was on the edge of a revolution.” This group crossed that border with a certain degree of mischief, happiness, rebelliousness and pleasure. Galindo’s audiovisual work dialogues with diverse interlocutors, but film historians and researchers have rarely shown interest. For the most part, it has been the contemporary art field that has investigated, studied and approached these works. The taxonomic categories that support the organization of society from the colonial historical context that began in the fifteenth century (Spanish, mestizos and bastards) have been transferred to the hierarchized the cinematographic in Bolivian, Latin American and global cinemas, and this hierarchy is not only a taxonomy but is transferred to the cinematographic hierarchy, be it Bolivian, Latin American or worldwide. In this order, that comes from the North American film industry, is legitimized the monopoly of film over video, feature film over short film or fiction over documentary. Galindo’s work distances itself from such dichotomies by applying bastardism as its main formal and conceptual characteristic. The corpus of María Galindo’s audiovisual work is uncomfortable. But its discomfort not only emerges from its crude and direct language, by the display of naked male bodies, by the apparent blasphemy of religious symbols, by the disillusionment of references and canons of beauty, by

19 A complex audiovisual product that was made following the closure during the 2020 pandemic, La Warmi Rosa which, had started its channel in June 2019, increased subscriptions to its channel to reach more than 128,000 viewers between 2020 and 2021. Some episodes of the series that are available for free on YouTube have more than one million views.

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the political incorrectness, by the criticism of the idealization of Indianism tout court, by the rejection of the simplification of patriarchy as an element imported by the colonist and by the uncompromising confrontation against a male and female socialist caudillismo that verges on male or female fascism. Nor is it a videography that generates discomfort merely by the absence of cinephilic pedigree, by the artist’s lack of interest in the use of high-end equipment that produces professional sound, by her rejection of the race to continually upgrade to the latest technologies (whether it is 4 K, 5 K or 8 K), by the absence of movie stars in the cast, by the neglect on the part by alternative/radical chic/indie festivals that are often financed by international organizations that impose aesthetics, agendas and international categories alien to the Bolivian context or by the silence of the Bolivian film critics in primis. It is uncomfortable because it is impossible to hold on to it, to possess and to categorize, and because of this, it cannot be attributed an economic value. Perhaps this is its most rebellious aspect. We are not witnessing a small cinema, as promised by the title of the present volume, but we are standing before a non-finite or limitless cinema. This cinema is formless, dispersed, able to be pirated, accessible always and everywhere, without name or exact date, without homeland or origins; in short, it is a bastard cinema.

Bibliography Galindo, María. “Diálogo con María Galindo,” 2021a. https://www.facebook. com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=3636333139777637. ———. “La violencia machista contra las mujeres no es un juguete electoral.” Radio Deseo, March 4, 2021b. http://radiodeseo.com/analisis-de-spots-decandidatos-a-las-elecciones-subnacionales-junto-a-isabel-braseida-nina-quispe/ . ———. “Bastarda.” Revista de la Universidad de México, 8, 74–79, 2020a. https://www.revistadelauniversidad.mx/articles/4f1e3138-e08f-4716-b5e2c014e8f5fd77/bastarda. ———. Interview with Pamela Valdez Cuba. Re-Vista, 2020b. http://mujerescr eando.org/feminismo-bastardo-entrevista-a-maria-galindo-por-re-vista/. ———. “‘Sedición en la Universidad Católica’ o cómo armaron el golpe los patriarcas. La Haine, February 1, 2020c. https://www.lahaine.org/mundo. php/sedicion-en-la-universidad-catolica. ———. No hay libertad política si no hay libertad sexual. La Paz: Mujeres Creando, 2017.

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———. No se puede decolonizar sin despatriarcalizar. La Paz, 2013a. Galindo, María and Mujeres Creando. La virgen del los deseos. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón, 2005. Gómez, Nora. “La proyección del infierno medieval en Hispanoamérica.” V Jornadas de Estudios Clásicos y Medievales, 2011. http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/ handle/10915/33392. Haraway, Donna. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. La Warmi Rosa YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCemBg m7nPd_ogZgrQPCEf0Q. Manrique, Jaime. Forward. In Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls: A Memoir. Translated by Dolores M. Koch. Westminister, England: Penguin, 2020. Peleshyán, Artavazd. Teoría del montaje a distancia. Mexico: UNAM, 2011. Preciado, Paul. B. “Paul B. Preciado: ‘Nous étions sur le point de faire la révolution féministe… et puis le virus est arrive,’” Bulb, April 26, 2020. https://bulb.liberation.fr/edition/numero-2/nous-etions-sur-lepoint-de-faire-la-revolution-feministe/. QD Show. “Maria Galindo nos cuenta como nace Mujeres Creando,” November 6, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhax7_jsy_s. Vaca, Mery. “Mujeres bolivianas, víctimas de la usura.” BBC, November 5, 2009. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/economia/2009/11/091105_sp_ bolivia_mujeres_usura. Valdez Cuba, Pamela. “Feminismo Bastardo. Entrevista a María Galindo”. In reVISTA. La Paz: reVISTA 2, 2020. Viezzer, Moema. Si me permiten hablar. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1977

Filmography Galindo, María. “El parlamento de las mujeres, María Galindo Mujeres Creando,” December 9, 2019a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiogLi yvXIs. ———. No nos maten por una silla. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2019b. ———. Úteros ilegales . Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2019c. https://vimeo.com/ 349249736. ———. 13 horas de rebelión. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2016. ———. El desertor. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2015. ———. La Ekeka siempre fui yo. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2013b. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=nbpnFo23_sE. ———. Virgen Barbie. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2010a. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=nhqYLbmD3mg. ———. Virgen del cerrro. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2010b. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=hE680ObcxmU.

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———. Amazonas; mujeres indomables. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2009. http:/ /mujerescreando.org/amazonas/. ———. Mamá no me lo dijo. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2004a. http://mujere screando.org/mama-no-me-lo-dijo/. ———. Exiliadas del neoliberalismo. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2004b. ———. La puta. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2003a. ———. América. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2003b. Mayolo, Carlos and Luis Ospina. Agarrando pueblo. Colombia: SATUPLE, 1977. https://vimeo.com/6086559. Museo Reina Sofía. Principio Potosí. Artistas y contextos. Principio Potosí. Artistas y contextos, 2011. https://vimeo.com/13644416. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Comizi d’amore. Italy: Arco Film Roma, 1965. Sanjinés, Jorge. El coraje del pueblo. Bolivia and Italia: Group Ukamau, 1971. Radiotelevisione Italiana https://archive.org/details/718958168777.

PART III

Guerrilla, Regional and Peripheral Cinema

CHAPTER 13

Rethinking Subaltern “Modernities:” El Cine Chonero Popular, 1994–2015 Noah Zweig

Introduction The ultra-low-budget, “guerrilla”1 audiovisual sector of Chone, Ecuador, popularly referred to as Chonewood, predates the recent boom in Ecuadorian cinema that some academics (Ponce-Cordero 2019; Coryat and Zweig 2017; Dillon 2014) periodize as having begun at the end of the twentieth century following the release of the widely popular crime film Ratas, ratones, rateros (Rats, Mice, Shoplifters) (Sebastián Cordero 1999). And yet as with many underground film scenes vis-à-vis the mainstream, Chonewood, based in the selfsame rural part of the coastal

1 This notion of “guerrilla” cinema here is a far cry from the often-discussed guerrilla filmmaking from Latin America. See footnote 8.

N. Zweig (B) Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_13

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province Manabí, has positioned itself as a counterweight to Ecuadorian film production supported by the state-run film board (Cedeño 2017).2 We have previously argued (Coryat and Zweig 2017) that the broadly defined category of New Ecuadorian Cinema is a “small cinema” in that it encompasses, among other audiovisual sectors, “guerrilla” cinema, such as Chonewood. With titles such as Masacre en el Bejuco (Massacre in El Bejuco) (Fernando Cedeño and Nixon Chalacamá 1994), named after a small Manabita town not known for its tourism, Chonewood filmmaking, insofar as its audiovisual products might not register with international audiences or even Ecuadorian audiences outside of Manabí, is preponderantly representative of one aspect of this small cinema, that of the Montubio (a term for coastal peasants). It constitutes what Alvear and León (2009) refer to as the cinema of Ecuador Bajo Tierra (underground). Its practitioners such as the self-taught Fernando Cedeño and Nixon Chalacamá, who come from the working class and have day jobs, are cognizant of their doubly marginalized status: they are overshadowed by both the hegemony of Hollywood and the predominance of the Quitocentric or quitocentrismo segment of New Ecuadorian Cinema that has historically received funds from the state, and which generally privileges narratives of urban, middle-class mestizo Ecuadorians, primarily quiteños and to a lesser extent filmmakers from Guayaquil, Ecuador’s other main city.3 And yet Chonewood films are enormously popular with local audiences in Manabí. Thus, for example, by 2010, it was estimated that DVDs of the film Sicarios manabitas (Hitmen from Manabí) (Cedeño 2004), which was shot with a home camera on a shoestring budget, had sold over one million copies, a figure not before seen by the New Ecuadorian

2 In 2007, Ecuador created both the Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio (Ministry

of Culture and Heritage) and the Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía (National Film Council, CNCinc), which was a product of the Ley de Fomento del Cine Nacional (National Film Development Law) of 2006. CNCine played a key role in maintaining Ecuador’s cinema boom. In 2016, the government implemented a new Ley de Cultura (Organic Law on Culture), which, among other things, transformed CNCine into the Instituto de Cine y Creation Audiovisual (Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Creation, ICCA). 3 However, it should be noted that this is changing. At the time of writing, the Instituto de Fomento a la Creatividad y la Innovación (Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Innovation), which replaced CNCine, is funding Indigenous and regional cinema projects.

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Cinema films that open in Ecuador’s urban movie theaters.4 Chonewood directors have also defied this practice of state-supported filmmaking by inventing their own funding model in which cast and crew contribute financially to the productions.5 Moreover, I consider Chonewood as a small cinema in that thematically the stories it tells tend to feature for the most part actors and characters from outside of the capital. Aesthetically, Chonewood filmmaking derives from late-twentiethcentury Mexican narcofronteriza (drug border) films, as well as 1980s Hollywood action movies (Alemán 2009, 267),and thus, these films often contain gratuitous violence and misogyny. Their creators have been accused of perpetuating stereotypes of the Montubio. As Xavier Andrade (2001) observes, the Montubio world is “perceived as the most violent society on the Ecuadorian coast” (123).6 However, as with many films, there is no denying the sociological importance of Chonewood in this local context. As Juan Pablo Pinto Vaca (2015) observes, these films, many of them inspired by actual incidents, as well as the widespread tradition of oral storytelling in the region, form part of a “local collective imaginary” in their depiction of violent acts and their rationalities (10). Such indexicality can be seen in Sicarios manabitas , which was made at a time of increasing violence by the violent narco gang Los Choneros (Pinto Vaca 2015, 9). Here I argue that Chonewood has unleashed dual imaginaries specific to the region. First, there is “radical modernity,” consisting of an Ecuatorianidad inspired by Manabita leader Eloy Alfaro (1842–1912) who, twice president (1897–1901 and 1906–1911), challenged Ecuador’s quitocentrismo and its regionalism. Rural Manabí’s “modernity” is considered radical because it has represented a sustained resistance to urban Ecuador’s uneven industrialization and negligence of the Montubio. Second, as a digital revolution, Chonewood has used technology as “pirate modernity” in defiance of Ecuador’s urban elites’ technocratic nation building. Reproducible, “pirate” digital technologies provide the Manabita subaltern with new imaginaries and thus new forms of 4 In fact, in 2009, there was an attempt to bring this underground cinema to audiences in Guayaquil and Quito in the form of the film festival Ecuador Bajo Tierra. Although this series had four editions, it ceased operations in 2012, and the quitocentrismo in Ecuador’s audiovisual sector remains acute. 5 This practice has antecedents in Mexican narco films of the 1970s (Vincenot 2010). 6 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author.

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contesting Ecuador’s enduring divides. Radical modernity emerged as a nineteenth-century imaginary specific to the subaltern subjectivity of the Montubio. In rural Manabí, “pirate modernity” arose in the 1990s as a collectivistic defiance of Ecuador’s audiovisual divide. I maintain that Chonewood’s synthesis of these two “modernities” represents the postmodernization of the Montubio’s subject position. My use of the term pirate modernity in the context of Chone is twofold. First, I am referring to production: the filmmakers, casts and crews who bypass the state’s Quito-centric vision of New Ecuadorian Cinema and are contributing to what is a shadow or parallel economy outside of the state gaze (Lobato 2012). Second, at the level of reception, I am pointing to the subaltern spectator who consumes these films outside of multiplexes via pirated discs and on social networks such as YouTube and Facebook.7 Chonewood films are complex, multivalent texts through which local subjectivities of the Ecuadorian subaltern are negotiated and reimagined. In this chapter, I will analyze the following films, looking at how they use genres to mediate these two modernities: the “remix” film El destructor invisible (The Invisible Destroyer) (Chalacamá 2005); Sicarios Manabitas , a postmodern Montubio western that is considered one of Ecuador’s most widely seen film when measured by YouTube clicks and informal DVD sales8 ; and the docudrama road movie Los raidistas (The Raiders) (Chalacamá and Ignacio Solórzano 2012), which recounts the 1939 treacherous coast-to-mountain journey made by five Choneros to demonstrate to the government the feasibility of such an interregional linkage. This chapter is divided into four sections. First, I explain the theoretical bases I have drawn on to make this argument about Chonewood as a small cinema. Second, I situate the history of Chonewood in the context of “radical” and “pirate” modernities. Third, I analyze the rhetoric of 7 Starting in the mid-2010s, discs, whether pirated or in the form of legitimate distribution, have been in the process of decline and are increasingly being replaced by streaming services and social networks. This chapter focuses on the rise of Chonewood, which took place when DVDs were the main form of delivery. But the presence of these films on social media sites, the subject for future study, changes the dynamic of pirate modernity: by directly controlling the circulation of their films on social media channels, this gives these artists direct contact with their followers. 8 At the time of writing, the video of Sicarios Manabitas on YouTube has received 1.6 million views.

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“guerrilla” cinema, as deployed by Chonewood. Finally, I do analyses of the aforementioned Chonewood films that I consider emblematic of these twin imaginaries that postmodernize the Chonero experience as a small cinema.

Theoretical Background Chonero filmmaking is a twenty-first-century cultural iteration of what Tatiana Hidrovo Quiñónez (2003b) refers to as the imaginary of “radical modernity,” which dates back to the 1890s when Eloy Alfaro envisaged a “modernity” particular to the rural context of Manabí, distinct from the notion of “progress” implemented by the conservative urban elites and the religious aristocracy who, unlike Alfaro, opposed the creation of a secular state. Alfaro deserves a central place in the Ecuadorian collective repository inasmuch as his presence helped beget the linkage of the mountain and coastal regions, among other sea changes (Ávila Nieto 2012, 148). Discursively speaking, Alfaro’s radical modernity helped mobilize and protagonize rural coastal populations, resulting in the Liberal Revolution (1895–1924), which separated church and state. Alfaro’s radical vision of modernity was primarily economic. Coming from a bourgeois family, he cultivated liberal values and believed that private enterprise should fuel Ecuador’s transformation into the twentieth century. At a time when the country was mainly agricultural, Alfaro clashed with the conservative coastal oligarchs who favored traditional capital-labor relations. For Alfaro, it was small farmers and artisan workers that would bring Ecuador into modernity (Hidrovo 2003b, 108). Unlike hegemonic modernity, radical modernity would take chances in activating the national economy and in doing so benefit the subaltern. Thus, for example, this was the case with the construction of the interregional railroad system, often considered the crowning achievement of the Liberal Revolution. However, despite the interventions of Alfarismo, for Ecuador’s elite tastemakers, Manabí’s rural cantons continue to occupy a peripheral part of the national imaginary. Unlike Guayaquil, the Manabí canton Chone has been disconnected from the global market (Hidrovo 2003b, 98).

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Nonetheless, as a “bottom-up” tool of nation building, Alfarismo remains a strong form of resistance.9 As a discursive field, it can be refashioned in different contexts, as seen in the cinema of Chone, which has been inextricably linked to the canton’s social history. Thus, for example, from the 1930s until the early 1990s, movie theaters were among the few spaces in which social organization was possible in Chone (Pinto Vaca 2015, 73–76). Likewise, it is worth pointing out that the establishment of the now-defunct local movie theaters Holmes, Venus and Bambino occurred in 1940, simultaneous with the rise of the bandit gang Los Tauras. The radical Alfarista movement implemented the vision of an alternative “modernity” for the subaltern Montubio, which aspired toward a national integration in which the vastly different coast and the highlands would be integrated both materially and symbolically. Likewise, 100 years later, Chonero filmmakers would create an alternative, popular audiovisual sector projecting a different Ecuatorianidad, a postmodern one rooted in the ethos of Alfarismo. To the extent that Chonewood films are both produced outside of the quitocentrismo of the state gaze and distributed largely through unofficial means, the informal audiovisual economy of Chonewood, both at the levels of production and distribution, refashions what Ravi Sundaram (2009) has described as “pirate” or “recycled” modernity. As an example of “pirate modernity,” Sundaram writes about how the advent of electronic piracy in the postcolonial metropoles in the 1970s transformed media consumption by tethering the experiences of “the urban” and “media” for the postmodern age. New “pirate modernities” emerged in the twenty-first century, as marginalized peoples in urban populations increasingly began using digital technologies that bypass state and corporate infrastructures to make art. While Chone has not undergone unprecedented urban growth, the dual forces of urban expansion and digital piracy have exacerbated Ecuador’s regional and urban–rural divides, all of which privilege Quito. Thus, while the erasure between the experience of the technological and the urban is noticeable in the capital, Ecuadorian pirate modernity, while also experienced in rural zones such

9 The imaginary of Alfarismo has lingered into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For example, in the 1980s, the militant organization Alfaro Vive Carajo, using Alfaro as an ideological referent, adapted armed struggle to pressure the conservative government of León Febres Cordero (1984–1988) to reduce inequalities.

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as Chone, is decoupled from its urban cohabitation; it is piracy without the same postmodernity. One of pirate modernity’s salient aspects is the way in which it empowers the subaltern to circumvent top-down nation-building projects. Thus, for example, Sundaram (2009) observes that after 1947, while post-independence Indian authorities used state-run broadcasting to forge citizenship, they were afraid of cinema largely due to its lack of government regulation and theaters full of masses seemed like a threat (p. 4). Such fears would reappear in the 1980s following economic liberalization and widespread availability of computers and later cellphones. Likewise, although in a different context, as an articulation of pirate modernity, Chonewood would emerge from the margins of the Ecuadorian nation state and neoliberal restructuring. As Miguel Alvear explains in his film Más allá del mall (Beyond the Mall) (2010), which combines documentary and fiction and expands on the work he did with Alvear and León (2009), Ecuador’s ultra-low budget cinema sectors are made accessible to the masses largely by street merchants who sell pirated discs of these films. Unlike the case with “official” national Ecuadorian cinema whose filmmakers reached an agreement with DVD merchants to not bootleg discs of their films (Novoa Romero 2014, 17), no such deal exists between disc vendors and Chonewood directors. And the availability of cheap discs of Chonewood movies on the street mobilizes the economy in ways that the Ecuador’s “official” cinema never could. Unlike the case of DVD sales of films recognized by Ecuador’s cultural institutions, the Chone directors do not see profits from these sales. But at the same time, the pirate DVD market helps the economy “from below” (Ramos Monteiro 2016, 44). According to Pablo Salgado (2016), in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Chonewood and other sectors of Ecuador Bajo Tierra were emergent, discs of these films sold “like hotcakes” in the informal market, as there were up to 20,000 street kiosks with discs, and sales on buses were common. In fact, Chonewood movies, and other films constituent of Ecuador Bajo Tierra, do not bear “Ecuadorian” registration, so their operation should be considered as part of another realm entirely, as that of a “shadow economy,” namely that of pirate modernity. There is a realization among Chonewood filmmakers that they will not benefit financially from these informal sales, but since this is the only way that their films can be disseminated in the current media ecosystem, they have come to

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accept the laws of the pirate market in that it makes them known and respected as local artists (Alvear and León 2009, 19). With the collapse of the traditional moviegoing model, piracy emerged to fill this void for the masses. Gabriel Alemán (2009) accounts for the immense popularity of pirated discs of underground movies by noting that multinational video-rental businesses did not make inroads in the country in the 1990s (261). And by the time that the multiplex arrived in the early 2000s, Ecuador had been undergoing a severe economic crisis known as the feriado bancario (bank holiday) and ticket prices were prohibitively expensive for the majority of citizens. For many non-urban subaltern audiences, then, marginalized by the new economy, inexpensive copies of Chonewood films offered an accessible, localized form of visceral pleasure to cope with the financial turbulence. The synthesis of radical and pirate modernities that I see as the postmodernization of Chonewood, and described in this section, presents the Montubio experience as a chance for the Ecuadorian subaltern to reflect on where the Andean country is nearly 200 years after independence.

Chone’s Emergent Audiovisual Sector This part is divided into two subsections. First, I present a brief social history of lo montubio, focusing on its identitarian aspects, to contextualize the construction of Chone’s postmodern film sector. One characteristic of rural Manabí in general and Chone in particular is its schizophrenic mixture of pastness and present. Thus, Chone lingers in the twentieth century insofar as its undiversified economy remains preponderantly agricultural (Pinto Vaca 2015, 57). At the same time, it remains at the forefront of advancing these alternative modernities, as it is at the vanguard of Ecuador’s guerrilla cinema (Cortez Estrella 2018; Alvear and León 2009). In the second part, I look at the history of moviegoing in Chone, an activity intimately linked to the canton’s sociocultural history. Social History Familiarity with Chone’s history of social struggle is a useful entry point into its cinematic sector because these films are inextricably related to Montubio cultural identity. For example, Fernando Cedeño bases the events of his films on stories that have happened to people he knows or local legends (Cortez Estrella 2018, 68). Here, I draw on the categories

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that Pinto Vaca (2015) presents as the prototypes of Chonewood because doing so allows me to connect this history to my classifications of pirate and radical modernities. Thus, for Pinto Vaca, the enduring figure of the sicario in Chone, as well as being a central archetype in this popular cinema, can be traced back to three collective social actors: los enganchados (the enlisted), an early nineteenth-century irregular assemblage of Montubios that struggled against local caudillos; las montoneras (the mounted rebels), an autonomous Montubio peasant band that fought on behalf of Alfaro’s forces; and los Tauras (the bulls), a bandit gang and devout followers of José María Urbina, once president (1851–1856) and abolitionist. Los Enganchados Following Ecuador’s independence in 1822, most of the nation’s power rested with the central government and city councils. Los engachados had gotten much of the Manabí province to oppose the status quo. For much of the subaltern, disillusioned by the failed promises of the new democratic republic, joining irregular armed groups was an attractive option (Ayala Mora 1996, 8). Since independence, many segments of the Montubio population would have an ambiguous relationship with the government’s nation-building project, an enduring theme at the turn of the twenty-first century with the rise of Chonewood, as can be seen in the films analyzed below. Las Montoneras Las montoneras were the driving force in Alfaro’s army leading up to the Liberal Revolution. They fought to eradicate Ecuador’s strong ecclesiastical influence. Their insurrectionary spirit played a key role in empowering the Montubio and determining the course of Ecuador. As Tatiana Hidrovo (2011) observes about the influence of las montoneras and los engachados, as the pioneers of “radical modernity” in the Manabita context of the late 1800s, their actions were contemporaneous with the explosion of magazines, books newspapers and eventually, cinema, which showed images of consumerist culture or “print capitalism” (p. 105; Anderson 2006). While many Ecuadorians had been receiving images of commercial culture in newspapers and magazines, the Montubios were projecting an alternative modernity in their own

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print culture. By 1920, Hidrovo notes (2003a), there was an imaginary of the Manabita worker (p. 94). Three quarters of a century later, Chonewood would forge a postmodern version of this alternative imagined community. Los Tauras The bandit group Los tauras was formed in the 1940s, but their influence grew considerably two decades later when Ecuador becomes an incipient producer of petroleum (the natural resource was discovered in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 1967). Los tauras took advantage of the social instability resulting from Ecuador’s transition to becoming a petro state, as it was felt in rural Manabí. Juan Antonio Vergara Alcívar (1996) characterizes this epoch as that of a dichotomous struggle between the “marginal power” of los tauras versus that of “hegemonic power.” One of the ways that these bandits constructed radical modernity as a form of identity was through their vibrant oral tradition of storytelling, a practice that Chonewood would take up thirty years later. This subsection has considered some of the historical and cultural bases of Montubio identity, which laid the groundwork for radical and pirate modernities that would be reshaped and postmodernized in the form of Chonero popular cinema. Keeping in mind these collectivist actors while watching Chonewood films enriches the experience. A Brief Social History of Cinema in Chone Historically, rural Manabí has been largely excluded in construction of Ecuador’s cultural patrimony, including its official cinema. As Miguel Alvear and Christian León (2009) write, “In contrast to what happened in advanced capitalist countries, in Ecuador cinema was born with a profound mark of class. It was a spectacle for the urban elite eager to emulate cultural modernity in Europe and the United States” (15). In non-urban Manabí, cinema’s history has a different trajectory than in Quito and Guayaquil. While during the twentieth century, the movie theater was diversion for the urban middle class, in places like Chone, it also played an important role as an access point for the negotiation of radical modernity. For example, Chone’s first taekwondo school opened in the Oriflama Theater in 1969, and as Alain Delgado and Esteban Juan

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Pérez Hernández (2018) observe, Choneros were among the first professional enthusiasts of the sport in Ecuador. Korean trainers would visit the theater to screen martial arts films in order to pique the interest of locals to study taekwondo. In addition to doubling as a martial arts dojo, in the 1980s the Oriflama cinema became a center for worker organizing, which would give rise to the paro (work stoppage) of 1982 (Pinto Vaca 2015, 76). Given this context, then, the Chonero cinema sector might be understood as a negation of this elitist moviegoing tradition by way of radical modernity. Chonewood was born in the postmodern age of the 1990s, with the cross-pollination of radical and pirate modernities, during the first revolution of home video and camcorders. Pinto Vaca (2015) refers to this era as the first phase of Chonewood (89). It is no coincidence that this pirate modern audiovisual sector emerged during this time, the neoliberal “lost decade,” when official Ecuadorian cinema was in decline, as only five “official” feature-length films were made during those ten years (La Hora 2012). As it was during the 1990s, moviegoing in Ecuador today is largely reserved for urban elites, since the shopping centers, which house the multiplex chains, are based in cities where ticket prices are generally $5 and the average monthly salary at the time of writing is between $400 and $500 (El Universo 2021). According to Pinto Vaca (2015), Chonewood’s second phase began in the early 2000s, when this Manabita sector underwent two important changes (p. 89). First, the team of Nixon Chalacamá and Fernando Cedeño went their separate ways as filmmakers. Second, as mentioned earlier, in 2000, Ecuador underwent the feriado bancario, due to severe inflation, and the devaluation of the sucre (Ecuador’s former currency), which would ultimately result in the dollarization of the economy. New informal markets would emerge out of this financial crisis, including an alternative audiovisual economy (Lobato 2012; Alemán 2009). This would have profound repercussions on the popular cinematic sector, making Chonewood cinema more accessible and affordable outside of the Manabita region. The upshot of this socioeconomic turmoil is that Chonewood would take on an ethnographic character by way of fictionalized versions of real-life violent events (Pinto Vaca 2015, 89). For example, the film Avaricia (Greed) (Cedeño 2000) was inspired by an actual situation concerning a deadly property conflict (Pinto Vaca 2015, 95).

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This subsection has maintained that regional and rural–urban divides, as well as quitocentrismo, have shaped filmmaking and moviegoing in Chone, just as they have with everything else in the country. Well into the twenty-first century, this class divide has intensified, as the movie theater is largely reserved for urban elites. Most single-screen movie houses are closed (the Oriflama shut its doors at the start of the 2000s). Through pirate and radical modernities, Chonewood permits the ways in which this Quito-centric taste making can be negotiated.

Chonewood as a “Guerrilla” Cinema and the Politics of Representation While Chonewood’s practitioners use insurgent discourse, and while Rafael Ponce-Cordero (2019) argues that their crude depictions of poverty and violence can be read as responses to neoliberal adjustments, textually these films are not overtly “political.” Since Chonewood filmmakers such as Cedeño and Chalacamá use the term “guerilla filmmaking” (Ramos Monteiro 2016), I consider it worthwhile to briefly analyze that concept to situate it in the context of this small cinema. Doing so demonstrates some of the ways in which Chonewood comprises pirate and radical modernities. Although Cedeño (2017) has issued a “cine guerrilla” declaration, there is no official manifesto that aesthetically and thematically unites the Chonero filmmakers. As an oppositional discourse and practice of guerrilla cinema, Chonewood is not bound by strict generic conventions. In his statement, Cedeño describes his mode of guerrilla cinema as comedy, drama or horror, adding that it is not a weaponized cinema, but an “insurgent and ideological one.”10 Although contestatory small cinemas take divergent forms in a pluralistic mediascape, in the Ecuadorian context, “guerrilla” is in many ways a

10 In the mid-twentieth century, filmmakers of the so-called third cinema movement espoused a romantic, collectivized model of filmmaking in which the camera was seen as an anti-colonial weapon in the third world. This historical context begs the question of the relevance of a “third,” “guerrilla” or “militant” cinema well into the twenty-first century when despite the Cold War-influenced, anti-imperialist grandstanding of self-described leftist heads of state, today’s geopolitics are increasingly multipolar and there are multiple imperialisms.

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branding term to the extent that Cedeño and Chalacamá use it metaphorically to denote the ways in which they see themselves as “combatants” struggling on two fronts: both against Hollywood hegemony and the film board-backed New Ecuadorian Cinema (Cedeño 2017). Likewise, Cedeño, nicknamed the “Ecuadorian Tarantino,” is known for referring to his crew as his “soldiers,” with whom he uses military discipline on the set (El Telégrafo 2013). On the other hand, there is sincerity in Cedeño and Chalacamá’s use of the term. They are “guerrilla” filmmakers due to their self-perception as self-taught and self-made entrepreneurs, and the fact that they make enormously popular films at the regional level without state funding and instead self-financing their productions, which has involved considerable work (Ponce-Cordero 2019, 109). This “guerrilla” struggle is very much an identitarian one in which the Montubio subaltern seeks representation. Likewise, as Mauricio Acosta Muñoz (2018) observes, the “politics” in Ecuadorian guerrilla cinema are those of representation (p. 34). In short, in Chonewood, the struggle is for the subaltern to be able to speak for him or herself and filtered through radical and pirate modernities.

Chonewood Film Analyses In the following subsections, I analyze the films El destructor invisible, Sicarios manabitas and Los raidistas that postmodernize these pirate and radical imaginaries. Likewise, they span three decades of this popular film sector, including the two periods of Chonewood, as described by Pinto Vaca. El Destructor Invisible: Remixing Modernities Frederic Jameson (1991) maintains that one of the consequences of global capitalism is a crisis in representability in which old art models will no longer serve, and this is especially felt by the subaltern. Since the realist and modernist aesthetics are not always compatible with the vagaries and vicissitudes of late capitalism, new and innovative representational paradigms become necessary, and this is the case in El destructor invisible and other Chonewood films.

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El destructor invisible’s story is worth recounting briefly in order to discuss the film’s plot points in terms of these two modernities. The narration recounts Javier, played by Chalacamá, approaching his friend Arturo whose help he needs to battle Conan, a villain who appears to have superpowers. It is revealed that Conan has kidnapped Javier’s son. Arturo and Javier assemble a commando team to traverse the forest where they believe the boy is being held in captivity. Chalacamá leaves unclear motives and causes of heroes and villains. For example, Javier owns a valuable book that is desperately wanted by Conan and its importance is unexplained. Conan casts a spell on Javier’s friends, forcing them to turn against him. Javier reluctantly kills his crazed comrades and then has a final showdown with his adversary. The hero kills his nemesis but as the latter is dying, he strikes his opponent with a morning star in the jugular vein. The dying Javier, limping, escorts his son out of the woods, landing the boy to safety in town just as he dies. The final product of El destructor invisible, according to Chalacamá, is a “remix” version of his film (Pinto Vaca 2015, 88).11 As a discursive strategy, digital remix cinema is at bottom dialectical montage (Kuhn 2012) in that its editing consists of jarring juxtapositions rather than Hollywood-style seamlessness, an aesthetic that coheres with the disruptive nature of radical and pirate modernities. As a “remix” film, Chalacamá’s film is a descendent of Soviet montage cinema. As characters move through action, he uses jump cuts, as did Eisenstein, which is a congruent aesthetic for the Monbubio’s schizophrenic subject position. Chalacamá uses the American pop songs “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band and “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison out of their contexts in that the lyrics have nothing to do with the plot, which is apt since purloining mainstream culture and repositioning it in a “bottom-up” form are postmodern.

11 Chalacamá started work on El destructor invisible in 1998. But having run out of money, he would not finish until 2005. The broke Chalacamá came up with a plan in which he would through clever editing tell the story he had envisioned combining extant footage from previous projects with what he already had from the unfinished film. Throughout the final film, it is not clear what footage is past and what is present.

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Likewise, El destructor invisible’s defiance of the grand narrative is a hallmark of postmodernity. Its combination of movie genres—fantasy, martial arts and action—is indicative of postmodern cinema, which will also be seen in Sicarios Manabitas . Ultimately, Chalacamá suggests that the Montubio subject’s fate is doomed, controlled by inexorable forces. Sicarios Manabitas: A Postmodern, Montubio Western At its core, the film is a revenge tale, in which a prominent Chonero landowner, Agamenón Menéndez, contracts three sicarios to assassinate those responsible for the murder of his son who was shot by Lisandro, the son of the Menéndez’s neighbor José María Olivera. After ordering the first assassinations, Agamenón decides he also wants the family of the perpetrators killed, as well as anybody who has wronged him in the past. Following multiple bloodbaths, the national police send an undercover agent to Chone who poses as a student passing through in order to investigate the crimes. After his identity is discovered, the sicarios kill him. Quickly things spiral out of control between the warring families, with almost everyone dead, including Agamenón and said hitmen. The only survivors are an evangelical pastor and the women and children related to the dueling families. Following the final shootout, Cedeño cuts to an epilogue that shows the children of Agamenón playing a shoot ‘em up game outside the ranch with fake pistols, as if presaging the fate of the next generation. As this brief summary suggests, Sicarios manabitas , with its simple plot, linear storytelling and its familiar subject matter of land disputes, vengeance and tragedy, is a western with Montubio protagonists. Despite its sordid violence, Cedeño like other pioneers of the western genre is interested in displaying the splendor of location, here Chone. At one point, the sicarios applaud the scenic richness of the community. Most of the action sequences take place in the wilderness, alongside majestic rivers and mountains. As a Montubio western, then, a useful entry point for understanding the film and its relationship to these two modernities is scholarship on global cinemas’ interventions in the Hollywood western genre, and what these intercultural re-imaginings entail (Klein 2015). Thomas Klein (2015) argues that since setting plays such a prominent role in the western, more so than any film genre, there is a universality to it that

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has enabled other national cinemas to, drawing on their own iconographies and landscapes, craft new “western” narratives and myths, as if they were painting on canvases. Thus, unlike in Hollywood westerns, where landscape might represent, say, a counterpoint between civilization and wilderness, in the Montubio western Sicarios manabitas , setting is used to explore themes of radical modernity by encompassing the schizophrenia of Manabita identity. For example, although the film is set in the present day, characters are seen using horses as often as cars. Similarly, the film depicts a machista, retrograde version of gender relations in that women play a subservient role to the action, as they are reduced to lovers, housewives and helpless girls. Likewise, the state’s minimal presence is seen in Sicarios manabitas when the undercover national policeman is easily dispatched. In the universe of Chonewood, calling the authorities after the murder of Agamenón’s son does not even seem in the realm of possibility; frontier justice is the only option. Pirate modernity becomes apparent when considering the production, distribution and exhibition history of Sicarios manabitas that was made independently by the film collective Sacha Producciones. Cedeño took advantage of the new, affordable digital technologies for production and post-production in the early 2000s. Likewise, rather than fake ammunition, he chose to use real bullets as props as they are cheaper than rubber ones. By blending past and present, as reflective of Manabí’s radical modernity, and mixing genres and styles—the western, Hollywood action and melodrama—Cedeño uses postmodernity to leave a snapshot of where rural Manabí is in the twenty-first century. Los Raidistas: A Chonero Road Movie Narrated by Manabita academics César Delgado and Renan Álava, Ignacio Solórzano’s Los raidistas uses a postmodern docudrama form to recount the adventure of the Choneros who in a 1931 Chevrolet crossed the Andean Cordillera, comprised of inhospitable mountains, torrential rivers and inclement weather, to reach Quito. Here I argue that Solórzano uses the contestatory genre of the road movie, combined with its docudrama style, and the casting of former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutiérrez (2003–2005) as dictator Alberto Enríquez Gallo (1937–1938) to create

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what can be read as an allegory for Chonewood filmmaking itself. The use of Gutiérrez gives the film a verisimilitude, making it meta. Los raidistas recounts its events in a linear fashion. It is explained that prior to the Choneros’ feat, accessing the capital from Chone had required undergoing an odyssey. One would have to travel from the Manabí port town of Bahía de Caráquez to catch a boat to Guayaquil, which had the nearest interregional road system. The raidista group consisted of farmer Carlos Alberto Aray, his brother and soccer player Artemio, bohemian man of letters Juan de Dios Zambrano, violinist Emilio Hidalgo and professional driver Plutarco Moreira. The youths are depicted as deciding to make the trip after a night of drinking. Such an impulse of radical modernity in which the direction of the nation would be challenged from below was common among Chonero youth in that decade, as many of them were hoping to realize new forms of progress after feeling, as Montubios, neglected by the state in the austere era of the global Depression (Vera Chávez 2015, 42). The raidistas left on December 6, 1939, and Plutarco drove them through all kinds of terrain where there were still no paved roads; they often crossed rivers as shortcuts. The group would arrive fifty-two days later in Quito on January 28, 1940, coincidentally the anniversary of the death of Alfaro. The government immediately recognized their accomplishment, and President Andrés Córdova (1939–1940) announced the construction of an interregional road system. Like many road films, Los raidistas ’ protagonists are young characters who comprise the socially marginalized, here the Montubio subaltern. And like many road films, there is an important negotiation between the characters and technology: protagonists identify with the vehicles they drive, as said cars are often veritable characters. In Los raidistas , the Chevrolet the Choneros operate becomes a prototypical form of radical modernity: the Monbutios use a new automobile to defy the “modernity” imposed from above by Ecuadorian elites. Although this road movie is set in the 1930s, it could be read allegorically as dealing with twenty-first-century Chonewood in the way in which it recalls pirate and radical modernities. As “pirates,” Chonero filmmakers use resourceful means to make their films, often purloining or borrowing elements, as seen in El destructor invisible. Likewise, the raidistas used a then-new technology in the form of that Chevrolet to defy how the elites had constructed the nation. These adventurers’ defiance of quicentrismo

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echoes the ways in which Chonewood directors radically flout the rules of professional filmmaking in Ecuador. At the symbolic level, the casting of ex-president Gutiérrez’s role is one of the most notable aspects of Los raidistas , as it has implications for radical modernities because of his multi-valence in Ecuadorian politics. Although a popular rebellion would oust Gutiérrez from power due to corruption in 2005, it is important to note that the populist had projected a vision of Ecuatorianidad 12 enunciative of the subaltern, including the Montubio (Montúfar 2008, 278). Despite his ignominious ejection from power, as candidate, Gutiérrez mobilized segments of the population that had been shut out of politics. Moreover, the self-image he had crafted as a candidate linked to the subaltern adheres with the radical imageries projected by Chonewood. For Felipe Burbano de Lara (2003), Gutiérrez’s novelty is apparent in the ways in which he had marshaled and combined the following symbols: the military, given his penchant for appearing in soldier uniforms; the ethnic, through his linkage to the Indigenous movement and cholos; and the popular, through his discursive opposition to bankers and corrupt politicians (Gutiérrez moved to the right once in power) (7). As Pinto Vaca (2015) notes, the opposition to Gutiérrez was regionalized and racialized in that the bulk of the movement that toppled him was comprised of light-skin, urban mestizos. And when Gutiérrez took a road trip with Los raidistas ’ co-director Chalacamá through Manabí, he was warmly greeted, and discs of the film sold well (101). Despite Gutiérrez’s various attempts at comebacks, the divisive figure has remained at the margins of Ecuadorian politics; he is a contradictory figure and means different things to different Ecuadorians. Once he was a political orphan, he had pliability that made him propitious for the imagemakers of Chonewood.

Conclusion This chapter argues that through its unique small cinema sector, the Montubio has reimagined modernities specific to rural Manabí. It has expanded on the radical modernity that Eloy Alfaro had conceived of, one in which the Quito-centric nation building of the urban elites would 12 Gutiérrez was the third Ecuadorian president to be ousted in a decade, in the context of contemporaneous political and economic turmoil.

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be contested by imagining an interregional Ecuador. And for Alfaro, the modernization of Ecuador would come through a romantic view of free enterprise that would put him at odds with the urban oligarchy in that he advocated a state-regulated capitalism in which the small farmer would be the engine of change that would benefit both the periphery and the center of the country. Such “bottom-up” thinking resulted in the Liberal Revolution, giving rise to the country’s cross-regional railway system, followed by the feat of the raidistas. By the same token, the Chonewood directors, shut out of Ecuador’s “official” cinema, have radical ideas of commerce that set them apart from those of the elite tastemakers. By moving filmmaking onto the streets of Ecuador’s periphery, and implementing a cooperative model for financing these productions, the Chonero directors have democratized filmmaking. Although directors such as Cedeño and Chalacamá have not benefited from these sales of pirated DVDs, they have given rise to a marketplace “from below.” Likewise, at the level of exhibition and distribution, Chonewood has made cinema accessible to segments of the population who have not had access to the prohibitively expensive multiplex. Insofar as the consumer has become an active participant in the Chonewood experience, and a key agent in the dissemination of these films, “a pirate modernity” specific to Ecuador has emerged. And the synthesis of these pirate and radical has resulted in the postmodernization of Alfarismo, at the level of production, distribution and exhibition, as well as at the textual level, in that many of the films deal with Chone’s collective identity transposed to the present.

Bibliography Acosta Muñoz, Mauricio. “Producción, narrativa y circulación del cine de guerrilla en Ecuador entre 2010 y 2016.” Master’s thesis, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador, 2018. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/handle/ 10644/6580. Alemán, Gabriela. “At the Margins of the Margins: Contemporary Ecuadorian Exploitation Cinema and the Local Pirate Market.” In Latsploitation, Exploitation Cinemas, and Latin America, edited by Victoria Ruétalo and Dolores Tierney, 277–290. New York: Routledge, 2009. Alvear, Miguel and Christian León. Ecuador bajo tierra: Videografías en circulación paralela. Quito: Ochoymedio, 2009. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 2006.

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Andrade, Xavier. 2001. Homosocialidad, disciplina y venganza.” In Masculinidades en Ecuador, edited by Xavier Andrade and Gioconda Herrera, 115–138. Quito: Flacso, 2001. Ávila Nieto, Caroline. “El mito como element estratégico de comunicación política: aplicación del model de Barthes el caso ecuatoriano.” Cuadernos.Info 31 (2012): 139–150. http://www.revistaaisthesis.uc.cl/index.php/cdi/art icle/view/22245/18055. Ayala Mora, Enrique. “El laicismo en la historia del Ecuador.” Procesos: Revista ecuatoriana de historia 8 (1996): 3–33. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/han dle/10644/1257. Cedeño, Fernando. “Cine guerrilla: un arte de calidad y de bajo presupuesto.” Numbers (2017). https://www.numbersmagazine.com/articulo.php?tit=cineguerrilla-un-arte-de-calidad-y-de-bajo-presupuesto. Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. “New Ecuadorian Cinema: Small, Glocal and Plurinacional.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 13, n.o 3 (2017): 265–285. https://www.academia.edu/35572259/New_Ecuadorian_ Cinema_Small_glocal_and_plurinational_final_draft_. Cortez Estrella, Frank Sebastián. “Análisis comparativo del uso de la violencia en las películas: Sicarios Manabitas de Fernando Cedeño y Crónicas de Sebastián Cordero.” Master’s thesis, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, 2018. http://repositorio.puce.edu.ec/handle/22000/14788. De Lara, Felipe Burbano. “El nacimiento de un nuevo sujeto político.” Íconos 14 (2003): 14–19. https://revistas.flacsoandes.edu.ec/iconos/article/view/ 539/524. Delgado-Delgado, Jack Alain and Esteban Juan Pérez-Hernández. “Esbozo Histórico del taekwondo en la provincia de Manabí.” Deporvida 15, n.o 36 (2018): 136–148. https://deporvida.uho.edu.cu/index.php/deporvida/ article/view/735. Dillon, Michael. “The birth of New Ecuadorian film.” Cine y… 4, n.o 1 (2014): 13–22. El Telégrafo. “Un viaje por los derechos de autor.” August 7, 2013. https:/ /www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/cultura/10/un-viaje-por-los-derechos-deautor. El Universo. “Alza salarial a $ 500 será una oferta difícil de cumplir si no se ata a la productividad, dicen expertos.” May 31, 2021. https://www.eluniverso. com/noticias/economia/salario-500-dolares-oferta-campana-cumplimientodificil-empleo-productividad-mesas-competencia-salario-basico-mayo-2021nota/. Hidrovo Quiñónez, Tatiana. “Los ‘enganchados.’ La formación de grupos armados en la Costa del Ecuador a inicios del siglo XIX.” Procesos: Revista ecuatoriana de Historia 33 (2011): 33–64. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/ bitstream/10644/3045/1/03-ES-Hidrovo.pdf.

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———. Manabí histórico: del conocimiento a la compresión. Manta: Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí, 2003a. ———. “La modernidad radical imaginada por Eloy Alfaro.” Procesos: Revista ecuatoriana de historia, 19 (2003b): 1–19. http://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/ handle/10644/1635?mode=full. Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991. Klein, Thomas. “Where the Wild West Can be Staged: Western Landscapes in International Cinema.” In Crossing Frontiers: Intercultural Perspectives on the Western, edited by Peter Schulze, Thomas Klein and Ivo Ritzer, 121–133. Marburg: Schüren, 2015. Kuhn, Virginia. 2012. “The Rhetorix of Remix.” Transformative Works and Culture 9. https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/ view/358/279. La Hora. “¿Qué pasa en el cine nacional?” March 18 2012. Lobato, Ramón. Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution. London: Bloomsbury, 2012. Montúfar, César. “El populismo intermitente de Lucio Gutiérrez.” In El retorno del pueblo. Populismo y nuevas democracias en América Latina, edited by Carlos de la Torre, 267–298. Quito: FLACSO, 2008. Novoa Romero, David Alejandro. “La construcción de imaginarios sociales sobre la sociedad manabita en las películas de Fernando Cedeño: Sicarios manabitas y El ángel de los sicarios.” Master’s thesis, Flacso, Ecuador, 2014. http://repositorio.puce.edu.ec/bitstream/handle/22000/ 8283/10.C03.000107.pdf?sequence=4. Pinto Vaca, Juan Pablo. “Chonewood: etnografía, cine popular y asesinato por encargo en Chone.” Master’s thesis, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, 2015. https://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/handle/10469/8080. Ponce-Cordero, Rafael. “Cine Bajo Tierra: Ecuador’s Booming Underground Cinema in the Aftermath of the Neoliberal Era.” In A Post-Neoliberal Era in Latin America?: Revisiting Cultural Paradigms, edited by Daniel Nehring and Gerardo Gómez Michel, 93–114. London: Bristol University Press, 2019. Ramos Monteiro, Lucia. “‘Filmo, luego exito.’ Filmografías en circulación paralela en Ecuador.” Fuera de Campo 1, n.o 1 (2016): 41–55. http://www. uartes.edu.ec/fueradecampo/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/03-FDC-MAY O26-40-51.pdf. Salgado, Pablo. “El cine de guerrilla o el Ecuador bajo tierra.” El Telégrafo. December 9, 2016. https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/columnistas/ 1/el-cine-de-guerrilla-o-el-ecuador-bajo-tierra. Schulze, Peter, Thomas Klein and Iwo Ritzer. Preface. In Crossing Frontiers: International Perspectives on the Western, edited by Schulze, Klein and Ritzer, 7–10. Marsburg: Schüren, 2015.

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Sundaram, Ravi. Pirate Modernity: Delhi´s Media Urbanism. New York: Routledge, 2009. Vera Chávez, Lisseth Elizabeth. “Análisis de la Gestión Comunicacional del Departamento de Educación y Cultura del Municipio de Chone, en la Ciudad de Quito y la Aplicación de Estrategias Remediales de Comunicación.” Master’s Thesis, Universidad Tecnólogica Equinoccial, Ecuador, 2015. http:/ /repositorio.ute.edu.ec/bitstream/123456789/10773/1/59921_1.pdf. Vergara Alcívar, Juan Antonio. “Contextos de oralidad en los relatos de bandidos: Tauras en Manabí.” Master’s thesis, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador, 1996. http://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/bitstream/10644/2492/1/ T0034-ML-Vergara-Contextos.pdf. Vincenot, Emmanuel. “Narcocine: la descente aux enfers du cinéma populaire mexicain.” L’Ordinaire des Amériques 213 (2010): 31–54. https://journals. openedition.org/orda/2409.

Filmography Alvear, Miguel. Más allá del mall. Ecuador: Ocho y Medio, 2010. Cedeño, Fernando. Sicarios manabitas. Ecuador: Independent, 2004. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQol80_IUzc. ———. Avaricia. Ecuador: Independent, 2000. Cedeño, Fernando and Nixon Chalacamá. Masacre en el Bejuco. Ecuador: Independent, 1994. Chalacamá, Nixon. El destructor invisible. Ecuador: Independent, 2005. https:/ /repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/bitstream/10469/15699/8/TFLACSO-201 9EAGA.pdf. Chalacamá Nixon and Ignacio Solórzano. Los raidistas. Ecuador: Independent, 2012. Cordero, Sebastián. Ratas, ratones, rateros. Ecuador: Lisandro Rivera, 1999. https://vimeo.com/381375898.

CHAPTER 14

Peruvian Regional Cinema Emilio Bustamante and Jaime Luna-Victoria

Introduction At the 2018 Guadalajara Film Festival, the Peruvian film Wiñaypacha (2017), whose director Óscar Catacora was from the department of Puno, won the awards for Best Debut Feature and Best Cinematography, as well as the prize given by FEISAL (Federation of Schools of Image and Sound of Latin America), for directors under 35 years of age. This film has received praise from critics, some of whom (Bedoya 2017; Delgado 2018) considered it a milestone in the history of Peruvian cinema for being the first feature film in the Aymara language (which in Peru has the largest number of speakers after Spanish and Quechua) and for offering a

This text is an abridged and updated version of Chapter 1 of the book Las miradas múltiples. El cine regional peruano (vol. 1), written by the authors and published by Fondo Editorial de la Universidad de Lima in 2017. E. Bustamante (B) · J. Luna-Victoria Universidad de Lima, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected] J. Luna-Victoria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_14

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novel representation of Andean culture in the national film scene. Others called it a “revelation” (Batlle 2019), a “miracle” and a “masterpiece” (Pimentel 2018). Shot at an altitude of over 16,000 feet above sea level, with a cast of only two actors and consisting of 96 shots in total, Wiñaypacha tells the story of an elderly peasant couple who wait in vain for the return of their son who had emigrated to the city years earlier. Catacora was the son of Aymara peasants who studied theater and communication at Universidad Nacional del Altiplano Puno. He tragically passed away in 2021 at the age 34 while working on his second feature film. Wiñaypacha represents the peak of the so-called Peruvian regional cinema, some 20 years after the inception of that audiovisual movement. This chapter presents an overview of Peruvian regional cinema and specifically does the following: it will look at the reasons for its emergence; profile its various practitioners; consider its system of production, distribution and exhibition; analyze the main genres explored by Peruvian regional filmmakers, as well as the narrative and stylistic modes used in their films; and assess the support provided by the Peruvian state for this cinema. The present study is the result of in-depth interviews with 84 filmmakers from this sector, the viewing of more than 100 films and the analysis of regional cinema’s genres, narrative and stylistic modes and systems. In Peru, regional cinema is defined as filmmaking occurring outside of Lima by filmmakers who live and work in the country’s interior departments (also referred to as regions). It is a low-budget cinema with artisanal forms of production and its distribution is mainly done through channels outside of the multiplex circuit. Most of the regional feature films are exhibited commercially in their cities of origin and neighboring areas. Its practitioners often use municipal or communal theaters, school campuses, sports centers, public squares or old movie theaters especially reopened for such occasions. It is a cinema with a great variety of genres, narrative modes and stylistic possibilities. It has been said that Peruvian regional cinema began in 1996; the year in which the film Lágrimas de fuego (Tears of Fire) (José Gabriel Huertas and Mélinton Eusebio), a production from the department of Ayacucho, was released. And between that year and the present day, about 200 feature films have been produced in 18 regions of Peru. The departments with the greatest level of film activity over the last 25 years are Ayacucho and Puno, followed by Junín and Cajamarca. This phenomenon

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has radically changed and enriched the panorama of Peruvian cinema, not only because of the number of films made, but also because of its great cultural diversity. However, this film sector is still largely ignored in the capital and outside of the country, and state support is scant. Peruvian regional cinema is related to the concept of “small cinemas” in that it emerges on the margins of hegemonic forms of production, distribution and exhibition; it raises new expressive possibilities that incorporate local artistic traditions, and its existence is unknown or even scorned by the audiovisual sectors that establish the parameters and standards that govern cinema both inside and outside of the country.

Reasons for the Rise of Peruvian Regional Cinema The simultaneous emergence of filmmakers in these different parts of Peru is the result of the convergence of technological factors and cultural components. On the one hand, the development of digital media has resulted in the availability of cheaper video recording equipment and personal computers, as well as a boom in independent film production on a global level. Thus, Peruvian regional cinema can be linked to phenomena such as Ecuadorian “underground” cinema (Alvear and León 2009) and video films from Nigeria and Ghana (Saul and Austen 2010). Another factor attributable to the ascendancy of Peruvian regional cinema is that predominantly oral cultures, such as those from the Andean and Amazonian regions, seem to have found through this form of audiovisual language an ideal expressive vehicle that is more in keeping with their traditions than written language allows. The use of the latter was, for centuries, a privilege of the elites throughout the Andean and Amazonian areas. Moreover, these cultures not only have important unwritten narrative traditions, but also visual ones that are expressed in textiles, ceramics, carved gourds, painted panels and altarpieces.

Profiles of Regional Filmmakers There is more than one regional cinema in Peru. In the following pages, we will put the directors from this diverse movement into two categories that we have gleaned from closely studying their styles and practices. The first group of filmmakers is composed of those who make featurelength fiction films with generic and narrative structures aimed at popular audiences. Most of them work in the Andean departments of Ayacucho

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(especially the cities of Ayacucho and Huanta), Puno (the cities of Puno and Juliaca), Junín (mainly the city of Huancayo) and Cajamarca (the cities of Cajamarca, Chota, Cajabamba and Bambamarca). The films in this category have been shown commercially, although they are not programmed in the multiplexes, with very few exceptions. The filmmakers in this first category are middle-class, but in most cases, they originally come from families of peasants, artisans or modest merchants. Many of them have had some access to higher education in universities in their departments of origin, although very few of them have studied the audiovisual medium academically. Their love for cinema started early, but their learning of narrative, audiovisual technique and language has been empirical. Several of these filmmakers point to the Internet as the main source of their formation. The directors who have formally studied audiovisual language have done so in institutes in Lima. Some have theatrical training and others in plastic arts. A handful of these filmmakers began their careers as actors. These include: Óscar Gonzales Apaza and Percy Pacco, both from Puno, Luis Berrocal from Ayacucho and Daniel Núñez from Huancayo. The ages of these filmmakers vary, but most are between 30 and 50 years old. The older directors in this movement recall having attended movie theaters that were still in operation in their native cities as children and young adults. Others state that they first learned about audiovisual storytelling through television. The younger filmmakers mention the access of video as their first impressions of moving imagery. As aspiring directors, they watched genre films, both Hollywood and Bollywood cinema. Some point to Peruvian films such as Gregorio (Grupo Chaski 1984) and Pantaleón y las visitadoras (Pantaleon and the Visitors) (Francisco J. Lombardi 1999) as inspirations. The second modality of Peruvian regional cinema that the present authors use to frame this study is one oriented toward documentary, auteur and experimental films. Its filmmakers come from middle-class, urban households. Many of them have studied or are studying in communication departments at universities in Lima, and very few have pursued a film career abroad. This second type of regional cinema predominates in the departments of Arequipa, Cusco, Lambayeque (especially in its capital Chiclayo) and La Libertad (mainly in its capital Trujillo). Among the representatives of this second group are Miguel Barreda from Arequipa, César Alberto Venero from Cusco, Manuel Eyzaguirre from Chiclayo and Omar Forero from Trujillo.

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In both types of regional cinema studied here, their respective filmmakers have formed companies that, in addition to producing films, often provide audiovisual services such as the production of institutional videos and video clips. It is worth mentioning that the vast majority of these regional filmmakers who have gone on to direct feature films are men. In more recent years, however, some female directors have made inroads in this sector, and they are, in almost all cases, middle-class university graduates belonging to the second category of regional filmmakers. These women directors include the following: Karina Cáceres from Arequipa, a graduate of the San Antonio de los Baños Film School in Cuba and author of various expressive and poetic documentaries; Nereida Apaza, also from Arequipa, and a renowned visual artist, as well as author of various works of animation and intimate non-fiction shorts; Luz Isabel Guarniz, from Cajamarca, who is an environmental activist and producer and director of social documentaries; Jacqueline Riveros Matos, from Huancayo, and director of the fiction feature film Yawar Wanka (2014); and Geraldine Zuasnabar, also from Huancayo, and founder of the feminist collective Chola Contravisual.

Production and Filmmaking As previously mentioned, the production of feature films in Peruvian regional cinema has been ongoing since 1996. According to the Law of Peruvian Cinematography, which was in place between 1994 and 2019, a feature film is considered to have a running time of more than 75 minutes. For this study, we counted 198 regional feature films made between 1996 and 2019 that match this criterion, out of a total of 567 Peruvian feature films produced in that period; that is, 35 percent of the national production. However, if we consider films longer than 45 minutes that have been released during that time span, the number increases to 268 films. In the first type of regional cinema, that which is oriented toward the making of fiction feature films for commercial exhibition, directors invest their own money in the production of a film. They often work with their family or friends and almost always play the triple role of director, producer and screenwriter, if not also as actor and cinematographer. Sponsorships or advertising exchanges from private companies are infrequent, and the economic contribution by the state is limited to the awards of the competitions for project funding organized by the Ministry

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of Culture. Local governments, whether regional or municipal, do not usually consider film as a cultural or artistic activity and are therefore unwilling to provide resources to filmmakers. Moreover, the informality in which these filmmakers work has commercial, labor, and artistic consequences. For the most part, with some exceptions, the actors and technicians who participate in the production of a regional film are not paid, but rather given a symbolic fee and are told that this sum will increase after the film’s release in accordance with the profits generated. These unwritten agreements have caused quite a few conflicts among casts and crews, ranging from the rupture of friendships to lawsuits. Likewise, disputes over the authorship or ownership of a film have occurred frequently. The result, in some cases, has been the appearance of different versions of the same film, each of which was signed off by its respective director. To partially finance their projects, and this is a strategy quite common among those working in fiction cinema, some filmmakers initiate casting calls that also serve as acting workshops with the promise that the best students will participate in the shooting of the film. These calls are usually quite successful and end up being a significant source of income for the production of the film. In many cases, these filmmakers do not write a complete script. Rather, they have as a guide a bare bones plot consisting of a few written pages with brief indications of dialogue and outlines of the scenes. Undoubtedly, ancestral oral traditions that underpin Andean cultures are behind this technique, although there are more practical motives for the filmmakers taking this approach, such as preventing other directors in the region from plagiarizing their projects. This practice, however, is beginning to change due to, among other reasons, self-taught scriptwriting techniques that filmmakers are cultivating through Internet access, and the requirements of state-run calls for proposals to which some of them apply. The shooting of most fiction films in Peruvian regional cinema usually takes months or even years. Filming is done whenever enough money is raised to shoot a few scenes, thus making production a sporadic activity. A negative consequence of this way of working is that the actors sometimes abandon the project due to fatigue or because they have to leave the location to return to work or school. In some instances, filmmakers have had to reshoot all of the scenes involving a character when they have a replacement actor. Other times they will have to rework the story

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as much as possible to disguise the abrupt disappearance of a character because an actor or actress leaves. It is common to find narrative incoherence because of such actor desertions. Likewise, the loss of technicians often has consequences for the film’s final product, generally because the cinematographer is also the owner of the camera. As a result, some films have been shot with several cameras and the difference in the quality of the recording is evident. Regional filmmakers use a variety of strategies to save on production costs. For example, daytime outdoor scenes are generally preferred to avoid paying for artificial lighting. Locations are kept to a minimum and often filmed on the street with real people that are present at the filming location rather than extras; they also use the camera’s built-in microphone. When a special location is needed in the film, it is often obtained in exchange for an advertising swap from a local business (these include restaurants). Post-production is usually done on home computers, with pirated editing software or those same programs downloaded for free from the Internet. The cost of Peruvian regional cinema productions varies widely, ranging from a few hundred soles to hundreds of thousands of soles, especially when it is a project that has won an award from the Ministry of Culture. Óscar Catacora from Puno claimed that the production and post-production of his medium-length film El sendero del chulo (The Way of the Chulo) (2007) cost only 500 soles. In contrast, his feature film Wiñaypacha, a project that won one of the state awards that was exclusive for regional directors, could be made with 400,000 soles and has a professional look to it. As for the second type of regional cinema, consisting of documentary, experimental and auteur filmmaking, most of its practitioners are from Arequipa, Cusco, La Libertad and Lambayeque, and they principally produce short films that are intended for non-commercial exhibition or as submissions to festivals and competitions, including those organized by the state. The two main directors of feature films of this type of regional cinema, Omar Forero, from La Libertad, and Miguel Barreda, from Arequipa, have won state awards for their projects.

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Exhibition and Distribution A complex problem for both types of regional cinema is the exhibition and distribution of their productions. To exhibit their films, the filmmakers in the first category of regional cinema—that of fiction—have used on several occasions the traditional movie theaters that still exist in the cities of their native provinces. Some of these venues are in disuse and are then reopened by these filmmakers who provide multimedia projection equipment, sound systems and even makeshift screens to show their films. In the absence of these theaters, these regional filmmakers will make use of municipal theaters, coliseums, schools, private auditoriums and even open-air screenings. Exhibition takes place first in the main cities and then in the smaller ones, as well as in small towns. The distribution area is then extended to neighboring regions and even further afield, although this depends on the possibilities of each filmmaker, to travel personally with an original copy of his or her film to avoid piracy. It should be noted that in this kind of itinerant exhibition there is a level of investment that not all producers are willing to pay for. In addition to the costs of the rental of the venue, transportation, accommodation, and food, this often involves renting a projector and sound equipment, and a significant amount of money for advertising on local radio and television stations, as well as other resources, such as announcements and flyers. The itinerant exhibition mode makes it difficult to calculate the total number of spectators who have attended these film screenings and the money grossed. Likewise, regional filmmakers tend to be reticent to directly talk about this subject when it is raised. Nevertheless, some are willing to disclose their costs. Flaviano Quispe gives as estimates the following data for his films: 630,000 people have bought tickets for El huerfanito (The Little Orphan) (2004); at least 250,000 have paid to see The El abigeo (The Cattle Thief) (2001); and more than 100,000 have legitimately watched El hijo del viento (The Child of the Wind) (2008). Miler Eusebio says that his film Supay, el hijo del condenado (Supay, the Son of the Condemned) (2010) had 400,000 paying moviegoers. Mélinton Eusebio claims that 300,000 people paid money to see his feature film Almas en pena (Souls of Sorrow) (2004) and 100,000 for his earlier film Qarqacha, el demonio del incesto (Qarqacha, the Demon

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of Incest) (Eusebio 2002). According to Roger Acosta, 200,000 spectators went to see his Arequipa film Mónica, más allá de la muerte (Monica, beyond death) (2006). Henry Vallejo, presenting more conservative figures, estimates that 50,000 people paid to see his El misterio del Kharisiri (The Mystery of Kharisiri) (2004).1 Ayacucho and Puno are the departments that for several years have dominated regional cinema of the first category described in this study. However, they are currently facing a decline in production, due to the low expectations for exhibition and distribution. In 2008, the Cavero cinema, located in Ayacucho, was converted into an evangelical church, thus depriving the city of its largest movie theater (it had a capacity for 2000 spectators). Exhibitions of Ayacucho films have since been limited mostly to the Cine Teatro Municipal, which has only 320 seats, and to the Amaru Producciones theater, a venue with only sixty seats, and run by filmmaker Lalo Parra. The latter theater’s opening was made possible in 2019 thanks to an economic stimulus granted by the state. The financial prospects for Ayacucho filmmakers for exhibiting their feature films are not the same today as they were before 2008, when it was still possible for them to rent the Cavero cinema; this new landscape has significantly reduced production in that part of Peru. Ayacucho did not have a multiplex cinema until December 2019, at which point the theater chain Cinestar Multicines inaugurated its first location in that province. Although Cinestar has shown regional films in Lima, including El último guerrero chanka (The Last Chanka Warrior) (Víctor Zarabia 2011), made in the department of Apurímac, and the company participated in the production of El demonio de los Andes (The Demon of the Andes) (2014) by Palito Ortega Matute from Ayacucho, it is not yet certain that its Ayacucho theaters will accommodate regional cinema. The arrival of multiplex chains in Puno (2011–2012) and Cajamarca (2006) brought about a significant reduction in the consumption of regional films produced in those departments. It seemed that local audiences there mainly preferred to watch Hollywood blockbusters in the comfort of multiplexes rather than regional cinema. To confront this problem, filmmakers from Puno have decided to make fewer films but with higher technical quality in order to reach standards that would allow 1 This information was provided to us by the directors in interviews we conducted between 2012 and 2015.

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them to place their films in multiplexes. However, the only ones regional feature film released in multiplexes in Puno to date have been Wiñaypacha and Manco Cápac (Henri Vallejo, 2020). The exhibition of regional films in multiplex chains at the national level is nearly unattainable. To date less than 30 regional features have been shown in this circuit. And in most instances, when this has happened, it has been restricted; that is, such films have only been shown in commercial theaters in Lima or in the film’s region of origin, even in cases when these were films whose projects had received funds from the Ministry of Culture. An exception to this pattern was the Loreto-set horror film Cementerio general (General Cemetery) (Dorian FernándezMoris 2013), which was distributed by the United International Picture (UIP), a transnational joint venture between Paramount and Universal Studios that also provided advertising and a Digital Cinema Package. Cementerio general brought 747,115 people to theaters and yielded a profit of $2,696,065 (Tamayo and Hendrickx 2018, 166; Castro and Chávez 2014). It is, to date, the most lucrative Peruvian regional film. Classical narrative regional cinema, the first type of filmmaking in our case study, can be accessed through the distribution of pirated copies in informal markets in Lima and other cities. However, the vast majority of filmmakers do not receive any money from these sales. In fact, they are very careful to prevent the piracy of their films, as this means the end of the commercial route for them. Some directors sell the DVDs of their films after the public exhibition circuit has ended, but this operation is usually not very profitable, as the films are immediately pirated. Attempts to reach agreements with street merchants to encourage the sale of original copies of films have not been successful. Another informal exhibition space for regional cinema can be found on interprovincial buses. Such vehicles, equipped with screens, have become places where pirated discs are often shown. To date, no public policy against piracy has been seriously enforced in Peru. The problem of exhibition is also faced by the second category of regional cinema, that of auteur, experimental and documentary filmmaking, mostly produced in Arequipa, Cusco, Lambayeque and La Libertad. The preferred channels for showing these films are limited to cultural centers, festivals and the Internet. Screenings of films of this type are usually free of charge. Commercial exhibition outside the country is very limited. Some Peruvian regional films have been screened in Bolivia (always outside the

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multiplex circuit), such as was the case with Henry Vallejo’s El misterio del Kharisiri from Puno and El vástago y su promesa (The Son and his Promise) (Daniel Núñez Durán 2010) from Huancayo, as well as Mother 2 (Daniel Núñez Durán 2010). A few other films have reached foreign countries through festivals or international screenings. The regional film with the longest festival run to date is Wiñaypacha. The Trujillo film En medio del laberinto (In the Middle of the Labyrinth) (Salomón Pérez 2019) was presented at the Mar del Plata (Argentina) and Rotterdam (Holland) festivals. The first time Peruvian regional cinema premiered at a foreign festival was in Munich in 2007, at the initiative of the German Klaus Eder, then General Secretary of the International Federation of Film Press (FIPRESCI). The following films were shown: El huerfanito (The Little Orphan) de Flaviano Quispe (Juliaca), El misterio del Kharisiri (The Mystery of Kharisiri) de Henry Vallejo (Puno), Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los jarjachas (Incest in the Andes: The Curse of the Jarjachas) (2002) de Palito Ortega Matute (Ayacucho) y El Tunche (The Tunche) (2006) de Nilo Inga Huamán (Huancayo). Within Peru’s borders, regional films have been screened at festivals in Cajamarca, Trujillo, Huánuco, Arequipa, Cusco, Ayacucho and Juliaca, and these events are often organized by the filmmakers themselves. In Lima, not many of these films have been presented at festivals, although some of them have won prizes there. Chicama (2013), by Omar Forrero from Trujillo, was at the Lima Festival of 2012, where it won five awards. In 2018, Casos complejos (Complex Cases) (Omar Forero 2018) won the prize for Best Peruvian Feature Film at the event La Semana del Cine at Universidad de Lima, an award that Wiñaypacha had received the previous year. The film Cable a tierra (Ground Cable) (2013), by Karina Cáceres from Arequipa, participated in the III Festival Lima Independiente (2013), where it received the award from the Peruvian Film Press Association (APRECI) for the Best Peruvian film in the competition. That same film also appeared in the III Festival de Cine Iberoamericano (FIACID), which was held in Lima in 2014, where it was considered by the jury as the Best Peruvian Film. Finally, it should be mentioned that some of the regional films uploaded to YouTube have reached very high numbers of viewings.

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Genres Most of the films described so far from Peruvian regional cinema are fiction, but there have also been some that fall into this study’s second category of the documentary, experimental and animation genres. Among the fiction films, the most common subgenres are fantasy, melodrama and social realism. There have also been comedies, police, martial arts and religious films. In some cases, directors mix genres. In all of them, violence appears as a prominent element.

Fantasy Ayacucho is the region in which the largest number of fantasy films have been produced. Most of these films can be placed in the horror subgenre and have regional mythical beings as their main characters. The most frequent characters in Ayacucho films are jarjachas , pishtacos and condenados, and more on this below. But it should be noted that the latter two, pishtacos and condenados, also appear in the films from Puno and Junín. The jarjacha, also referred to as qarqacha, qarqaria or jarjaria, is an Andean monster that takes the form of an animal, usually a llama, and emits a characteristic noise (sounding like “jar-jar-jar” or “qar-qar-qarqar”). It roams at night, immobilizes its victims with spit and devours their brains. In the daytime, the jarjacha is an incestuous being that lives among the community. It appears in films such as Qarquacha, el demonio del incesto (Jarjacha The Incest Demon) (Melintón Eusebio 2002), Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los jarjachas (Incest in the Andes: The Curse of the Jarjachas) (Palito Ortega Matute 2002), La maldición de los jarjachas 2 (Curse of the Jarjachas 2) (Palito Ortega Matute 2005), Sin sentimiento, el último amanecer (Without Feeling: The Last Dawn) (Jesús Contreras 2007) and El demonio de los Andes (Palito Ortega Matute 2014). The pishtaco, also referred to as the nakaq or ñakaq, is a cutthroat who extracts fat from his victims’ bodies and is usually a character of urban origin from outside the community. The pishtaco appears in the following regional films: from Ayacucho, Pishtaco (José Martínez Gamboa 2003), Nakaq (José Gabriel Huertas 2003), Sin sentimiento, el último amanecer (the first film in which jarjacha and pishtaco confront each other); and from Huancayo, the creature is featured in the film Sangre y tradición (Blood and Tradition) (Nilo Inga Huamán 2005). A variation of this

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cutthroat figure is the kharisiri, which is explored by Henry Vallejo in his film El misterio del Kharisiri where he appears as a kind of sorcerer with the ability to transform himself into animals; here he makes a pact with an evil spirit to whom he offers human sacrifices. The monster that appears most frequently in regional fantasy horror films is the condemned one; a person who has died but his or her soul “is not admitted to the places to which it is destined, due to certain faults judged to be of exceptional gravity” (Morote Best 1988, 137). In some of the Ayacucho films, the condemned one appears linked to the jarjacha. Thus, for example, in Qarqacha, el demonio del incesto (Qarqacha: The Incest Demon) (Melintón Eusebio 2002) the dead jarjacha returns to the world as the condemned and attacks unsuspecting neighbors. A variation on this figure of the condemned one is the so-called one condemned for love: the male lover who swears to love his fiancée beyond death and returns as a condemned man to look for her in order to drag her with him to the afterlife. Efraín Morote Best (1988) describes this figure within the stories of “magical flight” (115–128). The one condemned for love appears in the Puno film Condenado de amor (Condemned By Love) (Ramiro Díaz Tupa 2001), and Te juro amor eterno (I Swear Eternal Love to You) (Cáceres and Gonzales 2010), from Junín, whose screenplay was written by Nina Peñaloza. A rather original version of the condemned man, due to his knowledge of martial arts, can be found in the Puno films Condenado en la pequeña Roma (Condemned in Little Rome) (2007) and El regreso del condenado en el poder andino (The Return of the Condemned in Andean Power) (2011), both directed by Edwin J. Vilca Yávar. These two films include scenes reminiscent of Italian spaghetti westerns. According to anthropologist Raúl Castro, regional horror films represent societies where anomie exists due to a “terrible conflict,” characterized by constant transformation, which is the case in Ayacucho. And such conflict is compounded by the absence of the “supervision or management by a central state,” as can be seen in Puno. These films, then, in this sociopolitical context express the perception of moral decay and lack of legitimacy of the authorities in those places, as well as the need for justice. Supernatural sanctions, coming “from another world,” would generate “that balance that does not exist in reality” (cited in Cabrejo 2010, 53). In the case of the Ayacucho films, in our opinion, given the aforementioned sociohistorical backdrop, it would not be surprising that these films feature concrete symbolism. The filmmakers, then, represent the

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experience of the terror endured during the internal armed conflict that confronted the Peruvian state with the guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) between 1980 and 2000 whose main locus was the department of Ayacucho. This terror came from both external agents (symbolized by the pishtacos ) and internal forces (the jarjachas ), and that is feared to reappear in the form of the condemned, that which is not yet definitively dead.

Melodrama Melodrama historically has emerged as a spectacle based on excess and has been aimed at urban audiences of peasant origin seeking moral guidance in a changing world (Martín-Barbero 1991). It is no coincidence that melodrama is the genre most frequently taken up by filmmakers in Juliaca, one of the Peruvian cities with the highest growth rate in recent decades (Bordas 2009, 232). Such development has led to profound changes not only economically, but also socially, psychologically and ethically in the population. However, Juliaca is not the only city where melodramas are created. They are also produced in Ayacucho, Huancayo and Cajamarca. A major theme of regional cinema’s melodrama is family ties, found in films that thematize abandoned and lost children, fatherless children, unknown parents and prodigal children. Flaviano Quispe’s El huerfanito, which deals with unprotected childhood, had an extensive and successful run in several departments, and even a commercial premiere in Lima; however, DVD copies of the film continue to be sold in pirate markets throughout the country. Likewise, the motif of fatherless children and the desire for recognition are found in Quispe’s El hijo del viento, a film in which a peasant boy runs away from home to look for his father whom he never knew. Prodigal children can be found in the films Triste realidad (Sad Reality) (2004) and Lágrimas de madre (Mother’s Tears) (2005), both by Fredy Larico, which show humble mothers of peasant origin suffering the consequences of their children joining urban gangs. By the time the children repent, it is already too late. Something similar happens in the successful Madre, una ilusión convertida en pesadilla (Mother, an Illusion Turned Into a Nightmare) (2009) by Daniel Núñez Durán from Huancayo, in which a contrite son arrives at the funeral of his mother at the wrong time, after he had caused her considerable grief with his bad behavior.

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It is well known that in melodrama, the city is often a place of damnation, deception and confusion, but also one of social mobility. In rural melodramas, the city character, often the native of the countryside who returns home having picked up urban ways or the country person who returns home with urban sensibilities, can be either an agent of evil or one of renewal. In both cases, he or she jeopardizes the stability of values. In Amor en las alturas (Love in the Heights) (Percy Pacco 2008), the hero and his family are taken away from their town by an envious and hypocritical villain and end up in the mining town of La Rinconada, which is threatened by corruption. Melodrama about addiction is explored in Vicio maldito (Terrible Vice) (Germán Guevara 2002) in which the protagonist becomes an alcoholic, but when he realizes that he has almost caused the death of his wife, he decides to reform. Similarly, in the Puno film Marcados por el destino (Marked By Destiny) (Óscar Gonzales Apaza 2009), the struggle is against mental illness, and the recognition takes place after the protagonist, abused as a child and suffering from schizophrenia, causes the death of his beloved sister.

Social Realism Although most of the aforementioned melodramas have obvious social content, there are films that move away from this genre to concentrate on the documentation or denunciation of problems suffered by individuals from a community facing particular historical circumstances. For example, the film that jumpstarted the Peruvian regional cinema movement in 1996, Lágrimas de fuego (Tears of Fire), deals with the Ayacucho youth gangs that emerged immediately after the end of the internal armed conflict with the Shining Path in the city. Among the regional films about the armed conflict that stand out are El rincón de los inocentes (The Corner of the Innocents) (2007) and La casa rosada (The Pink House) (2017), both by Palito Ortega Matute and both set in Huamanga (Ayacucho). In the first film, a woman suffers after the murder of her eldest son and the disappearance of her husband at the hands of the forces of law and order. She cries out for justice alongside her young son, but she too is killed by the military. The second work deals with the drama of a professor unjustly accused of terrorism who is tortured in an infamous detention center from that era. El rincón de los inocentes had a limited exhibition, as per the decision of the production

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company. And La casa rosada was commercially released in multiplexes in 2018, where it reached 25,145 spectators (Chávez 2019). These two films obtained state incentives, El rincón de los inocentes for post-production and La casa rosada for production. In 1999, Luis Berrocal released his film Mártires del periodismo (Martyrs of Journalism), in which a Spanish journalist, in his eagerness to investigate the massacre of his colleagues in the highland village Uchuraccay, located in the province of Huanta (Ayacucho), enters a hellish conflict from which he is unable to escape. In 2003, after several years of filming, Berrocal premiered Gritos de libertad (Shouts of Liberty), based on the testimonies of ronderos (armed peasants) from the valley of La Compañía (Ayacucho) who had fought against the Shining Path. Both films remain largely unknown in Lima and abroad. Other issues, such as the precariousness of public education, citizen insecurity and the abandonment of elderly people in the countryside, are touched upon in films such as Chicama and Casos complejos (Complex cases) (both by Omar Forero from Trujillo) and Wiñaypacha, by Óscar Catacora, respectively. However, in these films the authorial tone predominates over social themes.

Narrative Modes Most fiction films in Peruvian regional cinema aspire to classic genre and narrative modes. However, between the story genre (similar to oral tradition) that gives priority to the accumulation of exiting events and the classic narrative type that emphasizes causality there is always tension, even in Hollywood productions (Altman 2011). Such conflict is even greater in numerous regional films in which there is very weak causality. Such a characteristic extends to the editing, where breaks in continuity are constant, especially when crossing the action line. Many regional filmmakers are aware of the lax causality of their stories and see this as a flaw they must correct to compete with productions from Lima and abroad. They consider that they should better manage the conventions of the classic narrative mode and have expressed their desire to take script workshops. However, there would be a conflict here between, on the one hand, a narrative mode whose conventions the filmmakers aspire to control in order to competitively enter the market, and, on the other hand, the cultural conventions that lead them to narrate in

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a certain non-causal way, which could result in an alternative narrative mode to the hegemonic one. The moviegoers of popular origin who consume these films, that is to say the majority of the audiences for these regional cinema productions, do not seem to have difficulties in following the stories despite the lack of causality, since they emerge from Andean narrative conventions which are rooted in orality. Incidentally, there is also a small number of regional filmmakers who make documentary, experimental and amateur cinema, the second type of regional cinema in this chapter’s typology, who consciously opt for narrative modes that depart from the classical one by employing dead time and sequence shots (for examples, Catacora’s work in Wiñaypacha). They emphasize characters without clear objectives (Forero in Los actores and Chicama) or non-linear structures (Barreda in Encadenados ), while acknowledging influences from filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu (Catacora), Abbas Kiarostami and Robert Bresson (Forero).

State Support Regional filmmakers in the two categories that we have laid out have demanded greater support from the state in education and training, as well as in production, distribution and exhibition of their films. Government support has been limited, however, to national competitions for feature films and the occasional workshop. The Peruvian state has not been able to include regional cinema in a coherent cultural policy simply because such policy does not exist. In accordance with Peruvian state legislation, the state annually calls for national competitions for the funding of feature film projects. The prizes are monetary and non-refundable. In 2006, the government began such calls for proposals exclusively for all regions, except for in Metropolitan Lima and the neighboring coastal city Callao. This call was based on the consideration that regional filmmakers are at a disadvantage in relation to Lima filmmakers when they compete with them in national contests. This is due to the smaller budgets they work with, the fewer possibilities for professional training and their lower level of technical expertise. In light of this, the criterion of “positive discrimination” is applied, by which Metropolitan Lima and Callao are excluded from the call for participation. Regional filmmakers, meanwhile, may participate in both regional and national competitions.

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In subsequent years, the amount allocated to the competition for feature fiction film projects exclusively for the regions was increased and awards for the “regional” category were added to other competitions (documentary, short film, independent or experimental feature film, cultural management). Although regional applications for state incentives have gradually increased, according to the Directorate of Audiovisual, Phonography and New Media (DAFO), which is part of the Ministry of Culture, and the entity in charge of organizing the contests, there are still many regional filmmakers who do not participate in these contests due to lack of information or distrust of the state. Additionally, in several of the competitions the awards for the regional category have been declared void, not due to lack of applicants but because the juries have considered some of these projects submitted to be deficient. In this regard, it should be noted, as we mentioned when referring to genres in regional cinema, that productions in the Andean regions of Peru are dominated by a narrative strongly rooted in orality, and many Andean regional filmmakers have difficulty expressing themselves in written Spanish. Nevertheless, the state imposes as a requirement for submitting projects for competitions a fluent command of writing and bureaucratic formalities. Consequently, the filmmakers who are at an advantage are those who have the most contact with literary culture. Moreover, the awarded projects of these contests tend to respond to certain parameters of auteur cinema, and the majority of regional production is genre cinema. This last detail also seems to be ignored by most of the jurors appointed by the government, most of whom are from Lima or living in the capital, and by the DAFO itself, which does not seem to have a clear idea of what regional cinema is nor what a competition exclusively for the regions was meant to promote. These aforementioned conditions have been the case so often that the original purpose of these competitions has been distorted. For instance, the DAFO left open the possibility that filmmakers could create a company or association in a region to access the calls for proposals but didn’t state that the filmmaker had to live there or maintain a presence in that region without implying continuous activity in the region. As a result, several companies and filmmakers, including those from Lima as well as those living abroad who had not been working in the region have benefited from the awards. In order to prevent this from continuing to happen, in recent years a requirement has been made that the majority of the team composed of producer, director and screenwriter must live

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in the region in question. However, this measure does not seem to have solved the problem either, since it is not hard to change one’s residence simply to participate in the competitions. The regional filmmakers’ guilds have repeatedly protested against the awards given to outsiders or “newcomers,” but they have been largely ignored by the state and some juries, who have persisted in awarding prizes to those who do not live or work in the regions for which they are applying, despite being warned of this issue. The distance between state officials and filmmakers from Lima, on the one hand, and from regional filmmakers, on the other, became more acute during the debates surrounding the creation of a new film law. Regional filmmakers succeeded in helping draft legislation in the Congressional Culture Commission that established that a minimum of 40 percent of the annual amount of the budget destined to promote Peruvian cinema be directed to films created and made outside Lima. However, DAFO, with the support of guilds made up mostly of filmmakers from Lima, managed to get the text modified to reduce that percentage to “a minimum of between 30 and 40 percent” (Redacción Lima Gris 2019; Congreso de la República 2019a, b, 4). In December 2019, the executive branch, through Emergency Decree 022-2019, approved a new film law with that reduced percentage for regional cinema. This new law increases the number of competitions and the amount of money allocated to filmmakers, but does not create an autonomous fund for filmmaking, a screen quota or a public film school, as some of its critics had demanded when the legislation was being drafted. Specifically, it does not create prospects for offering training as some regional filmmakers had demanded, nor does it address the problems of exhibition and distribution of Peruvian cinema in general and regional cinema in particular.

The Future of Regional Cinema After more than 20 years of regional cinema, those who appear somewhat more established and with better prospects are the regional filmmakers who make auteur films. The first feature-length fiction films by Óscar Catacora and Omar Forero cost little more than $100; their latest works have had budgets of more than $100,000. The feature-length fiction films of these directors, as well as those of Miguel Barreda and Salomón Pérez, have received government incentives, and their finished films have been selected for international festivals and have even won awards.

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But those who make genre films in Peruvian regional cinema face greater difficulties. Their projects are ignored in funding competitions organized by the Ministry of Culture, and the huge public successes of horror and melodrama films in Ayacucho and Puno seem to have been forgotten by the advances of multiplexes and piracy. Nevertheless, the production of regional genre films has not declined much. While it has fallen in Ayacucho and Puno, it has increased in other Andean regions such as Junín, Cajamarca and Huancavelica. Demands to the state for training, project development workshops and an increase in the percentage of the budget earmarked for regional cinema come mainly from those regions. Regional cinemas in Peru are still small cinemas, but they seem to be divided today between those that are growing with relative help from the government and those that are resisting despite the state’s indifference.

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Filmography Acosta, Roger. Mónica más allá de la muerte. Peru: Formas e Imágenes, 2006. Barreda, Miguel. Encadenados. Peru: Vía Expresa Cine y Video, 2014. Berrocal, Luis and José Gabriel Huertas. Mártires del periodismo. Peru: Wari Films, 1999. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69B-zYNQNrI (unofficial). ———. Gritos de libertad. Peru: Wari Films, 2003. Cáceres, Karina. Cable a tierra. Peru: Okupas Colectivo Audiovisual, 2013. https://vimeo.com/64108704. Cáceres, León and Luis Gonzales. Te juro amor eterno. Peru: Nemfius Films, 2010.

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Catacora, Óscar. El sendero del chulo. Peru: Cine Aymara Studios, 2007. ———. Wiñaypacha. Peru: Cine Aymara Studios, 2017. Contreras, Jesús. Sin sentimiento. Peru: Zancay Producciones, 2007. Díaz Tupa, Ramiro. Condenado de amor. Peru: Ramiro Producciones, 2001. Eusebio, Mélinton. Qarqacha, el demonio del incesto. Peru: Ahora o Nunca Films, 2002. ———. Almas en pena. Peru: Ahora o Nunca Films, 2004. Eusebio, Miler. Supay, el hijo del condenado. Peru: Halcón Sagrado Producciones, 2010. Fernández-Moris, Dorian. Cementerio general. Peru: Audiovisual Films, 2013. Forero, Omar. Los actors . Peru: X Comunicación Alternativa, 2004. ———. Chicama. Peru: X Comunicación Alternativa, 2012. ———. Casos complejos. Peru: Cine de barrio, 2018. Gonzales Apaza, Oscar. Marcados por el destino. Peru: Expresión 7 Andes, Aborigen Producciones, 2009. https://vimeo.com/424940720. Grupo Chaski. Gregorio. Peru: Grupo Chaski, 1982. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=FxwVu3AqV3s. Guevara, Germán. Vicio maldito. Peru: Del Carmen Productions, 2002. Huertas, José. Nakaq. Peru: Luis Aguilar, 2003. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0_i6F_Z0ygQ (unofficial). ——— and Mélinton Eusebio. Lágrimas de fuego. Peru: Wari Films, 1996. Inga Huamán, Nilo. Sangre y tradición. Peru: Inti Films, Max Planck VideoImágenes, 2005. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d78aJnQJSak (unofficial). ———. El Tunche. Peru: Inti Films/Max Planck Video-imágenes, 2006. https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Gia83ouu4. Larico, Fredy. Triste realidad. Peru: Wary TV Producciones, 2004. ———. Lágrimas de madre. Peru: Wary TV Productions, 2005. Lombardi, Francisco J. Pantaleón y las visitadoras. Peru: America Producciones, Producciones Inca Films S.A., 1999. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= rRgXmcTGEE0. Martínez Gamboa, José. Pishtaco. Peru: Magnum Producciones, 2003. Núñez Durán, Daniel. Madre I: Una ilusión convertida en pesadilla. Peru: Adonai Films, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdEoI4Q9Yis. ———. El vástago y su promesa. Peru: Adonai Films, 2010. Ortega Matute, Palito. Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los jarjachas. Peru: Peru Movie, Roca Films, 2002. ———. La maldición de los jarjachas 2. Peru: Perú Movie, Roca Films, Fox Perú Producciones, 2005. ———. El rincón de los inocentes. Peru: Perú Movie, Fox Perú Producciones, Andina Compañía Cinematográfica, 2007. ———. El demonio de los Andes. Peru: Movie, Star Films, 2014.

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———. La casa rosada. Peru: Perú Movie, Andina Compañía Cinematográfica, 2017. Pacco Lima, Percy. Amor en las alturas. Peru: Tayta Producciones, 2008. Pérez, Salomón En el medio del laberinto. Peru: Saturne Films, 2019. Quispe, Flaviano. El abigeo. Peru: Contacto Producciones, 2001. ———. El huerfanito. Peru: Contacto Producciones, 2004. https://ms-my.fac ebook.com/CentroCulturalUNMSM/videos/el-huerfanito-flaviano-quispe2004/971412723282132/ (unofficial). ———. El hijo del viento. Peru: Contacto Producciones, 2008. Riveros Matos, Jacqueline. Yawar Wanka. Peru: Inti Films Cine Wanka E.I.R.L., 2014. Vallejo, Henry. El misterio de Kharisiri. Peru: Pioneros Producciones, 2004. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=721489 831750700 (unofficial). Vallejo, Henry. Manco Cápac. Peru: Pioneros Producciones, 2020. Vilca Yávar, Edwin J. Condenado en la pequeña Roma. Peru: Cazacor Production, 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-bOAzrcuhs (part 1), https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8rFCP-EaCI (part 2), https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=vmXsFxdyuNk (part 3), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= PGceepSCUuc (part 4). ———. El regreso del condenado en el poder andino. Peru: Filmaciones Escobar, Cazacor Production, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 5qd0Uwk2PUo. Zarabia, Víctor. El último guerrero chanka. Peru: ZZZeta Film, 2011.

CHAPTER 15

Minor Cinemas, Major Issues: Horror Films and the Traces of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru Diana Cuéllar Ledesma

One Country, Many Cinemas Since the mid-1990s, Peru has experienced the rise of what is often referred to as regional cinema. Ricardo Bedoya (2016) describes this phenomenon as rustic cinema (cine rústico). This self-financed lowbudget cinema is rarely screened in commercial theaters; rather, it is usually disseminated through alternative circuits, mainly in the regions of Puno and Ayacucho, where some productions have reached audiences of up to 400,000 spectators (Bedoya 2016). Emilio Bustamante (2015) identifies within regional cinema approximately 200 films comprising diverse genres, ranging from comedy and adventure to police and martial arts. In this chapter, I focus on Peruvian regional cinema’s use of the horror genre and link it to the processes of social symbolization in the

D. C. Ledesma (B) Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, San Andrés Cholula, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_15

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region after the country’s internal armed conflict that took place in the 1980s and 1990s (Bustamante 2015, 876). In terms of production and distribution, regional cinema has been made possible by the growing use of digital technologies, both among filmmakers and audiences. It is an artisanal industry crafted with consumer equipment; its distribution has been enabled by the ease of reproduction provided by digital formats (first DVDs and later USB drives, hard disks and the Internet). These factors, combined with its circulation in specific local networks and its distribution by informal vendors, make Peruvian regional cinema similar to cinemas that emerged in geopolitical locations that are considered “peripheral,” such as “Nollywood” in Nigeria and “Caliwood” in Cali, Colombia. Peruvian regional cinema also differs from the Lima-based Peruvian audiovisual industry inasmuch as it has decentered the production, distribution and consumption far from the country’s capital city.1 Moreover, through its process of meaningmaking and social incidence, regional cinema raises aesthetic-ideological tensions between the so-called political or “social” cinema and genres usually considered “minor” such as horror, as discussed in this chapter. Ayacucho’s horror cinema is a clear example of what the editors of this volume call “small(er) cinemas” insofar as it is positioned outside the national and global audiovisual industries and operates socially in very specific contexts. As the editors point out, “small(er) cinemas” are the result of the exclusion perpetrated by mainstream cultural practices and take place on the margins of hegemonic representations of nation, culture, class, gender and ethnicity. In this way, “small(er) cinemas” reveal situated exercises of alterity and subjectivation. In this chapter, I discuss horror cinema in the Ayacucho region, focusing mainly on the debates about the production of difference, as well as the role of local knowledges in the context of academic globalization. I also analyze the epistemic relevance of orality as a non-dominant cultural form linked to the production of collective memory, and, finally, the cinematographic management of bioand necropolitical dimensions of war and the management of bodies. 1 There is a long cultural tradition that much of southeastern Peru is more connected with Argentina than with Lima. Thus, for example, the very name of the Ayacuchano filmmaker Palito Ortega reflects this trend, having been named after his namesake, the Argentine singer Palito Ortega (1941), who achieved his greatest fame in the 1960s. On Cuzco-Buenos Aires relations, see Elizabeth Kuon Arce et al. Cuzco-Buenos Aires. Ruta de intelectualidad americana (1900–1950) (Lima: Universidad de San Martín de Porres, 2008).

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Horror Zone There is no coincidence in the fact that Andean horror cinema has emerged in Ayacucho (located in the south-central part of Peru); the region that was hardest hit during the decades of the internal armed conflict that took place in the 1980s and the 1990s. The horror films from Ayacucho have, therefore, a direct relationship with the real terror experienced by the Indigenous communities during those decades.2 According to the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Amnesty International, Peru 2004), 79 percent of the victims of the internal armed conflict lived in rural areas and 75 percent spoke Quechua or other native languages as their mother tongue. Figures from the department of Ayacucho clearly reveal how concentrated was the violence in that area, where Quechua-speaking victims amounted to 97 percent of the total of harmed people in the zone (Robin and Delacroix 2017). Andean horror cinema does not directly address the drama of war, yet its corpus presents recurrent semiotic structures and tropes that allude to it: extreme violence, abuses of power, breakdown of the social order, absence of state authority, foreign threats, sexual abuse and incest. Andean horror thus condenses an entire list of collective concerns and fears that are directly related to the armed conflict. Filmically, they are negotiated and elaborated through Ayacucho films such as Jarjacha, el demonio del incesto (Jarjacha, the Demon of Incest) (Mélinton Eusebio 2002), Supay. El hijo del condenado (Supay. The Son of the Condemned) (Miler Eusebio 2010) and El demonio de los Andes (The Demon of the Andes) (Palito Ortega 2014). The most representative filmmaker of Andean horror is probably Palito Ortega Matute (1967), whose first ethnographic documentaries dated in the 1990s reveal his training as an anthropologist as well as a social vocation aimed to point out the impact of the civil war on the Indigenous populations of the Peruvian highlands. In this line, Ortega’s first fiction feature Dios tarda pero no olvida (God Comes Late But Does Not Forget) (1998) tells the story of a young boy from Ayacucho who flees

2 The conflict began with the armed insurgency of Peru’s Communist Party, also known as Shining Path, against the Peruvian state. In a second stage of the conflict, the Túpac Amaru Movement started an urban guerrilla war against the central government in 1984.

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to Lima after his family is killed by the Shining Path.3 Ortega Matute’s turn toward horror films did not take place until the 2000s and reaches its peak with his jarjacha trilogy, made between 2002 and 2014.4 Like other horror films produced in the Ayacucho region, Ortega Matute’s aforementioned trilogy centers on the jarjachas, legendary Andean monsters which are half llama and half human. There is a popular belief that those who have committed incestuous relations are transformed into jarjachas by nightfall, and that they immobilize its victims with spit to devour their brains. By bringing the jarjachas to the cinema screen, Ortega Matute and other filmmakers establish a bridge between the oral cultural range and the most recent technologies, thus updating the symbolic potential of the legend and expanding its fields of resonance. On a social level, and as Bedoya (2016) rightly points out: The “social drama” of incest which, in the oral culture, generates beings such as the jarjachas, mobilizes, in its audiovisual reworking, a repertoire of issues linked to the memories of the violence of the internal armed conflict [...]. (3)

Thus, although Andean horror cinema responds to a specific sociohistorical conjuncture, it also integrates vernacular codifications and imaginaries, traditional oral stories and Indigenous languages.5 Its repository of creatures does not include vampires, clowns or witches, but rather fantastic Andean monsters such as the Supay, the pishtaco, the condemned and the aforementioned jarjachas. Many of these creatures have been present in Andean legends and mythology for centuries, so their presence in cinema allows a double process of recognition and updating of the symbolism around them, as well as the contexts in which their presence acquires various meanings (sometimes, for example, the characteristics of

3 The film has two sequels with similar themes: Dios tarda pero no olvida 2 (God Comes Late But Does Not Forget 2) (Palito Ortega Matute 1999) and Sangre inocente (Innocent Blood) (Palito Ortega Matute 2000). 4 The trilogy is comprised of Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los jarjachas (Incest in the Andes: The Curse of the Jarjachas) (Palito Ortega 2002), La maldición de los jarjachas 2 (The Curse of the Jarjachas II) (Palito Ortega 2005) and El demonio de los Andes (The Demon of the Andes) (Palito Ortega 2014). 5 In general, Ayacucho horror films are spoken in Spanish, but there are repeated interventions in Quechua or Quechuañol (a mixture of Quechua and Spanish).

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these scary beings overlap each other, generating interesting crossings of functionality and meaning). On the other hand, as Bustamante (2015) notes, based on a study by the University of Lima that involved interviews with over eighty regional filmmakers, these artists’ main visual sources are Hollywood and Bollywood genre films, so the Andean horror repertoire intermingles with the aesthetics of those industries (877). In this way, Andean horror concentrates a profuse and dense tangle of narratives, cultural registers, social concerns and ways of filmmaking.

Native Peoples and Academic Globalization: Epistemic-Cultural Resistance from Orality Since the 1990s, the phenomenon of cultural globalization has led to the reframing of the debates from native peoples of the so-called Latin American region regarding their political claims, identity processes and the negotiation of the apparatuses and institutions that have historically constructed the dynamics and images of otherness.6 In the aftermath of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico (1994), the reconfiguration of the political map in Bolivia following the electoral triumph of Evo Morales, the first president of Indigenous descent in that country, (2005), and after the decades of horror caused by the civil wars in countries such as Guatemala and Peru, the “Indigenous reemergence”7 comprises one of the most important research agendas in the field of various practices and disciplines. The rise of postcolonial theory in the anglophone academy and the latter’s subsequent dissemination globally has impacted the field of the socalled Latin American studies, where the theoretical corpus of postcolonial studies has been frequently incorporated loosely. In spite of their unquestionable contributions to the intellectual history, postcolonial studies have

6 In this regard, it should be remembered that the historical process of incubation of the nations of the region involves a profuse and complex cultural plurality, which includes not only native peoples from different regions, but also Afro-descendants as well as continuous and successive waves of European, Asian and Middle Eastern immigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 7 The term is taken from José Bengoa’s La emergencia indígena en América Latina. (Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007).

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not been able to capture the complexity of the cultural dynamics generated in Latin America. Thus, the “Latin American difference,” and the category of the Indigenous, understood as the ultimate difference visà-vis the Western thought,8 risks of being subsumed by simplifying and totalizing academic discourses. Piñero (2019) has warned about the dangers of the discursive control that the centers of intellectual power can wield over the peripheries, under the guise of openness to diversity common in the neoliberal logic of knowledge. As such, Richard argues, it is necessary to distinguish between the rhetorics of difference and the exercises of difference, since there is a radical disparity between naming difference and actually performing it (p. 171). Moreover, and this time with respect to cultural studies as another set of discourses that are very much in vogue in the academic world, Richard (2001) emphasizes that, within the “great supermarket of subalternities,” there is a tendency to submit “bodies and textualities to the pedagogical slogan of a ‘difference’ that must almost always be spoken in vindictive and militant tones” (190). Thus, the author underscores the importance of symbolic productions that, responding to or emerging in “peripheral” contexts, can circumvent the politically orthodox demands that the discursive centers of knowledge-power tacitly impose on minority identities and the politics of their representation (190). In light of Richard’s reflections above, I propose that Andean horror can be considered a symbolic production that escapes easy assimilation and codification by discursive centers of symbolic interpretation. Its epistemic-cultural resistance is mainly based on the use of orality, a cultural framework deeply rooted at the local level. Such orality has the ability to respond to current circumstances and interact with cultural registers coming from different latitudes, as will be discussed below. It is my conviction that little attention has been paid to the fascinating complexity of this cultural fact: in Andean horror cinema orality constitutes the root of the cinematographic register and other means of symbolization. For example, an interview between the historian Ponciano del Pino and the filmmaker Palito Ortega Matute which was published in a book on art and memory in post-Shining Path Peru by Duke University Press, the interviewer del Pino focuses on Ortega Matute’s social realist 8 The philosopher Luis Villoro refers to the Indigenous as “the most radical otherness.” Ensayos sobre indigenismo. Del indigenismo a la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2017), 103.

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films, only touching on the director’s horror filmography collaterally.9 Tellingly, the historian’s indifference toward Ortega Matute dabbling in the latter (which comprises the majority of his oeuvre and is the most representative of his career) implies a positioning of cultural axiology. Besides, when Ortega Matute mentions other regional filmmakers, del Pino wants to know if they also address the theme of political violence or if their films are more concerned with “customs and mythology” (2014, 156).10 It is evident, then, that the interviewer considers that issues such as of violence and memory can only be elaborated from “major” genres and styles with long traditions of political and social vocation, such as realism and drama, and not through “minor” genres and styles such as horror and fantasy. Such a position is not productive in the specific case of Ayacucho, where horror cinema has been precisely the most concerned (perhaps involuntarily) with the symbolic elaboration of memory in relation to Peru’s internal armed conflict. Moreover, the interviewer’s lack of interest in horror films also reveals his understanding of legend and myth as archaic cultural spheres, intrinsically alienated from the political dimension and incapable of interacting, textually and contextually, with recent history. This would dismiss them as cultural productions able to boost social negotiation and collective memory. In contrast, I believe that the particularity of Andean horror cinema lies precisely in the processes of meaning construction through myth and legend: its value is thus in the overlapping of the ancestral and the modern, the local tradition and global tools, as well as in its ability to account for and deal with complex social scenarios, in which it also has an impact. Legend and myth are two types of oral storytelling that, both epistemically and formally, are far from the dominant Western claims of construction and transmission of truth and knowledge. Orality, as a cultural array and living textual practice, operates at the center of the social and symbolic articulation of diverse Indigenous cultures of the American continent. Its relevance is kept alive through cultural productions such as Andean horror films, which symbolically produce the fusion

9 See Ponciano del Pino, “Ayacuchano Cinema and the Filming of Violence: Interview with Palito Ortega Matute,”. 10 The full quote: “These young people to whom you refer, are they also broaching the subject of political violence, or is it much more about customs and mythology?”

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of old and new, as well as the local and foreign, updating them in audiovisual formats. I maintain that Andean horror films should be read as a new moment in the history of the stories and characters that have shaped the cultural identity of the originary peoples of the Ayacucho region and that, like all living and continuing cultural manifestations, have been modified over the centuries to respond to varied and complex circumstances, in this case, to one as traumatic and heartbreaking as war. Further, I understand orality as a mode of cultural resistance since its use strengthens a kind of sensibility, favors models of sociability and enhances the continuity of a centuries-old cultural system rooted among the Quechua-speaking populations of the Ayacucho region. As I explain in this chapter, I consider that the use of these cultural forms and their fantastic repertories escapes the political slogans of the prevailing multiculturalism. In the above-mentioned interview with Ponciano del Pino, Ortega Matute said that his first films, which could be classified as “social realist” dramas, appealed to the urban inhabitants of Ayacucho, while his horror films were more popular among rural audiences. This confirms the symbolic potential of the oral tradition within Indigenous/peasant societies. If, as Bustamante (2015) observes, the majority of Peruvian regional filmmakers do not come from a literate based culture, then the move from orality to filmic narrative codes do not pass through the written word. And if they do, it is through scriptural and narratological models highly mediated by orality (p. 877). Cristina Rivera Garza (2020) has documented the tense negotiations involved in transferring the language of the Mixe population in Oaxaca, Mexico, to a written record through the creation of a single, comprehensive alphabet that could be valid for all Mixe-speaking communities in the region. The underlying issue is the friction between oral forms, which have their own eminently communitarian codes and dynamics, and writing. Rivera Garza continues: It’s the long, dynamic, cacophonous communal path that the written language travels as it becomes an everyday activity, with its own practice and rules of collective use. This activity is then presented—in the societies already deemed so by written culture—as a teleological process. And an individual one at that. This disassociation, which is historical and political in nature, lies at the very heart of a writing process that perceives itself as outside the community: an ivory tower from which a privileged observer peers down at the past and the future. (51)

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In Andean horror cinema, the bridge between oral and cinematic forms, besides going over, sideways or around the written word, involves borrowing from or contamination by cultural contexts that are apparently far away in time and space. This is certainly the case with Hollywood and Bollywood audiovisual culture, as previously mentioned. Therefore, when asking the question about the subjectivizing process that gives meaning to this film genre in its specific social context, it is also necessary to inquire into the communal dynamics that make it meaningful. All the above is a clear example of what Mabel Moraña (2013) calls “symbolic nomadism.” A type of exercise that jumps between diverse registers and cultural axiologies, giving rise to complex processes of translation, dislocation and overlapping of meanings (pp. 85–123). As such, it is important to emphasize that Andean horror cinema does not explicitly respond to what Nelly Richard (2008) calls the attempt to “textualize difference,” but rather constitutes, in its very processes of symbolization, difference (p. 13). When we speak of Andean horror cinema, we are not referring to texts that seek to convey pre-established identities or subjectivities, but rather to processes of textualization in which those subjectivities are acting elements. Everything seems to indicate that filmmakers from Puno and Ayacucho that work in the horror genre is not trying to emphasize their cultural otherness. In the above-mentioned interview with Ponciano del Pino, Palito Ortega recalls that he turned to the horror genre after having directed some social realist dramas out of fear that such films, which portrayed the social difficulties in the region and were inspired by real stories, might cause the former Shining Path members (who were still living in Ayacucho but were now mostly engaged in drug trafficking), to retaliate in the case they identify themselves in some of his films. Thus, exploring violence through horror cinema allowed him to establish allegories, camouflage stories and disguise characters. In short, his incursion into the horror genre responded to the need to guarantee the filmmaker’s personal safety and not to any intention to reaffirm local identities, claim cultural differences or “sell exoticism.” By exploring new genres and codes that symbolically express the psychosocial concerns of the region from the inside, Andean regional cinema also comes into conflict with the long history of Latin American literary, visual and audiovisual traditions of Indegenism (indigenismo). On the one hand, its use of fantasy breaks with the truth claims imposed on documentary films (used widely in anthropology and ethnography)

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and whose imprint can be clearly seen in the indigenist cinema of the twentieth century. On the other hand, horror cinema opens up a wide range of poetic licenses that enrich repertories and meanings: unlike certain artistic initiatives that seek to make “the subaltern speak,” providing disadvantaged groups with a camera with the slogan “show me your reality,” Andean cinema emerges from below and deals with complex (re)elaborations of fantasy. Moreover, as Ricardo Bedoya (2016) rightly points out, Andean horror cinema is often filmed in the same settings in which indigenist cinema and photography of the last century would depict idealized portraits of rural life and its inhabitants (p. 5). While indigenist films extoled the beauty of the landscape, those same sites have been rendered sinister in horror cinema. Rural life in Peru is depicted as grim and violent, while Indigenous people do not relate to or identify with the folklorized versions of them that have prevailed in the symbolic constructions promoted by the modern states: The jarjachas and other beings embody an otherness that questions the discourses of national integration or social inclusion. These figures are resistant to the notion of homogeneity and seamless integration formulated by the official scenario. (6)

As we have seen, Andean horror cinema does not try to “convey a message” in a programmatical manner, nor does it assume an identitarian militancy, nor does it seek to insert itself into the national or global film market through the “exploitation” of difference. It generates what Mariana Botey (2014) calls “zones of disturbance” by producing an excess of possible imaginaries, epistemological presuppositions and ideological claims regarding otherness and its politics of representation at the level of academia, activism, public policies and, in this case, cultural dynamics (36).

That Other Who Is My Brother: Symbolic Actions of Fratricidal Violence In his semiotic analysis of medieval witch-hunting, Iuri Lotman (2006) points out that symbolic representations of concepts such as “alien,” “foreign,” “demon” and “evil supernatural principle” often share common features (24). In other words, semiotic structures reveal that notions of the alien and the foreign, or foreigner, are often equated with those of evil

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and danger. The cultures of the Indigenous peoples are no strangers to this pattern and such a codifying principle has long been carried over into literature and screenplays. In the indigenist films of Emilio Fernández and other filmmakers of the so-called Golden Age of Mexican Cinema (1930– 1968), as well as in the films of Jorge Ruiz and Jorge Sanjinés in Bolivia during the 1950s and 1960s, the isolation and closeness of Indigenous communities is a recurring trope. Close to being formulaic in the plots the conflict arises when the harmonious life of a community is disrupted by an outsider to which the inhabitants react in combative or conciliatory terms (Cuéllar 2019, 113–117). It is not surprising that such structures have been passed on to the horror cinema under study: Ricardo Bedoya (2016) observes that a recurring motif in Andean horror cinema is a distrust toward strangers, outsiders or those who, despite being part of the community, do not share the group’s decisions or beliefs (3). However, in the case of Ayacucho cinema, the structure acquires a particular nuance given the fact that Peru’s internal armed conflict occurred among, as anthropologist Kimberly Theidon accurately puts it, “intimate enemies.”11 According to reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in many areas of Ayacucho, adherence or opposition to the Shining Path movement caused serious clashes within Indigenous communities, either between members of different generations or between neighbors or close relatives. Bustamante (2016) argues that the intra- and inter-ethnic aspects of the armed conflict are very present in the corpus of Ayacucho horror films, not only through the textual structures typical of the genre, but even influencing the cast of characters and oral narratives that have been brought to the screens (880). Rejection or fear of the outsider is a common element in Andean horror films, in which the outsiders are often identified with members of the Shining Path. Thus, in films such as La maldición de los jarjachas 2 (The Curse of the Jarjachas 2) (Palito Ortega Matute 2005), the protagonists are prosecuted and accused of being “terrucos,” which is the word in “quechuañol”12 for terrorists or members of the Shining Path.13

11 See Kimberly Theidon, Intimate Enemies. Violence and Reconciliation in Peru. 12 A mixture of Quechua and Spanish. 13 The film most likely alludes to the tragic events of Uchuraccay, the Ayacucho town

where eight journalists were mistaken for hikers and massacred by the villagers in 1983.

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This may seem paradoxical given that the most recent investigations have shown that up to 20 percent of Shining Path members were Quechua-speaking and originally from the Ayacucho region. However, it is important to keep in mind that many armed attacks took the form of raids on certain communities, perpetrated by Shining Path units from neighboring villages even if both towns shared language and other ethnic aspects. Moreover, regardless of the ethnic affiliation of its militants, the ideology of the Shining Path was contemptuous of the ethnic and cultural particularities of the Indigenous peoples, who were considered ignorant, superstitious and backward.14 On the other side of the armed contest, racist foundations were also present in the actions of the state forces of order, whose members used to interpret the appellation “Indian” as member of the “Shining Path” or “terrorist,” causing violence against Indigenous people simply because of their ethnicity: The explicit link between the condition of being a terrorist and an “Indian” and/or “serrano” (highland people) explains the common association spread among many soldiers: “red zone, Indian zone,” which certainly facilitated the mass killings perpetrated in the Andes. (Robin and Delacroix 2017)

With such a background, it is not surprising that the rejection of the foreign and the punishment of betrayal perpetrated “from within” are two of the most recurrent tropes in Andean horror films, whose plots often establish a symbolic reckoning with the traumatic past of the war. The rejection of the foreign is also anchored in the racist configurations of Peruvian society even before the war. As argued by Valerie Robin and Dorotheé Delacroix (2017), racism was a shared aspect in the rank and file of the main warring factions in Peru’s internal armed conflict. Both the Communist Party (Shining Path) and the Peruvian state (through its armed forces and law enforcement) assumed a necropolitics imperative, which seemed to dictate that Indigenous lives could be annihilated with greater impunity than those of the country’s white, creole and mestizo

14 Robin and Delacroix (2017) recount that the Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) went so far as to ban Quechua in his indoctrination centers or “popular schools.”

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population groups.15 Moreover, as Ariadna Estévez (2018) points out, necropower not only administers death, but also the realms which precede it, such as disease and suffering. Thus, necropower dictates and regulates who can live and who can fall victim to massacres, executions, sexual slavery and other forms of extreme violence (28–32). From this perspective, it should be kept in mind that the necropolitics that prevailed during the internal armed conflict was nothing more than the continuation of a deep-rooted biopolitical ideology, according to which Indigenous lives and bodies could be owned and made exploitable, interchangeable and ultimately disposable. Thus, it is no coincidence that the rejection and distrust of the foreign and the power structures permeated the plots of horror films in Ayacucho and in other regions.

Sinister Creatures The catalog of creatures present in Ayacucho cinema reveals the filmmakers’ inclination toward three characters that are repeated and revisited in different contexts: the jarjacha, the Pishtaco and the condenado. The recurrent presence of the jarjacha reveals semiotic processes related to social taboos such as rape or incest. During the war, combatants on both sides forced women to have sex in exchange for the lives of their loved ones; the female body thus became a veritable battlefield (Theidon 2013, 108–117). Ricardo Bedoya (2016) argues that in horror films, incest practices, which give rise to the emergence of jarjachas, are often linked to violence, abuse or the authoritarian exercise of communal power in contexts where the state is absent, and justice has to be administered by the villagers themselves. The author takes up the observation of anthropologist Raúl Castro (quoted by Bedoya 2016) when he argues that the presence of situations of incest and the collective sanctions against those who commit it “[…] is connected to the feeling that there are no social means to enact justice. Therefore, justice in this cinema comes from the hereafter” (6). In this line, the fight against the jarjachas is the struggle against the incestuous, understood not only as those who had actually committed rape or sustained an improper sexual relationship, but, in 15 Here I understand necropolitics as described by Achille Mbembe, that is, as the inversion of the principles of bio-politics: make people live, let people die. In this way, necropolitics would be the capacity to “make people die and let people live.” See Ariadna Estévez (2018).

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general, as all those who had offended the social body of their own people or family. As for the Pishtaco, or Nakak, according to legend, it is a nocturnal monster that extracts body fat from its victims who are not usually killed but weakened and die a few days after the attack.16 Historically, its ethnic profile has corresponded to a white person or mestizo, and, therefore, with the foreign and the powerful. During the colonial period, it was identified with the Spanish; in the nineteenth century, it was believed that miners and merchants extracted the body fat of Indigenous people to make soap and medicines (Vázquez 2018, 143). In the second half of the twentieth century, it was rumored that the United States’ Food for Peace feeding program (1961) aimed to fatten Quechua children in order to extract their body fat for use in the aerospace industry (1993, 23). As Kimberly Theidon (2013) summarizes, the persistence of this figure in Andean history “has been interpreted as a statement on the exploitation that has characterized relations between Indigenous communities and “outsiders” (217). Thus, Bustamante (2015) points out that the role of the Pishtaco in horror films generally alludes to the “agent of the forces of order, who arrived from outside, or even the urban senderista (member of the Shining Path) that comes from another community” (882). Bedoya (2016) observes that in the film Pishtaco (José Martínez Gamboa 2003) there is no straightforward transference between that character and any specific sector of the armed conflict, but rather the Pishtaco simply refers to a sinister situation or atmosphere. He does not act as a character or subject, but as an expression of a state of affairs. In this film, set in the city of Huamanga, the terror experienced by the city is attributed to the presence of a Pishtaco, so the inhabitants try to chase him by making nightly rounds of vigilance and self-defense. However, this community-led effort fails, and fear and anger lead the villagers to blame and kill innocent people. In fact, the horror, far from decrease, spreads to the entire society. Distrust and suspicion prevail, giving rise to widespread violence. This narrative breaks with the semiotic structure and conventions of the horror genre, in which the evil character is usually defeated by the forces of good, the community or the hero. 16 The character appears in Pishtaco (José Martínez Gamboa 2003), Nakaq (José Gabriel Huertas Pérez 2003), Sin sentimiento (Without Sentiment) (Jesús Contreras 2007) and Jarjacha versus Pishtaco (Nilo Escriba Palomino 2012).

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Thus, and as Bedoya (2016) concludes, the symbolism of the Pishtaco in this film is not reduced to that of a simple murderer or horror character: His actions have connotations of a different order [...] Pishtaco shows the climate that gripped the mood of the inhabitants of Huamanga, and perhaps of all Peruvians, in the dark days: a malign threat, a dangerous territory, generalized distrust, institutional fragility and criminal incitements everywhere [...] Wide shots show the horizon of the city, plunged into fear. Images of the Pishtaco intermingle with the dreams of the huamanguinos. (5)

In the post-war context, it is not surprising that “El condenado” (The Condemned) is another recurring character in Andean horror films. According to popular belief, The Condemned is a dead who returns to earth to settle old scores. This kind of avenger has been very successful in Andean cinema, since on the one hand it resembles the figure of the cannibal zombie, which has been so successful in Hollywood horror films. On the other hand, it fulfills a symbolic function in a society in which the reparation of damages following the violence has not been entirely satisfactory for its victims. The Condemned, who returns from beyond the grave to avenge his death or settle family feuds, provides the spectator with the sensation of revenge or justice. which is perhaps impossible in real life, but is feasible in the symbolic realm. Revealingly, the figure of The Condemned often merges with others: in Mélinton Eusebio’s films, the dead jarjachas return as Condemneds that eat the brains of their victims. In Palito Ortega’s trilogy, the jarjachas turn their victims into Condemned. Bustamante (2015) suggests that the figure of The Condemned also reflects the latent fear of Andean society of the resurgence of violence (884). From another perspective, it is possible that the reactivation of the figure of the condemned is in tune with the massive exhumation of bodies from mass graves in recent years: they are the dead that return to close mourning processes, but they also reactivate unresolved traumas and deep pain.

Violated Bodies Blood, guts, bones, fat…Andean horror films abound in images of the broken, dismembered body, ultimately penetrated by all kinds of violence. Bustamante (2015) observes that in the film Supay: el hijo del condenado

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(Miler Eusebio 2010); there are images closer to “gore” cinema than to the oral narratives that inspired it (2015, 883). The biopolitical dimension of Peru’s internal armed conflict has a special relevance for its survivors and actively intervenes in the creation of narratives and the elaboration of collective memory. This was demonstrated by medical anthropologist Kimberly Theidon (2013), who has studied the processes of social trauma related to violence among the inhabitants of the highlands of Huanta (Ayacucho). Her research focuses on the body as the ultimate site of violence, but also as the locus that articulates narratives of the former (e.g., she claims that when she asked old women to tell her about the violent death of their children, they reported pain in their lower belly and asked her to rub them with ointments) (39). Theidon’s (2013) research focuses on studying the most recurrent diseases among the inhabitants of the region. In interviews with the locals, the anthropologist was informed about a series of illnesses that the informants referred to as “rural afflictions” (males de campo). Theidon interpreted those afflictions as kinds of illnesses categorized as “disorders of social relations, and to the spiritual and moral confusion that characterize a post-war society” (58).17 According to the author, the intertwining of body and memory was particularly present among women for obvious reasons (as in any war, women and girls were part of the sexual booty of the National Army and the Shining Path). Theidon also recounts that when she asked to recall a painful or traumatic event, the interviewees responded that the llakis (painful memories) “martyrized their bodies” (43). In comparing Andean horror creatures with other paranormal beings, Bedoya (2016) stresses that the former “[…] are rooted in concrete, rural spaces; they appeal to a fear linked to the physical, the organic and the corporeal […]” (6). Indeed, local legends do not allude to ethereal beings, such as spirits or ghosts, but to incest, the animal kingdom and bodily fluids. It is no wonder that their merging with the horror film genre, its codes and conventions, has given rise to certain excesses that theorist Linda Williams (1991) has studied under what she refers to as

17 One of these illnesses, known as “la teta asustada,” (the frightened breast) is the belief that a woman who has suffered extreme violence during pregnancy transmits fear to her child through breastfeeding. Peruvian Claudia Llosa’s film of the same name, which in English-speaking countries was translated as The Milk of Sorrow, was inspired by the stories collected by Theidon.

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“corporeal” film genres (4). Those have usually been situated at the lower end of cultural axiology and are characterized by the exacerbated on-screen presence of fluids such as tears, sweat and semen and are manifested in film genres usually seen as low culture: melodrama, horror and pornography. Williams argues that the use of the body successfully cuts the distance between spectator and screen, thus generating intense, cathartic and rewarding filmic experiences in which the spectator’s body tends to involuntarily mimic that of the characters. Moreover, this type of genre contributes to what some film theorists have termed tactile or haptic cinematic experiences, in which the sense of sight yields to the detriment of touch (Elsaesser and Hagener 2015, 151). Considering Kimberly Theidon’s (2013) observations about her informants’ pursuit of touch for the evocation, retelling and elaboration of traumatic events, I suggest that this type of cinema provides the audience with a synaesthetic bodily cinematic experience. That is, it enables the experience of a complex range of intense shared sensations that respond to the trauma caused by the violence of the internal armed conflict. In this way, Andean horror cinema provides its audience with a symbolic channel for the elaboration of social trauma and grants viewers the possibility of projecting through cinema their shared emotions. It should be noted that the trauma of violence is not only due to the pain experienced in the flesh, but also because of other types of experiences with the body, or rather, the absence of the body. During the decades of violence in Peru, hundreds of families were unable to bury their dead; thousands of corpses remained unidentified and exhumations in mass graves began to belatedly alleviate the unfinished processes of mourning, reparation and resilience. Recently, and after being exhumed, hundreds of skeletons have received a burial according to local customs. As Theidon (2013) describes, “part of collective recovery involves recreating rituals that give meaning both to the difficult years and to life today” (2013, 153). Drawing on Theidon’s observation, I would maintain that, in the case at hand, the cinematic moment (the crowd in front of the screen) can be read as a moment of ritual in which the community gathers, shares, and exorcises its demons (ones that in real life were far more terrifying than they could be in any film). Thus, the Andean horror film is a cultural product that intervenes socially, not only through the enunciation of memory and the innovative continuation of tradition but, at a performative level, as a community moment and ritual for populations

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that, more than twenty years after the bloody war, are still in search of the symbolic, legal and sociopolitical tools that could allow them to recover the social pact and harmony.

Conclusions Ayacucho horror cinema constitutes a localized exercise of alterity and cultural resistance that, inserted in contemporary cultural globalization, calls for critical readings to situate it in the current geopolitical conjuncture without neglecting its historical, political and social particularities on a local and national scale. In this chapter, I have tried to demonstrate how and why orality is a dynamic site of cultural resistance to the values of dominant Westernism. The intertextuality and metacommunicative capacity of Ayacucho horror films are a clear example of how orality, with all its historical baggage, interacts with hegemonic cultural products such as Hollywood cinema, giving rise to very particular and complex cultural productions. The textual and contextual analysis of the corpus of films undertaken here has emphasized the crucial importance of orality within the Indigenous/peasant communities of Ayacucho, where it operates as a cultural mode and social expression of the processes of communitarian meaning-making. Far from constituting a hermetic and archaic zone unrelated to contemporaneity, these myths and legends prove to be porous and changing spaces, enhancers of meaning and open to all kinds of cultural updating and contamination. On the other hand, and due to its own characteristics, the horror genre enhances the use of the body as a key signifier in the textualization of fear, trauma and pain. Thus, and based on Linda Williams’ hypotheses, I consider that the bodily excesses of the horror genre make Ayacucho cinema a conduit for the experience of complex and intense emotions that, when socially shared, could be considered as central elements for the communal elaboration of memory, trauma and resilience and not just as tangential cultural products, or circumstantial results of a historical process as complex and horrifying as the war discussed herein.

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Bibliography Amnesty International, Peru: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission—A First Step Towards a Country without Justice. August 26, 2004. https://www.ref world.org/docid/412de7fb4.html. Bartolomé, Miguel Alberto. Procesos interculturales. Antropología política del pluralismo cultural en América Latina. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores, 2006. Bengoa, José. La emergencia indígena en América Latina. Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007. Bedoya, Ricardo. “Miedo y memoria en el cine andino de horror.” L’Âge d’or 9 (2016): https://journals.openedition.org/agedor/1220. Botey, Mariana. Zonas de disturbio. Espectros del México indígena en la modernidad. Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas: Dirección General de Artes Visuales: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana: Palabra de Clío, 2014. Bustamante, Emilio Alberto. “El género de horror en el cine regional andino peruano.” Memorias del XV Encuentro Latinoamericano de Facultades de Comunicación Social: Convergencias Comunicativas. Mutaciones de la Cultura y el Poder, 874–885. Medellín: FELAFACS, 2015. Cuéllar Ledesma, Diana. “Representación, alteridad y subjetividad: el cine indigenista en redefinición (2005–2015).” PhD Dissertation, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2019. https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/ 687420. Del Pino, Ponciano. “Ayacuchano Cinema and the Filming of Violence: Interview with Palito Ortega Matute.” In Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth-Telling in Post-Shining Path Peru, edited by Cynthia E. Milton, 153–175. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Elsaesser, Thomas and Malte Hagener. Introducción a la teoría del cine. Translated by Valeria Camporesi. Madrid: UAM Ediciones, 2015. Estévez, Ariadna. Guerras necropolíticas y biopolítica de asilo en América del Norte. Mexico City: UNAM: CISAN: UACM, 2018. Kuon Arce, Elizabeth. Ed. Cuzco-Buenos Aires. Ruta de intelectualidad americana. (1900–1950). Lima: Universidad de San Martín de Porres, 2008. Lotman, Iuri. “La caza de brujas: semiótica del miedo.” Translated by Desiderio Navarro. Criterios. Revista internacional de teoría de la literatura, las artes y la cultura 35 (2006): 17–36. La Habana: Centro teórico-cultural Criterios. Moraña, Mabel. Arguedas/Vargas Llosa. Dilemas y ensamblajes. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2013. ———. Indigenismo hacia el fin del milenio. Homenaje a Antonio Cornejo Polar. Pittsburg: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 1998. Piñero, Gabriela. Ruptura y continuidad. Crítica de arte desde América Latina. Santiago de Chile: Metales Pesados, 2019.

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Richard, Nelly. “Globalización académica, estudios culturales y crítica latinoamericana.” In Estudios latinoamericanos sobre cultura y transformaciones sociales en tiempos de globalización, edited by Daniel Mato, 185–199. Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, 2001. http://bibliotecavirtual. clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/mato/richard. ———. Feminismo, género, diferencia(s). Santiago de Chile: Palinodia, 2008. Rivera Garza, Cristina. The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation. Translated by Robin Myers. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2020. Robin Azevedo, Valerie and Dorothée Delacroix. “Categorización étnica, conflicto armado interno y reparaciones simbólicas en el Perú post - Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR).” Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, Débats (2017). https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/71688. Scheppers-Huges, Nancy. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Theidon, Kimberly. Intimate Enemies. Violence and Reconciliation in Peru. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. https://kimberlythei don.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/theidon_intimateenemies_-final-pdf.pdf. Vázquez del Águila, Ernesto. “Pishtacos: Human Fat Murderers, Structural Inequalities, and Resistances in Peru.” América Crítica 2, n.o 2 (2018): 140–161. https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/handle/10197/10659. Villoro, Luis. “Ensayos sobre indigenismo. Del indigenismo a la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas.” Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2017. Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Quarterly 44, n.o 4 (1991): 2–13. http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/rrushing/470j/ewExterna lFiles/Williams%E2%80%94Film%20Bodies.pdf.

Filmography Contreras, Jesús. Sin sentimiento. Peru: Zancay Producciones, 2007. Escriba Palomino, Nilo. Jarjacha versus Pishtaco. Peru, 2012. Eusebio, Mélinton. Jarjacha, el demonio del incesto. Peru: Ahora o Nunca Films, 2002. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB56RgHisdw. Eusebio, Miler. La tumba del Supay, Peru: Independent, 2013. ———. Supay. El hijo del condenado. Peru: Independent, 2010. Huertas Pérez, José Gabriel. Nakaq. Peru: Luis Aguilar, 2003. Llosa, Claudia. La teta asustada. Peru and Spain: Vela Producciones, Oberón Cinematográfica, Wanda Visión, 2009. Martínez Gamboa, José. Pishtaco. Peru: Magnum Producciones, 2003. Ortega Matute, Palito. Dios tarda pero no olvida 2. Peru: 1998 Ortega Matute, Palito. Sangre inocente. Peru: Kactus Producción Cinematográfica and Vision Creative Films, 2000.

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Ortega Matute, Palito. Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los Jarjachas. Peru: Peru Movie EIRL, Roca Films, 2002. ———. La maldición de los Jarjachas II. Roca Films, Fox Perú Producciones, 2005. ———. El demonio de los Andes. Star Films, Peru Movie EIRL, 2014. Parra Bello, Lalo. Pueblo maldito, el mal está dentro de ti. Peru: Amaru Producciones, Magic Productions, 2013.

CHAPTER 16

Colombian Popular Cinemas: Expressions from and About Violence Luisa González

Digitalization and the availability of inexpensive magnetic and video equipment have enabled individuals and communities previously excluded from film production to make, exhibit and distribute their moving images. As a result of such technology, an alternative popular cinema has arisen in many parts of Latin America. This has resulted in films made with small handycams and cellphones, produced with simple home computers and distributed through online platforms and street vendors. The origins of popular cinema in the continent can be traced to Mexican videohome or narco cinema of the 1970s (Rashotte 2015). There are several other examples of this phenomenon throughout the region, including in Ecuador (Coryat and Zweig 2019; León and Alvear 2009), Peru (Bustamante and Luna Victora 2018) and in Venezuela (Rodríguez 2012; Calvo 2012).

L. González (B) Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_16

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This chapter examines a popular cinema sector in Colombia by analyzing four films whose DVDs were on sale on the streets of Santiago de Cali in 2016. These are feature films by directors from small and peripheral cities such as Popayán, Dosquebradas and Florencia. They were made together with local communities representing their concerns, using elements taken from action movies and television, particularly narco series. By studying these films, I propose an understanding of Colombian popular cinema as a heterogeneous phenomenon. I first situate the films within a theoretical framework to analyze what makes this cinema unique. I look at how they were made, reproduced and circulated in the media landscape. I then situate these films within the historical context of Colombian cinema, looking at its democratizing processes and its representation of violence over the decades. In the next section, I analyze their production contexts and the filmmakers, the communities they come from and where the films are made. I consider the ways in which common elements in these four productions underscore the striking interplay between the local and the global, and the hegemonic and the subaltern, which is also apparent in the distribution and audience reception of these films. In the final section, I reflect on the future of popular cinema in Colombia and its study. Finally, I call for heightened visibility and support for this important cultural sector.

Understanding Popular Cinemas The four films analyzed here, La gorra (The Cap) (Andrés Lozano 2007), Ajuste de cuentas (Settling of Scores) (Andrés Lozano 2009), El parche (The Gang) (Didier Velásco and Wilson Quintero 2009), and El desplazado (Displaced) (Fernando Escobar 2011), could be produced because of the fall in the price of production equipment. This made it possible for new actors and voices to emerge. Thus, people far from the main cities such as Bogotá could make cinema independently. Even though these new media affordances have facilitated the creation of an independent cinema from a sector that is subaltern to national cinema production, these films are strongly shaped by hegemonic powers that are part of people’s everyday lives and the mass media. As suggested by Jesús Martín-Barbero (1993), popular cultures in Latin America can no longer be thought of as under the dualistic forces that defined them before the 1930s: they neither evoke rural life and simplistic notions of the peasant, nor the Enlightenment and its progressive rationalism. Rather,

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popular cultures should be conceived of as “the interweaving of submission and resistance, opposition and complicity” (Martin-Barbero 1993, 193), particularly when it comes to mass and urban cultures. Further reflecting on the popular as a web of disparate elements, Néstor Canclini argues that new technologies not only promote creativity and innovation but reproduce social structures, particularly hegemonic ones (228). In the case of Colombian popular films, the fetishization of violence is an element reproduced from hegemonic cinema and media, which cohabits with violence itself as part of the daily life of the filmmakers and of the communities that participate in the films. Thus, these violence-representations reflect real-life experiences of the makers, along with fictionalized and mediatized elements drawn from mass media. Even though the plots of the films studied here are based on real stories from local contexts, when filmmakers and communities look for ways to represent them, global elements become predominant. The concept of “glocal,” as used by Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig (2019) to examine contemporary Ecuadorian cinema can be applied to Colombian popular films. Glocal cinema uses Western elements to narrate the local, the world the filmmakers know. In the case of the films analyzed here, globalhegemonic elements, e.g., the fetishization of violence, are glocalized with an amateur impulse I describe below, using the technology the filmmakers have on hand, and the people and the locations that surround them. The impulse that drives these popular filmmakers is not unlike the sentiments of the amateurs that worked in experimental cinema in the mid twentieth century: to make films out of love, for the sake of doing it rather than for economic reward. However, in contrast to the twentiethcentury avant-garde artists, these Colombian filmmakers do not reject the genres and aesthetics of mainstream cinema. On the contrary, they imitate them as a way of entering an official circuit that rejects them. In their search for inclusion in the mainstream audiovisual landscape, cultural economies profit from their work, while the filmmakers do not get any income from their films. There are two aspects of the cultural economies that benefit from the work of these popular filmmakers while helping the films to reach broad audiences. On the one hand, there is the informal communication economy where video bootleggers reproduce and sell copies of these films without the consent of the filmmakers. On the other hand, there are the user-generated content platforms where these films circulate benefiting the corporations that own these platforms in what some

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academics have called “free-labor” or the “gift economy” of the Internet (Van Dijck 2009, 50). In platforms such as YouTube, where popular films mainly circulate, the use of the amateur input “boosts the power of media moguls, enhancing their system of star rating [mediators between aspiring professionals and potential audiences] and upward mobility” (Van Dijck 2009, 53). The main venues where these films circulate, video kiosks and online platforms, also frame them as popular productions. Further, they help produce the complex relations between the hegemonic and subaltern, as well as with the global and local. In that sense, the films are integrated in the global-capitalist system while they remain in the margins of the local distribution and exhibition markets. Beyond a genre or category, the films that frame this study are part of a process of democratization and pluralization of the audiovisual landscape in Colombia. As I describe in the second part of this text, they are part of a network of film entrepreneurs in the historical quest for self-representation in the country. Popular films are one of the many grassroots endeavors eroding the notion of national cinema. They foreground the plurality and diversity of national cinemas, demonstrate that it is possible to produce film independently from the state and the market and enjoy wide circulation and popularity with audiences.

Historicizing Colombian Popular Cinemas Despite the imperialist project behind the seventh art’s arrival in the early twentieth century (Shohat and Stam 1994, 100), cinema became relevant once audiences in the Global South were able to see themselves and their surroundings. Paul Schroeder Rodríguez (2016) notes how early Latin American films exhibit an air of self-sufficiency emerging from the simplicity of the first cameras that came to the continent. The first filmmakers in Latin American were freely experimenting with film “as if they were looking at themselves and liked what they saw” (P. A. S. Rodríguez 2016, 22). Rephrasing what Jean-Louis Baudry (1974) proposes in his seminal text “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus,” cinema facilitates new ideas of the self to be formed or reimagined (45), insofar as it works as a mirror where light, darkness and surface produce the mise-en-scène of Plato’s cave, or the mirror stage proposed by Lacan.

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Understanding cinema as a tool for representing society and the self is essential for considering the complicated relationship it has had with the portrayal of the violence that has emerged from different internal conflicts and their impact in Colombia. From the 1910s until the 1960s, most film production falls into what the historian Hernando Martínez Pardo (1978) refers to as cine desvinculado (disengaged cinema) (57), because of it neglected what was going on in the country. For the sake of promoting modern ideals of the nation under Europeanized narratives and aesthetics, relevant socio-political events were almost entirely left out of cinema. Even less visible were depictions of common people’s experiences during twentieth-century upheavals. Despite the censorship and the hegemonic ideas of the ruling society during the decades of this conflict, the representation of violence has been present since the beginning of Colombian cinema. Films such as Drama del 15 de octubre (Drama on October 15th) (Francesco di Doménico 1915) depicted the murder of the political leader Rafael Uribe Uribe (1859–1914) performed by his actual murderers, Leovigildo Galarza and Jesús Carvajal. The film Garras de oro (The Dawn of Justice) (P.P. Jambrina 1926) points out how the United States broke international agreements to steal from Colombia what is now Panama. Both films were censored, and their prints mysteriously vanished. From Drama del 15 de octubre only a few frames survived, and a 35 mm nitrate print of Garras de oro was recovered in 1985 (Suárez et al., 2009, 56). As film technologies became cheaper, more independent productions began to emerge, portraying and testifying the adversities of the political and social context. Thus, in the 1960s, cinema was increasingly democratized in large parts of Latin America, brought about by the accessibility and affordability of 16 mm cameras and portable sound recorders.1 The political cinema that arose in the 1960s and 70s gave voice to people that had remained invisibilized and silenced in previous eras. Even though political cinema was made by Mestizo filmmakers in privileged societal 1 The technological change coexisted with social ones. On one hand, the Cuban Revolution and the decolonial struggle in Latin America inspired many filmmakers in the region who used film as a “gun that can shoot twenty-four frames per second” (Solanas and Getino 1970). On the other hand, the middle and upper classes increasingly began to record their private lives. For example, the archive of Roberto Restrepo in Colombia later facilitated an exploration of the Bogotazo (1948), which consisted of large riots produced as a response to the murder of the political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitan, and this gave rise to a period known as La Violencia.

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positions, this phenomenon planted the seeds for the later development of grassroots and popular cinemas, such as in the case of Colombia, with the mid twentieth-century work of Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva whose contributions became relevant for Indigenous cinema. With lower costs for cinema production and distribution, the democratization of cinema that began in the 1960s came to its peak in the next decade. The expectations of the political cinema of that time, which Julio García Espinosa (1979) refers to as cine imperfecto (imperfect cinema), as films made by and for the people, was largely altered by a developing capitalist society. While magnetic tape and digitalization brought to grassroots organizations and social movements a relevant tool for representing and garnering solidarity for their struggles, it also facilitated the creation and reinforcement of new cultural economies of all kinds. For example, at the end of the 1990s, magnetic tape, through VHS production and distribution, helped make possible the beginnings of a porn film industry in Colombia.2 The representation of violence as a systemic and everyday force in Colombia, which in the context of digital culture, easily satisfies the fetishes of many viewers, is exemplified by the popularity of high-end narco series. Juana Suárez (2012) observes that “the ubiquitous presence of violence, a subject that has defined the history of Colombia and of its cinema and research on the topic, now plays a determining role in its possibilities for incorporation in the global scene” (180). This filmic transformation of the representation of violence, from taboo to an object of a fetishization, permitted this sui generis Colombian popular cinema to be born. These are films made by directors who, despite their independence and distance from the mainstream cinema and media, are nevertheless strongly influenced by and in dialogue with such commercial currents. Their films, produced initially for local audiences, end up being disseminated through the Internet and DVD copies circulating throughout Latin America. This cinema reflects on the traumas and memories of everyday and systemic violence in Colombia, blending real facts with hegemonic narratives and aesthetics.

2 Cali-Sex produced six feature films that were distributed in video stores and sex shops at the end of the 1990s until the mid 2000s. Magnetic tape allowed pornography to be local. Colombian viewers could finally relate to the people, landscape, music and dialogue that they had seen in a porn film.

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Four Colombian Digital Popular Films The following analysis is informed by the examination of four films that were sold in 2016 in the streets of Cali’s city center.3 These popular films were produced in the period between 2007 and 2011, an era that coincides with the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002–2010), thus providing a propitious means to read the socio-political aspects of these films. The works examined here are organized in the following manner. First, I briefly present each film’s plot, director and production context. Then I look at the films themselves with a consideration of the following themes: community participation, generic elements derived from mainstream cinema and the tension between the reproduction of patriarchal structures, and the emergence of new female roles and communities’ concerns about their present and future. With the understanding of the films’ contents and origins, I proceed with questions of specifically how they have been circulated and how their audiences have been targeted. My analysis has been informed by primary sources in the form of comments posted on online platforms and a series of interviews and notes given by the directors under analysis here from a Q&A series at the Cinemateca of Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia), which was part of the production for the documentary Cine Digital Popular (González 2016). La gorra (2007) Since the year of its production in 2007, DVDs of La Gorra have been a mainstay of the kiosks of street vendors. Its director Andrés Lozano asserts that one can find it throughout the whole country. The film is a medium-length production whose inception can be traced back to a video workshop by Lozano, together with people from the neighborhood Los Guamos in Dosquebradas, Risaralda, and funded by this municipality.4

3 Piracy sellers offered one more film, Marcando Calavera (Scoring Skull) (Nelson Freddy Osorio 1999), a production that is one of the first popular films made in Colombia. 4 Dosquebradas is a city connected to the capital of Risaralda, Pereira, through a bridge. This creates the idea of Dosquebradas as a peripheral neighborhood, known for its gangsterism. Around the period that La gorra was made approximately 52 gangs were active in Dosquebradas, a population of 180,000 people (Redacción El Tiempo 2018).

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The community leader Lupe Ocampo had proposed a plot based on reallife events that occurred in that city surrounding a war between gangs that started over a conflict stemming from the theft of a cap. In the film, the gangs’ fighting ends with the symbolic action of las piernas cerradas (closed legs), led by the gangsters’ female partners who refuse to have sex with the men until they stop the killing. The film’s production context adds to its meaning. When Lozano was about to shoot the film, the young gangsters portrayed in La gorra heard that the paramilitary group La Cordillera was coming to Dosquebradas in a so-called limpieza social (social cleansing).5 This forced the team to shoot the film in a week rather than a month, as had been planned. Ajuste de cuentas (2009) Following successful DVD sales of La gorra in the informal economy, the community of Los Guamos set out once again with Andrés Lozano to make a second film, Ajuste de cuentas (2009). This time the team tried to make a profit by screening the film at commercial cinema theaters. But their plans were thwarted when a copy of the film fell into the hands of video bootleggers. Ajuste de cuentas works not only as a saga of the previous fictional film’s narrative but also responds to the context in which it was produced. Inspired by how the paramilitaries changed the neighborhood and its power relations, it shows a group of youngsters exploited by older criminals who are involved in complex networks of drugs and sex trafficking of women. This time the municipality did not provide financial support to the film, arguing that the image of the city shown in La gorra was too negative. However, it got funded by local businesses, and people who wanted to appear as extras. Additionally, the corridos singer El Charrito Negro (Johan Gabriel González) contributed five million pesos (1.100 euros, approximately) with the condition of having his son playing the main character. This is why Alejandro González interprets El Duende, a young boy who works as a hitman for the newly formed paramilitary group. The subplot of the film is a love story between the characters El Duende and Stephanie, who is a sex worker for Los Rodríguez, a couple of pimps. 5 In this particular case the limpieza social meant the serial murder of small drug dealers, gangsters, or any other person that could be an obstacle for the paramilitary group to rule the territory.

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Andrés Lozano, director of La gorra and Ajuste de cuentas , is a filmmaker from Cartagena. He was partially educated at Universidad Nacional, the most prestigious and oldest film school in Colombia. However, in the middle of his studies, he decided to resign and study at the technical school Unitec University Corporation. Lozano (2016) stated that the theoretical aspects of cinema were not of interest to him as much as filmmaking itself. He noted, “I wanted to be in the arena.” After graduating from Unitec, and looking fruitlessly for a job, a friend had told him that he could teach workshops in his city and get some funding from the municipality. Subsequently, Lozano went to Dosquebradas where he taught at-risk youth, particularly gang members, how to make films. He found his first experience making films with communities so impactful that he decided to commit his filmmaking practice to continue this endeavor.6 El parche (The Gang) (2009) Like La gorra, this film tells the story of a war between gangs, this time in the peripheral neighborhood of Los Sauces in Popayán,7 which started because the mother of one member stabbed the father of one of the rival clans when that man had sexually harassed her while dancing. Besides the war itself, El parche (Wilson Quintero 2009) consists of a second storyline: the kidnapping of a child by La Rata, the main character, as well as a series of misdeeds perpetrated by the young gangsters. Wilson Quintero is a self-taught filmmaker with a keen interest in acting. Rejected by the formal acting groups of his city, he decided to create his own acting school focused on cinema and television, which became known as Tarántula Films, initially based in Popayán. One of the first members to join Quintero’s acting program was Didier Velásco, who, upon his arrival, proposed doing a movie based on a story he had written and to be performed by young gangsters of his community. Thinking 6 See Andres Lozano’s YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/c/AndresLozano cine. 7 Popayán is a small city in southwest Colombia. During colonial times it was the capital

of the country, which is still reflected in its strong conservative Mestizo traditions, clashing with being the capital of Cauca, a department with large Indigenous and Afro descendant populations. Popayán, as noted by Macué Otero (2008), is also a large receptor for many migrants escaping from the war in the countryside, despite the city “lacking an economic and productive structure enough to support the weight of its own population.”.

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about Víctor Gaviria’s film La vendedora de rosas (The Rose Seller) (1998), Quintero agreed, believing that Velásco’s proposal could be an exciting opportunity in his career as a filmmaker. Following this experience, Velásco has continued making films with his community, including, for example, Los R5 (The R5) (2011), whose cast consists of some of the same actors from El parche. Quintero, who now lives in Cucúta, continues to produce films made at his acting school, mainly consisting of shorts in the melodrama and horror genres.8 El desplazado (2011) El desplazado (The Displaced) (Fernando Escobar 2011) tells the story of a husband and wife forced to leave their land and come to the city after hooded men kill their child. In Florencia, the capital of Caquetá,9 Fernando or El Negro, cannot find a job because he lacks the skills needed to work in the city, while La Mona, his wife, looks for government assistance with no luck. The criminal life, more than just an open door, is a whirlwind that sucks them in. As they are transformed into criminals, the pair commits a series of felonies throughout the film. Still, the act that gives structure to the plot is the unsuccessful kidnapping of a colonel, a job paid by the antagonist El Tigre. After the job does not go as planned, he goes after La Mona and El Negro to get his money back. Fernando Escobar, director of El desplazado, filmmaker Jefferson Paz and producer Alexis Ocoró founded a film collectivity based in Guapi, named here as the Guapi group, an Afro-Colombian town located in the Colombian Pacific region. This group of collaborators stands out in a country where only a few Black filmmakers are known, despite its large Afro-descendant population. The films of this collective take place not only in Guapi, but also in Satinga, also located on the Pacific Coast and in the case of El desplazado in the Amazonian towns such as Florencia, and San Vicente del Caguán. Escobar directed this film when he was in

8 See Tarántula Films’ YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA4pbIrl Gh7qxqBdQ5dtZ7w/videos. 9 It is not fortuitous that Escobar made El desplazado in Florencia, Caquetá, a department located in the Colombian Amazon with a long history of migration and war. In the nineteenth century, a first wave of migration happened, due to the extraction of rubber. Later came the colonization of the Amazon, and in the 1990s war and migration took place there because of the coca plantations.

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this region promoting the group’s first feature Facilidad (Easy) (2009), with the one they embarked on a national tour to sell. In Florencia, Escobar decided to make El desplazado with a simple handycam he had, some paper notes as a script, and gathering as actors and production crew people he was meeting on the process. He directed, acted, filmed and partly edited the film. In the credits, Jefferson Paz appears as the director because they split the roles randomly. The credits do not seem to play a major role, but rather as something that just needs to be filled in and scrolled at the end of the film. Escobar learned about film production at the National Apprenticeship Service (SENA); an institution devoted to technical education with branches throughout the country. SENA and its continual autodidactic process provided him with the necessary training for audiovisual production and also to run rural television channels carried out by another branch of the Guapi collective.

Non-professional Setting, a Door Open for Community Participation and Creativity Despite their training in audiovisual production, popular filmmakers’ approach and the conditions under which they work are non-professional. The screenplays usually consist of notes jotted down in a notebook, which are opened to be transformed by the communities involved. The preproduction of the films is brief or even nonexistent, while filming is generally reduced to a week (as in the case of La gorra and El parche), or at times, stretched over long periods when time whenever possible. Budgets range from minimal to nothing, and the equipment used for the filming and editing usually consists of simple and obsolete technology. These conditions of production function as both restrictions and possibilities of freedom for the filmmakers and the communities. While they are considered as hobbyists and therefore denied financial support or institutional recognition, these same conditions provide the filmmakers with a great deal of creative experimentation and a lack of oversight. The film’s productions operate as a kind of game in which a community participates in the creation of a movie with available resources, drawing on their life stories and surroundings, and combined with aesthetics and narratives from television and mainstream cinema. Therefore, in addition to showing the community’s concerns, they also convey their tastes and audiovisual education, which in Colombia is dominated by two mass

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media monopolies, Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN) and Caracol Televisión. After the success of the series Sin tetas no hay paraíso (Without Breasts There Is No Paradise) (Caracol 2006), these two TV channels have consistently produced narco telenovelas. Omar Rincón (2009) argues that the explosion of this genre is fitting in a nation that has deeply inserted into its culture and history the notion of the narco, not only as a vocation, but as an aesthetic and language. Hence, the narco narratives and aesthetics utilized in the films discussed in this chapter represent a complex mix of real-life experiences with mass media influences.

Visual Influences: Mainstream Narratives and Aesthetics “Look, we want you to act the role of a drug dealer. Use what you have seen on television, and what you have seen in real life. Imagine yourself as the best pusher, okay?” This is how Alexis Ocoró, from the Guapi group, explained how they approach the casting of community members (Escobar, Fernando and Alexis, Ocoró 2016). His comment strikingly exemplifies the mix of real-life and fictional elements that shape the ways in which people represent themselves and their surroundings. This is how violence, as an element in real life and as a fetish in the mainstream media, is foregrounded. As Santiago (Villaveces-Izquierdo 2006) notes, violence in Colombia has been so overwhelming that it has marked all the different cultural, political and social spheres of the nation (306). Therefore, its representation has persisted as a living, everyday presence. In the films analyzed here, non-professional actors collectively narrate traumas and recollect memories. Through the staging of the marginal world where these stories take place, and similar to the realismo sucio (dirty realism) proposed by Christian León (2005, 30), these films achieve a peculiar mix of fiction and documentary. Nevertheless, popular films differ from realismo sucio in their use of elements drawn from mainstream cinema and media. For example, there are elements of action films with which El desplazado narrates its story of forced displacement, which is one of the most significant traumas that a large part of Colombian society shares. While it initially critiques the lack of support and opportunities that displaced peasants face in the cities, after its first fifteen minutes, the film turns into an anti-hero action movie. The characters La Mona, El Negro, and the antagonist El Tigre exhibit their muscly and sexualized bodies as weapons.

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Generic elements borrowed from action cinema or narco series are key markers of the ways in which violence in these films is fetishized. For example, scenes of bravado and misdeeds that add nothing to the main plot are present in all four movies, following the generic logic of accumulation and repetition from gangster films (Altman 1999, 25).

Cultural Formations: Patriarchal Structures and the Rise of New Female Roles In the films analyzed herein, there are hegemonic elements that not only come from mainstream cinema and media, but also from daily life and local culture, with patriarchal structures being the most notable. Nevertheless, these hegemonic aspects are countered by the flexible conditions of production, which provide opportunities for participating women to transform the female characters. One such transformation is the female gangster. For example, in El desplazado the wife of the main character was never conceived of as co-protagonist in the film. However, when director Fernando Escobar invited Luz Eneida Aguirre to participate, she transformed the wife’s role of La Mona into a fearless criminal able to confront ten or more male opponents using just a knife. Likewise, in El parche, women perform heroic scenes and share the same position as men in the gang. In Lozano’s films, female characters avoid physical violence, but their role within the community is crucial for the development of the plot. In La gorra they invoke the piernas cerradas (closed legs) send the message in the neighborhood that the war needs to stop. In Ajuste de cuentas , female characters escape from and denounce a women’s trafficking network. However, although women in these films can be courageous, clever and resilient, their actions are never decisive in the story’s outcome. Rather, wars continue, and female characters are murdered as a punishment against male protagonists, as in El desplazado and La gorra. If there is a “happy ending,” as in the case with Ajuste de cuentas, it is the men who make it possible. Nonetheless, these female characters foreground new roles that women have within their communities, and within criminal organizations, particularly gangs. However, as Yolanda (Mercader 2012) notes about Mexican narco movies, they tend to be restricted to “patriarchal preconceptions,” where the women’s physical attributes and emotional behaviors help them reach their goals (233).

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Communities’ Concerns About Their Present and Future Paradoxically, while these films contain hegemonic elements that reproduce oppressive structures, they also contain aspects of the subaltern that reveal the concerns of these communities and filmmakers. In fact, all of them share a common goal to morally guide present and future generations. For example, the Guapi group calls their practice “social orientation cinema.” At the same time, Andrés Lozano and Wilson Quintero note how these films gave the young participating gangsters the opportunity to feel valued outside of the criminal worlds that restrict them. In many cases, such experiences served as a source and motivation to abandon criminality. For example, the gangster that plays Mellizo, the antagonist in La gorra, later became a theater actor and started touring the country with a company. Despite the conflicts in the film’s narrative that the young protagonists engage in, at the same time their characters are also depicted as brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, boyfriends and girlfriends; in other words, as part of the community. As Laura (Podalsky 2008) observes, the role of lost youth in cinema is that of “a metaphor to represent preoccupations for the changing of times, traditions, and economic systems” (145). While criminals are portrayed in close detail and in ways in which the audiences are more prone to empathize with, this is not the case with the ambiguous portrayal of members of the police and army, even though these characters are portrayed by actual members of those institutions. For example, in El desplazado an entire battalion performs in a scene, using their arms as props. When discussing El parche, Wilson Quintero explained the different reasons that a policeman and a rapper had to perform in the film. While the cop wanted to “represent the institution,” the rapper wanted to perform his music (Quintero 2016). This shows that the acting of armed officials in the film was also a participatory action. Despite the active participation that real cops and soldiers have in these films, they do not have a face, name or story; rather, they are extras appearing as a force responding to criminal acts. Only in Ajuste de cuentas , the police become integrated into the narrative as characters: an undercover policewoman pretends to be a psychologist in order to gather information from the girls who visit her; the cop who batters his daughter has to confront the fact that she becomes a sex worker in order to afford to escape from his house.

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One can read the depiction of the armed forces in the popular films studied here two ways. The first is apparent in El desplazado, where the illegal armed group is also a character. Juana Suárez (2010) proposes that the uniform represents “a certain spectral and anonymous aura of the violence” (28).10 Therefore, the soldier, guerrilla, paramilitary or cop lacks a face and story, because they represent violence as a single force. A second reading is offered by Margarita (Serje 2012) who posits the “myth of the absence of the state in Colombia.” This myth is based on a supposed division between a prosperous and central country, with one that is peripheral and immersed in conflict where the state is only present through its armed forces. The myth conveniently demarcates that “other” Colombia as one of red zones or “no man’s lands” where not only illegal activities take place, but also “those related to the most abusive means of exploitation: the massive extraction of resources and the most brutal modes of subjugation” (Serje 2012, 114). The Los Guamos neighborhood depicted in La gorra and Ajuste de cuentas , as well as Los Sauces in El parche, are places where narcos come to look for young men to become their sicarios, and pimps look for girls to become their sex workers. In the Pacific Coast, the main location of the films of the Guapi group, the myth has served to take people’s lands and transform them into enclaves for the transportation of goods, both legal and illegal, and the extraction of natural resources. “Despite being characterized as ‘poor’ regions, at the same time they are considered to hold enormous wealth” (104). Florencia, where El desplazado takes place, has historically welcomed people forced to leave their territories in the Colombian Amazon. The hooded men that appear at the beginning of the film can be read as paramilitaries, working in the interest of extractivist industries and looking to seize La Mona and El Negro’s land. In this reading, the uniformed characters help to signal that the films’ locations are part of that Colombia where the state is only present through its armed forces. These characters’ lack of face and story responds to their inclusion in the communities’ narrative as discontinuous actors that appear like rumors of violence to come (Suárez 2010). In contrast, the gangster is a well depicted character that looks out for the community’s welfare, however, on his or her own terms.

10 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author.

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As noted previously about the framing of these films, it is not a coincidence that they were produced during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Despite the fact that Colombia’s internal conflict, characterized by ongoing dispossession and oppression of popular sectors of society, dates back to the nineteenth century, it was during the Uribe’s administration that new manifestations of such a violent process appeared. On the one hand, there was a direct war against guerrilla forces that led to the illegal murder of civilians whose bodies were presented as killed in combat (referred to as false positives). On the other hand, demobilized paramilitary groups formed criminal bands that continued to oppress communities and control their territories. Further, actions to protect and enforce upper class sectors of Colombian society and international capital were reinforced, while the boundaries between legality and illegality became increasingly blurred.11 While places obscured by savage capitalism have been the location and subject of “extractivist” films that gather images, testimonies, traditions and cultures to export to Western festivals and cinemas, popular films have offered those places and their inhabitants the possibility for selfrepresentation. Moreover, the circulation of these films in popular markets and online platforms demonstrate that there is a national and international audience that is attracted to, and feels represented by such cinema. As suggested by Okome Onookome (2004) about Nigeria’s video-films, popular productions refer to popular sentiments, of a “popular public that often suffers the weight and pain of social and economic misnomers of this postcolony” (5).

Distribution and Reception The films’ circulation by street vendors in Cali’s city center and online platforms was not planned. When participants of these films’ productions received physical copies of the movies for their personal use, they used them for different purposes. They sold them to merchants who sell pirated discs or they organized screenings in nearby cities and neighborhoods where they would charge an entrance fee. That was certainly the case for La gorra, Ajuste de cuentas , and El parche.

11 A series of journalistic works, testimonies and allegations have linked Uribe and his functionaries with drug trafficking and paramilitary groups.

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The filmmakers of the Guapi group also lost control of the distribution of their films, despite having created their own distribution campaigns. They traveled to different cities, sought out public places where people from all social classes converge, and set up a television and loudspeakers to show their films. Fernando Escobar, the protagonist of all their films, signed the DVDs’ covers. Escobar remarked (interview April 6, 2020) how this strategy only worked well with the first film Facilidad. When bootleggers acquired their movies and sold them for less cost, the Guapi group’s business of selling discs was over. This was the case of El desplazado, which was launched and pirated in Florencia, where it had been shot. The fact that people who did not participate in these productions made money from them, produced mixed feelings among these filmmakers. On the one hand, they have likely lost money. On the other hand, the filmmakers know that without the street merchants, their films would not have enjoyed the broad circulation they had. The kiosks that sell DVD copies of these films function as curators, as they know what attracts customers or cater to their taste. In Cali’s city center, video bootleggers show images of guns shooting, battles or any other type of spectacular imagery on their plasma screens, including those taken from big-budget films. Screens and loudspeakers are essential to attract new customers. These vendors are competing on the streets with other merchants in a wildly competitive and hectic environment, as is the case in many city centers and popular market squares in Latin American cities. The fragments of popular films are repeated on loop offering customers doses of spectacular violence, while also resembling the realities of those buyers. The second one is reinforced by the altered covers that these video bootleggers make to boost local sales. They often add the names of neighborhoods such as Siloé or Distrito de Aguablanca, Cali’s largest peripheral districts, even though the films have nothing to do with those locations. These movies have also been uploaded to online platforms by different users, often the filmmakers themselves or someone from the community that participated in said productions. These different uploads circulate and reach audiences through algorithms that online platforms use to organize and target their content. This algorithmic arrangement places the films together with other popular films made in Colombia, including bigbudget content that deals with violence at the national level, such as narco series and drug trafficking documentaries.

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The conditions in which these films have circulated respond to what Hito (Steyerl 2009) refers to as “poor images,” which feed both capitalist media assembly lines and alternative audiovisual economies. Placed in the unexpected venues in which they are distributed, the films reach an audience in whom they elicit “possibly disruptive movements of thought and affect” (8). Therefore, online platforms and their interactivity become useful resources to estimate how an audience interprets the films. Political and social commentary are very much present here in these forums. For example, in the comments of La gorra, reflections and debates that fall into the “myth of the absence of the state” (Serje 2012) are apparent. In El desplazado, online platform users read the forced displacement portrayed in the film as enforced by paramilitaries, without the narrative ever mentioning it12 . As political commentary is present, there are also the racist and sexist ones. In the particular case of El parche, online platform users have reacted negatively to the characters’ accents and physical characteristics, as they do not fit into the ideals of the “official” Colombian, as shaped by the main cities’ urban culture and mass media. In addition to local users’ comments on these online platforms, there are also posts from viewers in Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, among other countries. Digital platforms allow the films to reach a broader audience through their algorithmic programming, notably in the Latin American context. As proposed above, violence fetishization plays a large role in their wide circulation. For example, viewers of La gorra from other Latin American countries frequently comment about the actors’ accents as a “Colombian accent.” As a product of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ internal colonization in the Coffee Belt region, people from Dosquebradas talk similarly to those from Antioquia, whose capital is well known for being the location of several narco series and films. A connection between shared traumas and similar social contexts can also attract international viewers. For example, the user Raúl Rodríguez comments on La gorra, writing, “Good movie, the reality of our Latin American countries sunk in misery and violence. Greetings from Honduras.”13

12 These comments were visible on the film’s upload made by Soy Afro, which was brought down. 13 Raúl Rodríguez comment on “Película LA GORRA,” October 27, 2013, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNwFr7MYKMg.

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Users’ comments on these films on the online platforms cannot be thought of as a slice of reality (Ang 2006, 184). However, for the purposes of the present analysis, these interactions support the existence of an audience, global and local that relates to violence as a fetish, but also as a shared trauma.

Conclusion The present chapter has analyzed an autonomous and popular cinema in Colombia, made possible by the lowering of costs of magnetic and digital technologies of production and distribution. By bringing together elements from the local and the global, the hegemonic and the subaltern, these popular films have managed to reach audiences that feel compel by their aesthetics and narratives despite circulating outside of the official cinema circuit. They are part of a network of small audiovisual productions that foreground the plurality of voices in the Andean region. The study of popular films can yield new insights and discussion about how cinema has occurred in Colombia in independent and subaltern ways. The window they open onto the preoccupations of communities is unique; revealing how violence as a trauma and daily experience has been reinterpreted, and how as an aesthetic and discourse it has been reappropriated and transformed. Researching this audiovisual sector and rendering it visible is essential for sustaining these filmmakers’ practices and for preserving the films whose future as digital files is uncertain. For example, almost all of the original material for Ajuste de cuentas is now considered lost. While traditional film archives and museums are struggling to define their role in relation to digital and archiving practices taking place on the Internet (Fossati 2009, 23), digital and popular productionss, as Hito Steyrel (2009) notes, are “thrust into digital uncertainty at the expense of [their] own substance” (9). The rapidity with which the kiosks of the street vendors discussed in this chapter are disappearing marks a curatorial urgency to not abandon the films’ circulation on online platforms. Instead, we need to foster curatorial projects that contextualize these films, bringing them to new audiences and ensure critical discussions not only about them but also about contemporary Colombian cinema as a plural practice.

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Bibliography Altman, Rick. Film/Genre. 1999. London: British Film Institute, 1999. Ang, Ien. “On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research.” In Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner, 174–194. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2006. Baudry, Jean-Louis, and Alan Williams. “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic apparatus.” Film Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1974): 39–47. https:// doi.org/10.2307/1211632. Bustamante, Emilio, and Jaime Luna Victora. Las miradas múltiples: El cine regional peruano. Tomo I . Lima: Fondo editorial Universidad de Lima, 2018. Calvo, Guadi. “Cine venezolano: el barrio como espacio de lo real.” Archipielago. Revista cultural de nuestra América 19, no. 72 (2012): 37–39. http://rev istas.unam.mx/index.php/archipielago/article/view/32092. Coryat, Diana, and Noah Zweig. “Nuevo cine ecuatoriano: Pequeño, glocal y plurinacional.” post(s) 5 (2019). https://doi.org/10.18272/post(s).v5i1. 1592. Escobar, Fernando, and Alexis, Ocoró. “El desplazado. Conversatorio con Alexis Ocoró y Fernando Escobar.” Revista Visaje, ISSN 2590-7824, 2016. http://revistavisaje.co/el-desplazado-conversatario-con-alexis-ocoro-yfernando-escobar/. Forero, Javier, La huelga sexual que frenó una guerra de pandillas. El Tiempo (2018). https://www.eltiempo.com/cultura/musica-ylibros/ la-huelga-sexual-que-freno-una-guerra-de-pandillas-contada-en-comic-295302. Fossati, Giovanna. From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. García, Espinosa. “For an Imperfect Cinema.” Translated by Julianne Burton. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 20 (1979): 24–26. https:// www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/ImperfectCinema.html. León, Christian, and Miguel Alvear. El cine de la marginalidad: realismo sucio y violencia urbana. Quito: Abya Yala, 2005. ———. Ecuador bajo tierra. Videografías en circulación paralela. Quito: Ochoymedio, 2009. Lozano Andrés, La gorra. Conversatorio con Andrés Lozano. Revista Visaje, ISSN 2590-7824 (2016). Macuacé Otero, Ronald Alejandro. ¿Vive o sobrevive la población en situación de desplazamiento en la ciudad de Popayán?: Del conflicto armado al conflicto urbano. Porik-An 9, no. 13 (2008): 149–176. http://www.unicauca.edu.co/ porik_an/imagenes_2numero_actual/Articulo6.pdf. Martin-Barbero, Jesus. Communication, Culture and Hegemony: From the Media to Mediations. Translated by Elizabeth Fox and Robert A. White. New Delhi London and Newbury Park: SAGE, 1993.

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Mercader, Yolanda. “Imágenes femeninas en el cine mexicano de narcotráfico.” Tramas: Subjetividad y procesos sociales 36 (2012): 209–237. https://www.aca demia.edu/15328232/Im%C3%A1genes_femeninas_en_el_cine_mexicano_ de_narcotr%C3%A1fico. Okome, Onookome. “Women, Religion and the Video Film in Nigeria.” Film International 2, no. 1 (2004): 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1386/fiin.2.1.4. Pardo, Hernando Martínez. Historia del cine colombiano. Bogotá: Librería y Editorial América Latina, 1978. Podalsky, Laura. “The Young, the Damned, and the Restless: Youth in Contemporary Mexican Cinema.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 49, no. 1 (2008): 144–160. Quintero, Wilson. “El parche. Conversatorio con Wilson Quintero.” Revista Visaje. ISSN 2590-7824. 2016. http://revistavisaje.co/el-parche-conversat ario-con-wilson-quintero/. Rashotte, Ryan. Narco Cinema: Sex, Drugs, and Banda Music in Mexico’s BFilmography. New York: Palgrave, 2015. Rincón Omar, Narco.estética y narco.cultura en Narco.lombia. Nueva Sociedad, ISSN 0251-3552 (2009). Rodríguez, Omar. “‘Azotes de Barrio En Petare’: Is Spontaneous Film the Return of Imperfect Cinema?” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 37, no. 1 (2012): 173–189. Rodríguez, Paul A. Schroeder. Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. Rodríguez, Raúl. “La Gorra. Película Completa (La Original).” YouTube comment. Buena Pelicula …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNwFr7 MYKMg&. Serje, Margarita. “El mito de la ausencia del Estado: La incorporación económica de las ‘zonas de frontera’ en Colombia.” Cahiers des Amériques latines 71 (2012): 95–117. https://doi.org/10.4000/cal.2679. Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Psychology Press, 1994. Solanas, Fernando and Octavio Getino. “Toward a Third Cinema.” Cinéaste 4, no. 3 (1970): 1–10. https://ufsinfronteradotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/ 05/toward-a-third-cinema-getino-y-solanas-tricontinental-1969.pdf. Steyerl, Hito. “In defense of the poor image.” E-Flux. 10 (2009). https://www. e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/. Suárez, Juana. Sitios de contienda: producción cultural colombiana y el discurso de la violencia. Colección nexos y diferencias. 28. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2010.

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Suárez, Juana, Ramiro Arbeláez, and Laura A. Chesak. Garras De Oro (The Dawn of Justice—Alborada De Justicia): The Intriguing Orphan of Colombian Silent Films. The Moving Image (2009). https://doi.org/10.1353/mov. 0.0034. ———. Critical Essays on Colombian Cinema and Culture: Cinembargo Colombia. Translated by Laura Chesak. New York: Palgrave, 2012. Van Dijck, José. 2009. “Users like You? Theorizing Agency in User-Generated Content.” Media, Culture & Society 31, no. 1: 41–58. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0163443708098245. Villaveces-Izquierdo, Santiago. 2006. “The Crossroads of Faith: Heroism and Melancholia in the Colombian ‘Violentologists’ (1980–2000).” In Cultural Agency in the Americas, edited by Doris Sommer, 305–325. New York: Duke University Press.

Filmography Di Domenico, Francesco, y Vincenzo Di Domenico. Drama del 15 de octubre. Colombia: Di Domenico hermanos, 1915. Escobar, Fernando. El desplazado. Colombia: Satinga TV, 2011. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=H9GAM8dYnkk. Gaviria, Víctor. La vendedora de rosas. Colombia: Producciones Filmamento, 1998. González, Luisa. Cine digital popular. Colombia: Telepacífico, 2016. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUHj4oIBA3M&t=1s. Jambrina, P.P. Garras de oro. Colombia: Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano, 1926. Lozano, Andrés. La gorra. Colombia: Lupe Ocampo Aguirre, 2007. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNwFr7MYKMg&. Lozano, Andrés. Ajuste de cuentas. Colombia: Lupe Ocampo Aguirre, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTya7smG1hg&t=620s. Osorio, Nelson Freddy. Marcando calavera. Colombia: Fundefilms, 1999. Quintero, Wilson, and Velásco Didier. El parche. Colombia: Tarantula Films, 2009. Restrepo, Luis Alberto. Sin tetas nos hay paraíso. Colombia: Caracol Televisión, 2006. Velásco, Didier. Los R5. Colombia: DJ Fuego Films, 2011. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=k55JwAcCRWg&.

CHAPTER 17

Images of Difference in Bolivian Cinema Sergio Zapata

Introduction In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Bolivian filmmaking has witnessed important changes: new modes of production, incorporation of new content, market expansion and the growing decentralization of national production, all of which has generated different ways of consuming and distributing films. Linchamiento (Lynching) (Ronald Bautista 2011) and La cholita condenada por su manta de vicuña (The Chola Condemned for Her Vicuña Blanket) (Walter and Jaime Machaca 2012) are two films that will be analyzed to understand these phenomena, as they allow us to examine the different and novel modes of production in the Bolivian film sector. Likewise, they permit us to identify spaces of their circulation and exhibition, inviting us to think about the notions of peripheral cinema and marginal cinema in Bolivia. This chapter also examines the kind of narratives and stories these films develop and, particularly, how they construct the other. Finally, we will put the analysis of these two films in dialogue with the dominant cinema made in the country.

S. Zapata (B) Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_17

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The questions explored in this chapter include: what are the characteristics of small cinemas, or, as conceived of herein, peripheral and marginal productions in Bolivia, vis-à-vis its conventional cinema? How is the other, the rural-to-urban migrant, represented and constructed in these films? What filmic strategies contribute to the creation of representations of the other? And finally, how can we put the two films that comprise our case study into dialogue with plurinationality, the foundational underpinning of the new Bolivian state, whose new constitution was approved in 2011. The period under study is characterized by the hegemony of the political party Movimiento Al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism) (MAS) (Errejón Galván 2012), which was founded in 1997 and whose candidate Evo Morales became president eight years later. As such, we situate these films in a contested cultural space, where, in the establishment of this new hegemony, certain values are questioned or disputed (Mouffe 2013). The twenty-first century began with large social mobilizations in Bolivia. In 2000, the Cochabamba Water War was triggered by attempts to privatize access to water in the city of Cochabamba, culminating with the expulsion of the transnational company Aguas del Tunari. In 2003, the attempts of the government of Sánchez de Lozada (1997–2002) to export gas through Chilean ports without commercializing this hydrocarbon in Bolivian territory generated the Gas War, which resulted in the resignation and flight from the country of the president, who was accused of genocide. In 2006, Evo Morales (2005–2019) was inaugurated as president, becoming the country’s first Indigenous head of state. His government plan included a response to the popular demands that were made during the protests of the previous years. This resulted in the nationalization of hydrocarbons, the recovery of strategic state companies and the “re-founding” revolution of MAS (Morales 2011) all within the framework of the newly formed National Constituent Assembly whose members were elected and delegated citizens for the first time in history. This period coincided with a notable increase in film production in Bolivia, in addition to the opening of new movie theater complexes throughout the country. The Bolivian film sector reported a notable increase in output, which coincided with lower costs of production, as

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shown by the following figures: in 2007, three feature films were exhibited; in 2008, it was eight; in 2009,1 it was twenty-four; in 2010, it was fifteen; and in 2011, it was six. These numbers evidence the instability of production during those years. They also represent a range of different kinds of production, from those produced under the institutional umbrella of Ibermedia to collective and community films. It is important to mention that during this period there was no support or monetary incentives from state institutions that promoted cinema; hence, the films were either self-financed or were supported through other kinds of government or private funds.

Beyond the Nation-State Internal colonialism and ethno-cultural boundaries, with their propensity to create binaries, have established the notion of an “us and them.” Broke Larson (1992) notes that the positivist and liberal proto-indigenists of the early twentieth century held the redemptive idea of Indians who “lived beyond civilization” and therefore had to be incorporated through education and agrarian reform. This conception, which would continue with indigenism, revolutionary nationalism and neoliberalism, makes its mark on Bolivian cinematography, establishing the space that is beyond the nation-state as the rural space and/or the urban periphery. In the case of Linchamiento, analyzed in depth below, that which is “beyond the nation-state” is expressed in the dichotomy between country and city, with the countryside and the periphery being the place of the Indigenous (Morales 2016). By contrast, the nation-state is expressed in its institutions, powers, symbols and practices in an urban space. In Linchamiento, the three characters, Macario, Angelo and Inocencia, confront and negotiate with the nation-state and its representatives. This idea of “beyond the nation-state” is reflected in the central theme of the film, lynching, which is not a communal action but rather one of social disorder, where individuals are constituted as an amorphous crowd that subjugates a body. This action, which exists on the margins of a legal and institutional order, infers a reflexive and critical commentary on the administration of violence in society.

1 For an analysis of these years see Volume 2 of Molina and Zapata (2021).

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La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña, also analyzed below, circulates outside the institutionalized film and cultural system of Bolivia. Produced on the banks of Lake Titicaca and in the urban periphery, at no time do the characters in the film have contact with state institutions or subjects, so in effect there is no negotiation with the state. In that sense, the film’s script focuses attention beyond the nation-state. And in terms of production and distribution, this film has been ignored by the Bolivian cultural field. Recovering the notion of “beyond the nation-state” allows us to update this metaphorical figure to refer to sensitive products such as films as cultural objects and not only as stories composed of images. It also allows us to identify the spatial borders and the edges of politics and social representations that emerge from these unofficial cinemas. These two films problematize the notion of the nation-state. La cholita condenada por su manta de vicuña falls outside of Bolivian cinema’s conventional typology, which is based on the question of being or national identity. As we have seen, the Machaca brothers’ film annuls the question of national identity by privileging an ethnic-linguistic identity that was not recognized until the year in which this film was released (prior to that, Bolivia considered itself a monocultural, not a plurinational, state). Additionally, this film, from its peripheral condition, questions the values, techniques and modes of production of what is called Bolivian cinema or national cinema. Although in some ways Linchamiento unintentionally echoes the values and practices of indigenism, I also perceive a critique and a suspicion about these constitutive features of the idea of nation. The plot of the film, too, questions such imaginary.

Marginal Cinema and Peripheral Cinema in Bolivia The dominant Bolivian cinema, made by industry professionals, has been conceptualized as a practical and visual regime that attends to and centers its gaze on the Indigenous, rural or peripheral other. These films have tended to display and spectacularize the other through a gaze that is urban, Mestizo and educated in filmic practice. Likewise, their distribution and exhibition strategies have been aimed at an equally urban, Mestizo and Spanish-speaking spectator. In this trend, dominant throughout the twentieth century, we can mention filmmakers such as José María Velasco Maidana, Jorge Ruiz, Waldo Cerruto, Jorge Sanjinés

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and Juan Carlos Valdivia. Their works can be considered as indigenist, as they involve a staging of the Indigenous other who is seemingly incapable of agency. Such Indigenous other has also not been consulted on production decisions nor envisioned as a spectator. This indigenist, dominant cinema, however, has fallen into crisis, like the nation-state that gave it meaning,2 given the proliferation of films made possible by lower production costs and their representational effervescence, expressed in visual self-representation by other social actors. The directors of these films are not interested in legitimizing existing institutions such as filmmakers’ associations or the Bolivian Cinematheque. Likewise, the political changes that Bolivia was undergoing have shaped this emergent cinema, including a new constitution that defined the state as plurinational, which sought to replace the oligarchic, colonial and monocultural republican state. Within this context, debates dealing with diversity, plurality and difference as an aesthetic and ethical foundation have arisen in the cultural field. And from these material and subjective conditions, cinemas have emerged that allow us to think beyond the nation—cinemas of the others, peripheral and marginal, unknown to the urban Mestizo subject. These two phenomena, one material (the result of lower production costs) and the other political (a popular will to transform the symbolic and the visual), have provided the basis for a cultural critique of the production of the meaning of indigenist cinema, generating two aesthetic and ethical currents, the marginal cinema and the peripheral cinema. In contrast to the dominant trend in Bolivian cinema,3 I propose two categories of analysis constructed from empirical experience: marginal cinema and peripheral cinema. These concepts help make visible other expressions, mechanisms and notions of making and understanding cinema. I propose that the term peripheral cinema can refer to films that are produced collectively and communally, where the idea of author or

2 It is not surprising that cultural managers and filmmakers are close to power in Bolivia, as in the case of former presidents Gonzalo Sanchéz de Lozada (1993–1997 and 2002– 2003) and Carlos Mesa (2003–2005), who were film producers, and Juan Carlos Valdivia, filmmaker and official publicist of the government of Evo Morales. 3 I would argue that the representatives of the officially recognized cinema, who seek state financing, have been reluctant to engage in the cultural and political debates in the last fifteen years.

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director dissolves in the practice of rotating roles, and the production cycle is based on the solidarity and teamwork with those involved. These films are often shot in Aymara and Quechua rather than Spanish. This cinema is produced by subjects that have not been trained in cinematographic techniques nor have they received any other specialized training. With regard to the selection of actors, they choose to work with friends and relatives. In addition, due to their mode of production, they do not hire producers in charge of planning, organization or execution of a preproduction plan. And finally, this cinema does not receive the attention of the press, critics or institutions. It circulates and is reproduced in informal markets in Andean cities and towns and has no relationship with the organized Bolivian film sector, in a sort of mutual exclusion. Within this trend are films such as Pedro Urtimala (2010), La imilla K’alincha (2010) (The Little Flirt), Pandillas de El Alto (2010) (The Gang of El Alto), Quta Qamasa (2018), among others, including La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña (2012), analyzed herein. With regard to the notion of marginal cinema, its films might be produced by subjects with or without specialized training. In terms of exhibition spaces, this cinema does not seek to gain access to commercial theaters due to either technical requirements or the explicit will of the filmmakers. The relationship with the organized sector of filmmakers is ambiguous; they prefer to inhabit the marginality, exhibiting in specific circuits such as film festivals and alternative theaters. Within this current, we identify films such as: 13 horas de rebelión (13 Hours of Rebellion) (María Galindo 2013), Procrastinación (Procrastination) (Sergio Pinedo 2015), El corral y el viento (The Corral and the Wind) (Miguel Hilarai 2015), Nana (Luciana Decker 2016) and Linchamiento (analyzed in this chapter), among others. A key difference between peripheral cinema and marginal cinema has to do with each one’s respective notions of authorship and exhibition goals. Peripheral cinema produced in Bolivia does not position itself as authorial nor does it choose to seek out institutionalized spaces for exhibition. Rather, it circulates in informal DVD markets where films such as La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña are sold. Marginal cinema, on the other hand, does promote its authors and circulates in non-commercial movie theaters, as in the case of Linchamiento. Because of the latter, it can be considered a countercultural phenomenon with respect to the dominant Bolivian cinema. The exhibitors of what I call peripheral cinema do

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not recognize themselves as filmmakers, under the assumption that filmmakers are those who work in the creation of images, and they work with the same production modes that fall outside of cinema and produce films because they are not pleased with what Bolivian cinema offers. In other words, they are conscious subjects about the means of production they possess. There is also the debate and controversy about what is considered as “national” cinema and how it shapes the dominant narrative. I propose that peripheral and marginal cinema are expressions of small cinemas , understood as cultural products that can be envisioned as “beyond the nation,” rather than as part of the project of national cinema and hence, the dominant film industry. The virtue of these small cinemas is that they foreground questions of representation and call attention to the politicization of filmmaking. In other words, what is at stake here and in dispute, is the power to show and name the real. Also at stake are questions of the democratization of filmmaking, in terms of who has access to the means of production and exhibition. To further explore these typologies, we will analyze a film from peripheral cinema: La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña (2012), directed by the brothers Walter and Jaime Machaca; and a film from marginal cinema, Linchamiento (2011), directed by Ronald Bautista. These films allow us to shed some light on the representation of Indigenous identities and also think about an aesthetics of difference.

Linchamiento (2011) by Ronald Bautista Linchamiento by Ronald Bautista can be considered Bolivian marginal cinema because although it recognizes authorship, its mode of production includes non-specialized personnel and a division of labor that is porous, with non-hierarchical and non-rigid relationships among the roles and functions of the production team. Bautista has described it as “a collective film.” It is also an Aymara film: the director self-identifies as an urban Aymara; it tells the life of Aymara subjects and is set in the city of El Alto, which has the largest Aymara population in South America. The film’s languages are Spanish and Aymara. This film has been distributed by the film crew, via DVD sales in markets, universities and cultural events. It did not attract any national media attention. The film narrates the expulsion of Macario from the Aymara community of Tajani, which forces him to migrate to the city of El Alto, as he is

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accompanied by his youngest son, Inocencio, and followed years later by his eldest son Angelo. Through Macario, we see how the ethnic-cultural border is established by his clothing; the use of sandals, “lluchu” (an Andean hat), a poncho and jute pants are visual markers of difference. Macario does not speak Aymara but Spanish; this responds to a protocol established by the dominant cinema to Hispanicize films and historically construct typologies of Indians, as suggested by Fitzell: (1) Indian as beast of burden, (2) exotic pagan Indian and (3) subversive Indian (1994, 28). The notion of beast of burden is also found in Irurozqui (1994) with the Indian being “an abject being converted into a miserable beast of burden” (151). In this sense, Macario embodies the pagan Indian when he lives in his community; he embodies the “beast of burden” Indian in his attempt to acquire money in the city. And out of necessity, by not understanding the urban dynamics, he also falls under the third typology, the subversive Indian, not as an insurrectionist or conjurer, but as a subject on the margins of the law. The story of Angelo Huallpa, the eldest son, is that of a migrant in the city who joins a private security company. Angelo will prevent the gang rape of Celeste, with whom he will fall in love. To please her, he cuts his hair, wears dark glasses, a fitted shirt, pants, a watch and a necklace. This rapid stripping of the elements of his cultural identity does not represent a conflict in this character, as it does in traditionally indigenist films in Bolivia. This lack of conflict only accentuates the idea of the assimilated Indian and the submissive Indian. Such qualifiers refer to the acquisition of white values and his lack of a belligerent posture toward authority. This character enters modern urban society without the need to traverse the institutions of the state and, as we see in the epilogue, his entry into capitalism and modernity is through sacrifice. Angelo’s sacrifice takes the shape of his brother’s dead body, who he murdered in complicity with an angry mob that lynched him after he was accused of stealing. But this sacrificial scene is the culmination of his renunciation of origin, family and community. It is a violent representation of the rupture of all that which he was ashamed. It is only through this act of murdering his brother that Angelo is reborn as a citizen. Linchamiento deploys a series of moralizing narrative techniques as it establishes pertinent and effective dichotomies for the story by identifying the rural other as opposed to the urban self. This film, like many others in Bolivian cinema, constructs a “story about individual identity” in

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order to extrapolate “national identity” (Mesa 1985, 78). The construction of this tragic moralizing narrative betrays the racist and ethnocentric position of indigenism. For Mestizo narrators in Bolivia, such as Jorge Sanjinés, Marcos Loayza, Jorge Ruiz, Juan Carlos Valdivia and Antonio Eguino, the encounter of the Indigenous subject with modernity can only be narrated in a tragic way, through the trope of sacrifice, since payment must be exacted. Likewise, this sacrifice must involve the renunciation of a corporeality endowed with cultural markers, which is why we witness transformation or the abjection of the body to become an inhabitant of the city, and a citizen. This can occur through the modification of cultural markers such as clothing, hairstyle, make-up, behavior in public spaces and the use of slang. Linchamiento constructs two antagonistic spaces, urban and rural and distinct geographies represented throughout the film. In this sense, the cinematographic space is revealing in that the off-screen space inhabits the past, embodied in the community of Tajani and all that it implies (clothing, language, practices of justice and social organization), while the visual field is dominated by urbanity and/or the urban periphery. Spatially, in both sites, the same formal elements are used to represent each one: close-ups and medium shots. Both deny any construction of the whole, thus avoiding a portrayal of the community as a social or visual unit. In Tajani, choices are made to fragment the bodies, thus generating the rupture of the community imaginary and atomizing the characters in an evident attempt to make visible the faces of the subjects present in this popular community judgment (the lynching) with which the film opens, and which determines Macario’s expulsion from his village and community. Through the spatial, narrative and enunciative treatment in Linchamiento, we can appreciate that the filmic space establishes and maintains the ethnic-cultural difference. The film is built on the rural/ urban dichotomy and the three characters in the plot inhabit urbanity from their condition as migrants. At the same time, it establishes a cultural difference every time Macario is depicted as a character who lacks information, unlike the audience that knows everything that will happen. This gesture, besides depicting a subject who is innocent in the face of a corrupt system, tends to romanticize the rural inhabitant who is naïve about Western logic. It also highlights the paternalistic urban gaze directed on the original Indigenous populations.

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This film that we situate as marginal cinema is part of a cluster of cultural expressions that question the idea of the nation. Influenced by the hegemonic rise of discourses associated with plurinationality, decolonization and interculturality, it troubles a cultural field in which taste and beauty had always been negotiated and constructed around the national. This work, like a series of other films, questions the notion of the cultural field insofar as it broadens or displaces it toward other participants, with different sensibilities and different thematic agendas. And at the same time, it questions the idea of national cinema since it does not set out to expose the national or to recognize itself as Bolivian or national cinema extolled by historians and urban Mestizo filmmakers. Hence, we are seeing a trace of that which lies beyond the nation; and a homogenizing civilizational project that begins to dissolve in favor of difference.

La chola condenada por su manta de ˜ (Walter and Jaime Machaca 2012) vicuna I consider this film by the brothers Walter and Jaime Machaca as peripheral cinema given its mode of production. It was shot in five days on digital video with direct sound and a crew of five people, all of whom performed duties as actors, cinematographers, drivers and cooks. The participants’ relationships to each other were not mediated by a financial transaction. The filmmakers identify as Aymara and do not belong to any group or association of filmmakers. They do not know if their film has been seen by the inhabitants of La Paz since, as they point out, they exhibit and sell DVDs of it at traveling trade shows in highland towns in Bolivia and Peru. In the ten years since its release, it has been shown in a movie theater only once, in 2014 when it was programmed by the Festival de Cine Radical (Radical Film Festival).4 Also, the only interview with the production team and review of the film occurred in 2015. Therefore, its presence in catalogs, reports and articles is null, deepening its peripheral status. This contrasts with over 40,000 copies of DVDs sold, and over 100,000 downloads from the internet.

4 See their Facebook page: https://es-la.facebook.com/festivalcineradical/.

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La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña recounts the story of Panchito, who goes to Puerto Acosta, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca, to meet up with his friend Antuco to rob animals. One day, a chola5 appears with a brown vicuña6 blanket. The two follow, attack and kill her, stealing her blanket. Two weeks later, her inert corpse rises up. With white spots staining her face, she looks around and begins to search for the young thieves to kill them. In this sense, La chola condenada establishes a double negation: the stripping of the main character’s identity; she is a subaltern individual without a name. Then, as part of the living dead, she has a new, dehumanized ontological condition, whose main characteristic is the loss of coherent language. Finally, drawing on the title of the film, her ethnicity is emphasized. Her ontological status is reduced to the symbolic and to the visual. She repeats in Aymara, “Jiwarayaxamau kawkhankis phulluxax,” which in Spanish translates to “I will kill them. Where is my blanket?”. Several accounts of the condemned point out that they are “transported or appear” when there are “whirlwinds, winds, even lightning” (Spedding 2011, 99). In contrast, we encounter the nameless chola, an historically situated subject characterized by her ethnicity, socially constructed by her dress and maternal attitude. This excluded woman embodies the negation of the white-Mestizo subjects, of the ideal body regulated by the colonized and colonizing society. The presence of the chola as a member of the living dead represents an abjection7 sanctioned by the scopic regime of white society and Western civilization. In the epilogue of the film, when the condemned chola walks into the city, in an extended shot, without cuts or sound, the abjected figure approaches and fills the frame. With this gesture, time and space merge to privilege the existence of this disruptive subject that, since colonial times, reactivates the deepest fears. The living corpse of the chola, that obliterated and erased body, represents the founding negation of identity that emerges from the edges. Like a whirlpool it tears the visual field, destabilizing our ethical and aesthetic order.

5 DDWoman of Indigenous origin whose characteristics are the marks or visual signs of clothing. 6 A wild South American camelid, which lives in the Andean high alpine areas. 7 For Julia Kristeva and Lechte (1982), “[t]he corpse—seen without God and outside

science—is the height of abjection” (11).

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The film not only implies a total change in the representation of others, but also a different way of occupying and using the cinematographic space, the mise-en-scène and the gaze. Its narrative proposes a return to the community because it is a better place to live. It first establishes an inverse relationship between the country and the city, where the hope of prosperity is not in urban, but in rural life. This is the first rupture with the Bolivian cinematographic tradition where the stories referring to migration are located in the modern and progressive city. A second rupture regards who speaks, given that it is markedly different from Bolivian indigenist cinema. In this film, there is no gaze of a main character who is responsible for judging, defining and making sense of everything, that is to say, pointing out or establishing otherness. The mode of production and the film’s script establishes the otherness outside of the boundaries of what has been established by indigenist filmmakers. Panchito and Antuco aspire to have a better life than the one available to them in the city, so they return to the community, where without any discussion or moral qualms they choose to steal. This criminal action goes against not only the law but also against one of the Andean principles, known as “ama sua.”8 Therefore, these two immoral individuals are no longer fit to occupy a place in society; rather, they are individuals who disrupt the social order, while the condemned chola is an abject body. In both cases, they represent the unconquerable other. In this sense, the relationship with the nation-state of both the characters and the film dissolves and is replaced by autonomous characters that are deliberately positioned outside of it, and its institutions, hierarchies, ethnical codes and norms, as well as its aesthetics.

Conclusions Linchamiento and La cholita condenada por su manta de vicuña, with different staging and modes of production, distribution schemes and cinematographic pretensions, offer a broad panorama on the modification of the politics of representation of ethnic-cultural difference in contemporary Bolivian cinema. From this point of view, the films analyzed here comprise a field of contested meanings. On the one hand, there is a 8 The ancestral Andean principles Ama Sua (Don’t be a thief), Ama Llulla (Don’t be a liar) and Ama Quella (Don’t be lazy) are incorporated in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador as a foundation.

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historical construction, identifiable by the hegemonic forms of representation (the national, the urban), and on the other hand, in the case of Linchamiento, we have anti-hegemonic forms. In the case of La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña, we can add countervisual forms. The very idea of the nation is problematized in favor of plurinationality, constitutionalized in the same years that these films were released. The films discussed in this chapter are part of visual culture and belong to a scopic regime that is located within an agonistic scenario, that is, a field of conflict and constant negotiation for the representation and production of cultural meanings. As such, they are inevitably situated in a battlefield in which they confront the dominant national cinema, which is urban and Mestizo. These two films foreground the politics and representation of difference in Bolivian cinema through mise-en-scène, the construction of the cinematographic space and the characters. These two films provide ways to understand peripheral and marginal cinema within a context of the tensions and disputes over the plurinational character of the Bolivian cinematographic field. They invite us to think deeply about the images that are being produced on the margins of the hegemonic discourse in Bolivia, and also to pay attention to their modes of production, the markers of genre cinema and their plurinational distribution networks. In this sense, they bring us closer to understanding the notion of small cinemas, and how, from the margins of the nation, they explore the glocal character of films, in other words, as local products situated within global pretensions and dialogues (Coryat and Zweig 2019). This chapter hopes to contribute to contemporary discussions about the modes of representation, production, distribution and consumption of cinema in Bolivia from the periphery and the margins. It invites us to rethink the history of Bolivian cinema as one that is no longer just a story of auteurs, prestigious awards, and male, urban Mestizo directors, but one that reveals a narrative field that seeks to expand its range of action and impact and understand the production of diverse images as a correlate of the internalization of plurinationality. Likewise, these two films help us reflect on the place of images, which inevitably reveals a politics of images. Both have a paradoxical existence within the institutionalized film sector, movie theaters, the press and scholarly research. They elucidate not only the fault lines in the distribution and exhibition system, but also the inability of the dominant film sector to see itself. They also reveal a parallel Bolivian cinema that has channels and mechanisms of exhibition diametrically opposed to the

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dominant cinema. This parallel coexistence reflects a fragmented society that is divided in the way it engages in cultural consumption. We hope that in the future such filmmaking will be capable of making visible the hegemonic struggle of what can be considered Bolivian cinema. Based on what was written, this makes it possible to highlight cinematographic practice as a cultural object, and to finally begin to think about an aesthetics of difference. It leads us to demand film policies that can recognize and affirm differences that are made evident in emerging forms and aesthetics. Engaging in difference from an aesthetic approach has the potential to open a profound dialogue within the political realm; whether representative or participatory, since in Bolivia, difference is embodied in grassroots political struggles.

Bibliography Acosta Muñoz, Mauricio. “Producción, narrativa y circulación del cine de guerrilla en Ecuador entre 2010 y 2016.” Master’s thesis, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador, 2018. https://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/handle/ 10644/6580 Banegas, Cecilia. “Territorios y espacios de identidad en el cine boliviano.” Revista Internacional de Comunicación y Desarrollo 2, no. 5 (2017): 89–108. https://revistas.usc.gal/index.php/ricd/article/view/3311. Coryat, Diana and Noah Zweig. Nuevo cine ecuatoriano: pequeño, glocal y Plurinacional.” post(s) 5 (2019): 70–101. https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index. php/posts/article/view/1592. Errejon ´ Galv´an, I˜ nigo. La lucha por la hegemon´ia durante el primer gobierno del MAS en Bolivia (2006–2009): un an´alisis discursivo. PhD dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, recuperada de. 2012: 33089. http://eprints.ucm.es/14574/1. Fitzell, Jill. “Teorizando la diferencia en los Andes del Ecuador: Viajeros europeos, la ciencia del exotismo y las imágenes de los indios.” In Imágenes e imagineros: Representaciones de indígenas ecuatorianos, siglos XIX y XX, edited by Blanca Muratorio, 25–73. Quito: FLACSO, 1994. Gumucio, Alfonso. “La travesía del desierto.” In Historia del cine boliviano, 1897–2017 , edited by Carlos Mesa, 73–134. La Paz: Plural, 2018. Irurozqui, Marta. La armonía de las desigualdades. Elites y conflictos de poder en Bolivia, 1880–1820. Cusco: Editorial CSIC-CSIC Press, 1994. Kristeva, Julia and John Lechte. “Approaching abjection.” Oxford Literary Review 5, no. 1/2 (1982): 125–149. https://www.jstor.org/stable/439 73647.

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Larson, Brooke. “Explotación y economía moral en los Andes del sur: Hacia unareconsideración crítica.” Historia critica 6 (1992): 75–97. https://rev istas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit6.1992.05. Machaca, Jaime. Personal Interview with the Author. November 20, 2018. Mesa, Carlos. La aventura del cine boliviano. La Paz: Gisbert, 1985. ———. Historia del cine boliviano, 1897–2017 . La Paz: Plural, 2018. Mariaca, Guillermo and Mauricio Souza. Cine boliviano, historia, directores, películas. La Paz: Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Ministerio de Culturas del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2014. Molina, Mary Carmen and Sergio Zapata. Research Notebooks, Women/Cinema Bolivia: 1960–2020. La Paz: Centro Cultural de España en La Paz, Imagen Docs, Festival de Cine Radical, 2021. Morales, Waltraud Q. “From Revolution to Revolution: Bolivia’s National Revolution and the ‘Re-founding’ Revolution of Evo Morales.” The Latin Americanist 55, no. 1 (2011): 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1557203X.2011.01110.x. Morales, Waltraud Q. 2011. “From Revolution to Revolution: Bolivia’s National Revolution and the ‘Re-founding’ Revolution of Evo Morales.” The Latin Americanist 55, no. 1: 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1557-203X. 2011.01110.x. Mouffe, Chantal. Agonística: Pensar el mundo políticamente. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013. Spedding, Alison. Sueños, kharisiris y curandero: dinámicos sociales y de las creencias en los Andes contemporáneos. La Paz: Mama Huaco, 2011. Souza, Mauricio. “Películas bolivianas (3): Pandillas en El Alto.” Pagina Siete. April 1, 2018. https://trestristescriticos.com/peliculas-bolivianas-3-pandillasen-el-alto/. Zapata, Sergio. “El domingo 18/11/2018 en la sección Imagen Docs de La Razón se publico‘Søren’ Sergio Zapata.” Facebook, November 20, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/imagendocs/posts/1828517513914074/.

Filmography Bautista, Ronald. Linchamiento. Bolivia: Independent, 2011. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=Dgp5366WSWo&t=22s. Colectivo Estudiantes de Unidad Eduardo Sempertegui (Yamparaez, Chuquisaca). La imilla K’alincha. Bolivia: Independent, 2015. Conde P, Miltón Ramiro. Pandillas en El Alto. Bolivia: Producciones Sueños Literarios, 2010. Decker, Luciana. Nana. Independent: Bolivia, 2016. Galindo, María. 13 horas de rebelión. Bolivia: Mujeres Creando, 2013.

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Grupo Wiñaya. Quta Qamasa. Bolivia: Independnet, 2018. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=BGPIfpLw8ys. Hilari, Miguel. El corral y el viento. Bolivia: Miguel Hilari, NairaCine, Cinemateca Boliviana and Color Monster, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= mxUVVmuKwL0. Machaca Paye, Jaime Franz and Walter Machaca Paye. La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña. Bolivia: Sagitario 3000, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6SMdwQSbBAE&t=2s. Pinedo, Sergio. Procrastinación. Bolivia: Independent, 2015. Quispe, Felipe. Mamani, Franz Pedro Urtimala. Bolivia: Video Studio Sucre, 2010.

Index

A Abya Yala, 10, 94, 117 Acosta, Ana, 161 Acosta Muñoz, Mauricio, 9, 17, 18, 269 Actualidades quiteñas (1924), 222 Afaro, Eloy, 259, 261, 274 Afro-Colombian Corporation for Social and Cultural Development, 193 Afro-descendent population, 15, 161 Afro-Ecuadorian territories, 15 Agarrando pueblo (1977), 242 Aguilar, Josefina, 75 Aja Shuar (2014), 204–206, 212 Ajuste de cuentas (2009), 326, 332, 333, 337–340, 343 Al Borde Producciones, 138, 142, 149, 150 Alemán, Gabriela, 259, 264, 267 Alfarismo, 261, 262, 275 Allapamanta, Kawsaymanta; Katarisun (1992), 98 Almas en pena (2004), 286

Alternativas vivas (2015), 204 Altiplano, 31, 33, 43, 44 Altman, Rick, 294, 337 Álvarez, Pocho, 198, 200, 201, 212 Alvear, Miguel, 4, 9, 96, 108, 258, 263, 264, 266, 281, 325 Amateur cinema, 16, 219–221, 295 Amateur film history, 5 Amateurism, 9 Amazonas; mujeres indomables (2009), 245 América (2003), 249 Amor en las alturas (2008), 293 Andean cinemas, 30, 31, 44, 45 Andean communitarian framework, 32 “Andean essence”, 39, 40, 44 Andean music, 41, 43, 44 Andean realism, 11, 31, 32, 35, 39, 44, 45 Andean time, 31, 32, 34, 35, 45 Anderson, Benedict, 265 Áñez, Jeanine, 237, 250 Ankuash, Domingo, 202, 206, 212 Ankuash, Raúl, 209, 211

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Coryat et al. (eds.), Small Cinemas of the Andes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7

363

364

INDEX

Apaza, Nereida, 283 Aquí soy José (2004), 231 Arenas, Reinaldo, 248 Arequipa, 282, 283, 285, 287, 288, 289 Argentine underground cinema, 3 Argollo, Esther, 239, 247, 248 Asociación de Creadores del Cine y el Audiovisual de Pueblos y Nacionalidades (Association of Audiovisual Creators of Peoples and Nationalities, ACAPANA), 88 Atupaña, Margoth, 75 Audiovisual minga (collective work), 131 Audiovisual practices, 1, 13, 14, 47, 67, 89, 91, 92, 108, 115, 116, 119, 122, 124, 127–131, 158, 159, 193 Audiovisual sovereignty, 11, 12, 49, 199, 200 Augusto San Miguel ha muerto ayer (2003), 231 Auto-erasure, 3 Avaricia (2000), 267 Avrum et Cipojira (1973), 228 Ayacucho, 20, 36, 280–282, 287, 289–294, 298, 304–306, 309–311, 313–315, 318, 320 Ayacucho horror cinema, 306 Ayala Mora, Enrique, 265 Aymara, 6, 32, 33, 35, 45, 241, 280, 353, 354, 357 Aymara world, 34 Ay Taquicgu (1990), 97 B Bajo la Piel (2002), 149 Balbuena Hospital, 107 Bañar al río (2014), 204 Banzer, Hugo, 236, 237

Barreda, Miguel, 282, 285, 297 Basque Country, 7, 8 Basque government, 7 Basque-language films, 7 Bastard cinema, 242, 252 Baudry, Jean-Louis, 328 Bautista, Ronald, 347, 353 Bazinian realism, 32 Bedoya, Ricardo, 279, 303, 306, 312, 313, 315–318 Benítez, Verenice, 202, 205, 209, 212 Benjamin, Walter, 52 Berrocal, Luis, 282, 294 Besana, Bruno, 198 Beyond the nation-state, 349, 350 Bhabha, Homi, 11, 96 Bienal de Cuenca, 224 Blankenship, Janelle, 7 Bluher, Dominique, 226–228 Bogotá, 58, 138, 142, 151, 180, 189, 191, 326 Bolivia, 1, 4, 8–10, 13, 19, 21, 30, 31, 44, 51, 83, 100, 120, 236–240, 243–249, 288, 307, 313, 342, 347, 348, 350–352, 354–356, 358–360 Bolivian cinema, 350–354, 358–360 Bolivian indigenist cinema, 358 Bolivian marginal cinema, 353 Bomba, 170, 174 Bosco Wisum, 202 Brazilian udigrudi, 3 Buenos Aires, 146, 246 Buen Vivir, 92, 125, 130, 203 Burbano de Lara, Felipe, 274 Bustamante, Emilio, 9, 18–20, 303, 304, 307, 310, 313, 316, 317, 325 Butler, Judith, 148, 172 C Cable a tierra (2013), 289

INDEX

Cáceres, Karina, 283, 289 Cajamarca, 280, 282, 283, 287, 289, 292, 298 Caliwood, 304 Callao, 295 Camcorders, 267 Cannibalism, 64 Caracas, 82 Caracol, 336 Carchi, 76 Carillas: Mujeres fuertes y aguerridas (2020), 158, 167, 168, 170, 174 Carmen de Bolívar, 179, 191 Carrillo, Martina, 167 Cartagena, 105, 333 Cartagena International Film Festival, 48 Casa abierta (2017), 230 Casos complejos (2018), 289, 294 Castellanos, Diana E., 149 Catacora, Óscar, 11, 32, 33, 279, 285, 294, 297 Cauca, 41, 181, 187 Cavero Torres cinema, 287 Cedeño, Fernando, 258, 264, 267–269, 271, 272, 275 Cellphone camera, 226, 228 Cellphones, 55, 59, 263, 325 Celluloid film, 230 Cementerio general (2013), 288 Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú (Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru, CHIRAPAQ), 83, 88 Centro Kupiamais, 208 Centro Shuar Kupiamais, 203, 205, 207 Centro Shuar Tink, 204 Centros Shuar Shiram-Entsa, 203 Cerruto, Waldo, 350 CGC oil company, 199 Chalacamá, Nixon, 258, 260, 267–271, 274, 275

365

Champutiz, Eliana, 12, 100 Cheung, Ruby, 185 Chiapas, 307 Chicago International Film Festival, 36 Chicama (2012), 295 Chile, 10, 14, 44, 83, 224, 239, 243, 250 Chola, 357, 358 Chola Contravisual, 283 Cholango, Amaru, 12, 91, 97, 103–108 Chone, 3, 19, 257, 260–266, 268, 271, 273, 275 Chonewood, 19, 20, 257–260, 262–264, 266–269, 273–275 Cine Aymara Studios, 33 Cine-club, 228 Cine comunitario en América Latina y el Caribe (2014), 9, 181 Cine digital popular (2016), 331 Cine imperfecto (imperfect cinema), 330 Cine joven, 3 Cine Liberación, 119 Cinemas without authors, 115 Cinemateca Boliviana, 246, 247 Circle of Women, 158, 167 Circular time, 32, 35 Cisgender directors, 14 Cis-heteropatriarchy, 141 Cis-heterosexual norms, 142 “Citizen’s media”, 95 CLACPI International Film Festival, 83 CLACPI workshops, 83 Classical Marxist analysis, 125 Coca, 57, 59 Coca grower, 236 Coca leaf, 34, 237 Cocalero, 236 Coca workers, 237

366

INDEX

Cochabamba, 348 Cochabamba Water War, 348 Cocteau, Jean, 225, 231 Coffee Belt region, 342 Collaborative documentary, 118 Collective Scripting process, 158, 173 Colombia, 1, 4, 8–15, 19–21, 30, 32, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47–49, 57, 61, 66, 75, 83, 98, 117, 120, 138, 142, 159, 160, 162, 166, 179, 181, 183, 186, 187, 189, 193, 238, 243, 304, 326, 328–331, 333, 335, 336, 339–341, 343 Colombian Amazon, 55, 339 Colombian Digital Popular Films, 331 Colombian Indigenous activism, 51 Colombian popular cinema, 326, 328, 330 Comizi d’amore (1965), 236 Commercial cinema theaters, 332 Commercial film industry, 120, 185 Commercial media, 203 Commercial theaters, 288, 303, 352 Communication Council of Ecuador (CORDICOM), 210, 211 Community audiovisual practice, 116–118 Community cinema, 8–10, 14, 15, 116, 119, 123, 124, 138, 139, 144–147, 168, 180–183, 186, 191, 193, 194, 198–201, 206, 211–213 Community film festivals, 15, 145, 180, 184, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193 Community film screenings, 180 Community video, 100, 182, 191 Comparative anthropology, 118 Comuna 13 Festival, 189 Condenado de amor (2001), 291 Condenado en la pequeña Roma (2007), 291

Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities to the Amazon of Ecuador, CONFENIAE), 77, 78 Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE), 75–78, 96, 99, 104, 200 Confederación de Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast, CONAICE), 77 Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador (Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador, ECUARUNARI), 77, 97 Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas Indígenas y Negras (Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous and Black Organizations, FENOCIN) (Ecuador), 77 Conferencia de Autoridades Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas de Iberoamérica (Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities, CAACI), 88 Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas (Latin American Coordinator of Cinema and Communication of

INDEX

Indigenous Peoples, CLACPI), 75, 79, 82–84, 88, 92, 99, 100 Cordillera de los Andes, 9 Corporación Afrocolombiana de Desarrollo Social y Cultural (Afro-Colombian Corporation for Social and Cultural Development CARABANTÚ), 192 Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Nationalities and People (CORPANP), 12, 73, 75, 76, 78–80, 82–89 Correa, Rafeal, 203, 204 Coryat, Diana, 1, 3, 4, 14, 18, 30, 143–145, 163, 184, 198, 200, 219, 257, 258, 325, 327, 359 Cosmopolitics, 105 Cosmovisiones, 11, 12 Cosmovivencia, 12, 73–75, 84, 89 Covid-19 pandemic, 188, 250 Creando Mujeres , 241, 242, 247 Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry (ICAIC), 3 Cuban Revolution, 329 Cuéllar Ledesma, Diana, 20 Cultural gatekeepers, 18 Cultural globalization, 307, 320 Cultural industries, 16, 21, 141 Cultural studies, 48, 308 Culture elite, 224 Cusco, 282, 285, 288, 289 Cuyay Wasi, 13, 129. See also Minkaprod D Daupará, 48 De cómo engañar a los muertos (1979), 229 De la Cadena, Marisol, 50, 52 De Lauretis, Teresa, 140, 141 Déjá vu (2019), 151, 152 Deleuze, Gilles, 4

367

Delgado Aparicio, Álvaro, 46 Desastre de la vía férrea (1924), 222 Descartes (2009), 229, 231 De Sepúlveda, Ginés, 50 Despertar a una Realidad Multicolor (2011), 151 Didi-Huberman, Georges, 53 Digital and archiving practices, 343 Digital and popular productions, 343 Digital citizens, 67 Digital culture, 330 Digital divide, 67 Digital files, 343 Digitalization, 325, 330 Digital remix cinema, 270 Digital uncertainty, 343 Dirección de Cinematografía del Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia (Directorate of Cinematography of the Ministry of Culture), 186 Directorate of Audiovisual, Phonography and New Media (DAFO) (Peru), 296 Discursive field, 262 Dobrée, Ignacio, 18 Docudrama, 260, 272 Docufiction, 80 Docuperú, 13, 129 Dorado, Carolina, 14, 192 Dosquebradas, 326, 331–333, 342 Drama del 15 de octubre (1915), 329 Duno-Gottberg, Luis, 3

E Echeverría, Bolívar, 125 Eco-territorial cinema, 198 Ecuador, 1, 4, 8, 9, 11–16, 19, 21, 30, 32, 35, 38, 43, 44, 75–83, 86, 88, 91, 96–100, 102–104, 115, 138, 142, 147, 151, 158,

368

INDEX

160, 161, 168, 180, 197–200, 203, 209, 210, 212, 219–224, 226, 228, 230, 231, 239, 257–267, 274, 275, 325, 342, 358 Ecuador Bajo Tierra, 258, 263 Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians (FEINE), 77 Ecuatorianidad, 259, 262, 274 Eisenstein, Sergei, 6, 270 El abigeo (2001), 286 El coraje del pueblo (1971), 243 El corral y el viento (2015), 352 El demonio de los Andes (2014), 287, 290, 305 El desertor (2015), 243, 246, 247 El desplazado (2011), 326, 334–339 El destructor invisible (2006), 260, 269–271, 273 El Encuentro ( 2016), 149, 151 El hijo del viento (2008), 286 El huerfanito (2004), 286 Ella vendrá (2019), 171 El misterio de Kharisiri (2004), 301 El parche (2009), 326, 333 El regreso del condenado en el poder andino (2011), 291 El retumbar de las voces (2020), 159, 170, 171, 174 El rincón de los inocentes (2007), 293, 294 El ritual (1974), 225 Elsaesser, Thomas, 184, 319 El sendero del chulo (2007), 285 El subamericano (1976), 229, 230 El Tesoro de Atahualpa (1924), 222 El último guerrero chanka (2011), 287 El vástago y su promesa (2010), 289, 300 Embera, 12, 49, 57 Embera indigenous people, 57

Encadenados (2014), 295 En el mundo marino caben todos los mundos (2019), 171 En medio del laberinto (2019), 289 Escola, Saywa, 75 Escuela Audiovisual Al Borde, 14, 15, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145–147, 149, 152 Escuela de Cine Amazónico, 13, 124, 129 Esmeraldas (Ecuador), 161 Espinosa Miñosa, Yuderkys, 171 Esteban, Gabrielle, 149, 266 Estrello, Luz, 13, 117 Etsa-Nantu/Cámara Shuar, 16, 198, 202, 203, 205–213 European small cinemas, 7 Eusebio, Mélinton, 280 Eusebio, Miler, 286 Exiliadas del neoliberalismo (2004), 245, 250 Expanded community, 16, 199, 201, 206, 208, 213 Extractivism, 145, 160, 166, 203, 208 Extractivist industries, 339 Eyzaguirre, Manuel, 282

F Falicov, Tamara, 2 Fantasy, 271, 290, 291, 309, 311, 312 Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, 50 Febres Cordero, León, 262 Federici, Silvia, 124, 125 Female gaze, 170 Feminism(s), 14, 16, 159, 160, 162, 164, 166, 171, 199 Feminist audiovisual praxis, 164 Feminist community cinema, 159, 175 Feminist filmmaking, 160, 169, 175

INDEX

Feminist film theorists, 169 Feminist intersectionality, 146 Feminist pedagogy, 162, 163, 165 Feriado bancario (bank holiday) (Ecuador), 264, 267 Fernández Bouzo, Soledad, 198, 200 Festival-as-Event, 15, 179 Festival-as-Process, 15, 180 Festival Audiovisual de los Montes de María, 187–190, 193 Festival Continental de Cine y Video de las Naciones de Abya Yala: La Serpiente (Continental Film and Video Festival of the Nations of Abya Yala: The Serpent), 99 Festival de Cine Iberoamericano (FIACID), 289 Festival de Cine Radical, 246, 356 Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13, La Otra Historia, 180, 187, 188, 192 Festival de Cine y Video Comunitario-Miní A Guatiá-San Basilio de Palenque, 188, 189 Festival de Cine y Video de las Primeras Naciones de Abya Yala, 93 Festival Internacional de Cine de Guayaquil, 230 Festival Internacional de Cine de los Pueblos Indígenas (International Film and Communication Festival of Indigenous Peoples), 88 Festival Internacional de Cine y Video Alternativo y Comunitario “Ojo al Sancocho”, 187–190 Festival Latinoamericano de Cine de los Pueblos Indígenas, 101 Festival Nacional Cine y Video Comunitario del Distrito de Aguablanca (FESDA), 187–189, 191, 192

369

Festival of Indigenous Film and Video in Daupará, 48 Figueroa, Luis, 30 Florencia (Colombia), 44, 326, 334, 335, 339, 341 Ford, John, 228 Forero, Omar, 282, 285, 289, 294, 295, 297 Foucault, Michel, 138, 147 Foundation for the Development of Intercultural Communication (CEFREC), 100 Found footage, 247 Fourth world cinemas, 11, 93 Freire, Paolo, 120, 123, 163 French, Lisa, 170 Fresneda Delgado, Iratxe, 7

G García Canclini, Néstor, 327 García Espinosa, Julio, 330 Garras de oro (1926), 329 Gender, 2, 14, 15, 84, 138, 140–148, 150–153, 159–161, 164, 171, 186, 250, 272, 304 Gender binaries, 142 Gender identities, 138 Gender transgression, 148 Gender transitions, 142, 151 Gender violence, 159 Genealogía de un territorio en disputa (2017), 204, 209, 212 Geopolitical categories, 18 Geopolitical locations, 304 Geopolitics, 107, 268 Getino, Octavio, 119, 329 Gills, Libertad, 16, 222, 227, 229, 230 Ginsburg, Faye, 93, 94, 185 Global cinema, 5, 251, 271 Globalization, 2, 4, 10, 18, 304, 307

370

INDEX

Global markets, 5, 261 Global mediascape, 21 Global migration, 5 Global pandemic, 158 Glocal Cinemas: Big Stories, Small Countries manifesto (2015), 7 Gómez-Barris, Macarena, 162 Gómez, Rocío, 75, 100 Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization (Santa Marta), 59 Gonzales Apaza, Óscar, 282, 293 Gonzales, Julio César, 13, 117, 144 González, Luisa, 6, 20 Granda, Wilma, 221–223, 231 Grassroots communities, 9 Grassroots endeavors, 328 Grassroots film festivals, 22 Gregorio (1984), 282, 300 Gritos de libertad (2003), 294 Grupo Chaski, 124, 146, 282 Grupo Cine Liberación, 119 Guadalajara Film Festival, 33, 279 Gualinga, Eriberto, 199 Guarniz, Luz Isabel, 283 Gudynas, Eduardo, 203 Guerrilla cinema, 9, 10, 17–20, 264, 268, 269 Guerrillaness, 18 Gumucio Dagron, Alfonso, 9 Gunning, Tom, 3, 143 Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel, 116, 124, 126 Gutiérrez, Lucio, 272–274 Guzmán, Patricio, 44

H Haraway, Donna, 141, 240, 242 Hardt, Michael, 124 Hegemonic communicational practices, 202 Hidrovo Quiñónez, Tatiana, 261

Historiography, 7 Hjort, Mette, 5, 6 Home movies, 3, 220, 228 Horror, 20, 268, 288, 290, 291, 298, 303–320, 334 13 horas de rebelión (2013), 240–242, 246, 247, 352 Huancayo, 282, 283, 289, 290, 292 Huanta, 282, 294, 318 Hugo, Territorio Rebelde (2018), 212 “Hybrid media activism”, 201, 213 I Ibermedia, 349 “Image-politics”, 95 Impuesto de salida (2016), 146, 151 Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los Jarjachas (2002), 289, 290, 306 Independent movie theater Ochoymedio (Ecuador), 212 Indexicality, 259 Indianidad, 49. See also Indigeneity Indigeneity, 11, 48–50, 53, 67. See also Indianidad Indigenist cinema, 312, 351 Indigenist documentaries, 98, 102 Indigenous audiovisual practices, 12, 67, 91, 92, 95, 96, 100–103, 108 Indigenous cinema, 6, 8, 30, 38, 74, 77, 88, 200, 330 Indigenous communication organizations, 75 Indigenous communication practitioners, 75 Indigenous communication rights, 49 Indigenous media, 81, 93, 122 Indigenous nationalities, 75, 99 Indigenous peoples, 9, 11, 12, 30, 36, 39–41, 44, 48, 52–57, 60, 61, 66, 67, 73–78, 81, 84, 85,

INDEX

88, 89, 92–94, 98, 99, 101–103, 105, 128, 314 Indigenous uprisings, 104 Indigenous visuality, 107 Industry-backed cinema, 143 Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Creation (ICAA) (Ecuador), 77, 258 Institutionalized film sector, 359 International Conference on Small Cinemas: Diversity in Glocal Cinemas: Language, Culture, Identity, 8 International festival circuit, 36 International festivals, 3, 84, 246, 297 International Film and Communication Festival of Indigenous Peoples, 88 International film festival circuit, 4 International film festivals, 2 Intertextuality, 320 Inti Raymi, 39 Iordanova, Dina, 184, 185 Italian spaghetti westerns, 291 Iwianch (2014), 204 Izquierdo, Javier, 231

J Jaibanismo, 57, 58 Jais , 57, 58 Jameson, Frederic, 269 Jarjacha, 290–292, 306, 312, 315, 317 Jarjacha, el demonio del incesto (2002), 305 Jarjacha versus pishtaco (2012), 316 Jay, Martin, 49 Juliaca, 10, 282, 289, 292 Junín, 280, 282, 290, 291, 298

371

K Kawsak Sacha, la canoa de la vida (2018), 199 Kichwa Film Aesthetics, 101 Kichwa language, 171 Kichwa nationality, 97 Kichwa oral tradition, 97 Kichwa Sarayaku, 198 Kikinyari, 79–81 Killa (2017), 11, 32, 35, 38–40, 45 King, John, 4 Kogui, 12, 49, 56, 59, 63, 64 Korol, Claudia, 162, 163, 165 Kristeva, Julia, 357 Kunta Kinte International Afro-descendant Community Film Festival, 180 Kupiamais community, 207 L La abuela grillo (2013), 207 Lacan, Jacques, 328 La canoa de la vida (2015), 199 La casa rosada (2017), 293, 294 La chola condenada por su manta de vicuña (2012), 350, 352, 353, 356, 357, 359 La cordillera de los sueños (2019), 44 La Ekeka siempre fui yo (2013), 243, 246 La gorra (2007), 326, 331–333, 335, 337–340, 342 Lágrimas de fuego (1996), 280, 293 Lágrimas de madre (2005), 292 La hora de los hornos (1968), 119 La imilla K’alincha (2010), 352 Lake Titicaca, 350, 357 La Libertad, 282, 285, 288 La maldición de los jarjachas (2002), 290 La maldición de los jarjachas 2 (2005), 313

372

INDEX

Lambayeque, 282, 285, 288 La nación clandestina (1989), 31, 35, 39, 45 La puta (2003), 243 Larson, Brooke, 20, 349 Las carabelas de Colón todavía navegan en tierra (1994), 104 La sinfónica de los Andes (2018), 11, 32, 40–45 La teta asustada (2009), 318 Latin American Coordinator of Cinema and Communication of Indigenous Peoples, 75 Latin American Indigenous video movement, 99 Latin American popular video movement, 121, 123 La tumba del Supay (2013), 322 La vendedora de rosas (1998), 334 LBGTQI+ films, 14 Lema, Tamia, 75 León, Christian, 4, 8, 9, 12, 96, 98, 102, 105, 108, 122, 127, 258, 263, 264, 266, 281, 336 Lesbianism, 148 Ley de Fomento del Cine Nacional (2006) (Ecuador), 220, 258 LGBT content, 140 LGBTIQP+, 139 Liberal Revolution (1895–1924) (Ecuador), 261, 265, 275 Lima, 19, 146, 280, 282, 287–289, 292, 294–297, 304, 306, 307 Lima filmmakers, 295 Linchamiento (2011), 347, 350, 352–355, 358 Linearity, 31, 35 Linsalata, Lucía, 116, 124, 126, 127 Lo andino, 30–32, 35, 40, 44, 45 Lobato, Ramón, 260, 267 Local production, 9

Lo comunitario, 82, 85, 116, 124, 144, 182 Lo indígena, 20, 52, 74, 86, 87 Lombardi, Francisco J., 282 López, Natalia, 4, 9, 15 Los actors (2004), 300 Los R5 (2011), 334 Los raidistas (2012), 260, 269, 272–274 Lotman, Iuri, 312 Lozano, Andrés, 14, 326, 331–333, 337, 338 Lozano, Sisa, 75 Luna, Danitza, 9, 18, 239, 247, 248 Luna-Victoria, Jaime, 19

M Machaca, Jaime, 347, 353, 356 Madre I: Una ilusión convertida en pesadilla (2009), 292 Mahates, 191 Maizal collective, 6 Makuna, 12, 49, 57 Mamá no me lo dijo (2004), 241, 247 Manabí, 258–261, 264–266, 272–274 Manabita subaltern, 259 Mapuche, 44, 85 Marcados por el destino (2009), 293 Marcando calavera (1999), 331 Marginal cinema, 20, 347, 351–353, 356, 359 Martín-Barbero, Jesús, 198, 292, 326 Martin-Jones, David, 3, 4 Mártires del periodismo (1999), 294 Masacre en el Bejuco (2000), 258 Más allá del mall (2010), 263 Mashikuna (1994), 100 MAS-Movimiento al Socialismo, 20, 236, 348 Mayolo, Carlos, 242 Medellín, 180, 187, 189, 191, 192

INDEX

Media ecology, 8, 20, 201, 213 Me dijeron que no (2018), 171 Medranda, Jorge, 146, 151 Mega-mining, 207, 212, 213 Melodrama, 38, 272, 290, 292, 293, 298, 319, 334 Mémories d’un juif tropical (1988), 227 Mesa Gisbert, Carlos, 241 Mestizo characters, 39 Mestizo filmmakers, 329, 356 Mexican narco films, 259 Mexican video-home or narco cinema, 325 Middents, Jeffrey, 2, 18 Mieles, Fernando, 221, 229, 231 Milagroso Altar Blasfemo (2017), 239, 248 Military dictatorships, 229, 231 Minkaprod, 13, 129. See also CuyayWasi Minor cinemas, 3 Minority poetics, 91 Minor literature, 4 Minor nations, 10 Mitchell, Timothy, 49, 50 Mi voz lesbiana (2016), 137 Modernity/modernities, 20, 35, 61, 259, 261, 262, 265, 273, 274, 354, 355 Molfetta, Andrea, 181, 182, 191 Monahan, Barry, 220 Moncayo, María Belén, 224, 225 Montañez, María Soledad, 3, 4 Montes de María Línea 21 Communications Collective, 193 Montubio, 6, 19, 185, 258–260, 262, 264–266, 271, 273, 274 Montubio subaltern, 269, 273 Montubio western, 260, 271, 272 Mora Calderón, Pablo, 11

373

Morales, Evo, 236, 237, 244, 247, 307, 348, 351 Morales, Karla, 14 Moravia, Alberto, 236 Morder, Joseph, 226, 231 Moreno, Lenin, 209 Mouffe, Chantal, 348 Muenala, Alberto, 8, 11, 12, 32, 35, 38, 40, 91, 97–103, 107, 108 Mujeres Creando, 17, 238–241, 243–246, 248, 250, 251 Mujer montaña (2020), 159, 171, 173, 174

N Nagib, Lúcia, 5, 6 Nagl, Tobias, 7 Ñakaq. See Pishtaco Nakaq (2002), 290, 316 Ñañaridad, 158, 164 Nankints, La otra historia (2019), 204–206 Narco narratives, 336 Narco series, 326, 330, 337, 342 Nariño, 181, 187 Nasa, 12, 41, 43, 85 Nasa indigenous community, 41 National cinemas, 2, 5, 10, 11, 18, 30, 96, 272, 328 Naturaleza muerta (1977), 229 Navarro, Mina Lorena, 116, 124–128, 131 Negri, Antonio, 124 Neoliberalism, 246, 349 Nerekan Umaran, Amaia, 7 New Ecuadorian Cinema, 200, 258–260, 269 New Latin American Cinema, 17, 30, 118, 119 Nichols, Bill, 172, 184 Nollywood, 304

374

INDEX

No nos maten por una silla (2019), 237, 253 Novoa Romero, David Alejandro, 263 Núñez, Daniel, 282, 289, 292 O Official cinema, 266, 343 Ojo Semilla, 15, 158, 160–162, 164, 165, 167–172, 174, 175 Online platform users, 342 Open-air screenings, 286 Open-pit mega mining practices, 16 Optical unconscious, 52 Orality, 162, 295, 296, 304, 308–310, 320 Oral storytelling, 259, 309 Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas del Pastaza (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza, OPIP), 97 Organized Bolivian film sector, 352 Oriflama cinema, 267 Ortega Matute, Palito, 287, 289, 290, 293, 305, 306, 308–310, 313 Otavalo, 40, 75, 80, 97 P Pacahuayco, 38, 39 Pacco, Percy, 282, 293 Pace, Richard, 6 Pachamama, 32, 33, 43, 44, 66 Palacios, Beatriz, 46, 243 Pandillas en El Alto (2010), 361 Panoramas del Ecuador (1924), 222, 233 Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1999), 282 Paraguay, 138 Parallel Bolivian cinema, 359 Parra, Lalo, 287 Participatory cinema, 115

Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 236, 238 Pastaza, 97, 98 Pasto people, 12, 74, 76, 78 Payada pa’ Satán (2013), 207 Pedagogy of liberation, 120 Peguche, 161 Peirano, María Paz, 4, 184, 190 Peripheral Cinema, 10, 17–20, 22, 347, 350–353, 356 Peru, 1, 4, 9–11, 13, 19, 21, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 43, 44, 83, 115, 116, 124, 129, 131, 146, 160, 246, 247, 249, 279–281, 287–289, 296, 298, 303–305, 307–309, 312, 319, 325, 342, 356 Internal armed conflict in Peru, 20, 292, 293, 304–306, 309, 313, 314, 318, 319 Peruvian Regional Cinema, 19, 20, 280–285, 289, 290, 293, 294, 298, 303, 304 Petrie, Duncan, 5 Pinochet dictatorship, 44 Pinto Vaca, Juan Pablo, 259, 262, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 274 Piracy, 243, 262–264, 286, 288, 298 Piracy sellers, 331 Pirate modernity, 259, 260, 262, 263, 272, 275 Pishtaco. See Ñakaq Pishtaco (2003), 290, 316 Plato’s cave, 328 Plurinationality, 9, 348, 356, 359 Podalsky, Laura, 4, 338 Ponce-Cordero, Rafael, 257, 268, 269 Popayán, 326, 333 Popular communication, 120, 122, 123 Postmodernization, 260, 264, 275 Praxis, 118, 164, 213 Prelorán, Jorge, 30 Procrastinación (2015), 352

INDEX

Pueblo maldito, el mal está dentro de ti (2013), 323 Puno, 20, 279–282, 285, 287–291, 293, 298, 303, 311 Puno films, 291 Puno region, 33 Púpila de mujer:mirada de la tierra, 44 Q Qarqacha, el demonio del incesto (2002), 286, 291 Quicentrismo. See Quito-centricism (Quicentrismo) ¿Quién mató a José Tendetza?, 204 Quinchucajas, 103 Quintero, Wilson, 326, 333, 334, 338 Quispe, Emiliana, 243, 247 Quispe, Flaviano, 286, 289, 292 Quito, 10, 16, 19, 38, 75, 86, 93, 99, 104, 106, 107, 142, 151, 167, 168, 206, 212, 220, 222, 224, 225, 228, 259, 262, 266, 272, 273 Quito-centricism (Quicentrismo), 4, 258, 260, 268, 274 Quta Qamasa (2018), 352 R Ramírez Mateus, Ana Lucia, 14, 142, 145, 146, 153, 212 Ramos Monteiro, Lucia, 263, 268 Rancière, Jacques, 34, 42, 45, 66 Rascaroli, Laura, 220 Ratas, ratones, rateros (1999), 257 Realismo sucio (dirty realism), 336 Red de Microcines (Microcinemas Network), 124, 129 Regional Cinema, 8, 18, 258, 280–283, 285, 287, 288, 292, 295–298, 303, 304, 311

375

Reguillo, Rosanna, 65, 213 Resistencia en la línea negra (2012), 64 Retablo (2017), 11, 32, 35, 36, 38–40, 45 Richard, Nelly, 308, 311 Rincón, Omar, 336 Rivera Garza, Cristina, 310 Riveros Matos, Jacqueline, 283 Road Movies, 272, 273 Rocha, Glauber, 6 Rodríguez, Clemencia, 95, 181, 183, 193 Rodríguez, Marta, 11, 30, 32, 40, 44, 100, 330 Romero, Karolina, 11 Rooted aesthetics, 11, 94 Rouch, Jean, 121 Ruiz, Jorge, 313, 350, 355 Runa, 12, 81, 85

S Sacher, William, 203, 211 Salgado, Pablo, 263 San Antonio de los Baños Film School, 283 Sánchez de Lozada, Gonzalo, 236, 348 Sangolquí, 161 Sangre y tradición (2005), 290 Sanjinés, Iván, 98, 100 Sanjinés, Jorge, 30–33, 35, 45, 97, 243, 313, 350, 355 San Miguel, Augusto, 221–223, 226, 230, 231 Schiwy, Freya, 8, 101, 105, 146 Schroeder-Rodríguez, Paul, 328 Secar la pecera (2014), 204 Semana por la Soberanía Audiovisual (Audiovisual Sovereignty Week), 130

376

INDEX

Semiology, 48 Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), 292 Se necesita una guagua (1924), 222 SeyArimaku: La otraoscuridad (2010), 71 Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán, 314 Shohat, Ella, 11, 93, 328 Sicarios, 271, 339 Sicarios manabitas (2004), 258–260, 269, 271, 272 Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, 55, 56 Silva, Jorge, 30, 330 Sin sentimiento (2007), 290, 316 Sin tetas nos hay paraíso (2006), 336 Small cinemas, 2–8, 10, 11, 16–19, 21, 22, 30, 36, 96, 108, 116, 142–145, 199, 200, 207, 268, 281, 298, 348, 353, 359 Small(er) cinemas al borde (at the edge), 14 Small nations, 5 Social realism, 290, 293 Solá Franco, Eduardo, 221, 224–226, 230, 231 Solanas, Fernando, 119, 329 Solórzano, Ignacio, 260, 272 Soy defensor de la selva (2009), 199 Stam, Robert, 11, 93, 328 Starn, Orin, 50, 52 Suárez, Juana, 329, 330, 339 Subaltern, 4, 7, 20, 35, 91, 96, 260–265, 269, 274, 326, 328, 338, 343, 357 Subaltern filmmakers, 9 Subalternities, 308 Subaltern studies, 101 Submerged cinema, 3 Sumak Kawsay (2012), 80 Sundaram, Ravi, 262, 263

Supay, el hijo del condenado (2010), 286 Super 8 and 8mm formats, 224 Super 8 film, 18, 224, 231 Super 8mm, 219, 226, 228 Svampa, Maristella, 197, 198, 203 T Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual (Traveling Audiovisual Training Workshop), 13, 124, 129 Te juro amor eterno (2010), 291 The Andean World, 11, 29–33, 35, 36, 38–41, 43–45, 97 The Andes, 1–4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, 21, 29, 30, 32, 41, 43, 44, 287, 290, 314 The Arhuaco people, 59, 61 The Center for Services of Audiovisual Pedagogy for Training (Peru) (CESPAC), 123 The Commons, 116, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131 The National Film Council of Ecuador (CNCine), 38 The X Festival Internacional de Cine y Video de los Pueblos Indígenas Ecuador (Tenth International Indigenous Film Festival), 79 Third cinema, 3, 6, 17, 93, 268 Third World cinema, 93 Tiempos de tempestad (1983), 97 Traces of Women, 158, 167 Traditional film archives and museums, 343 Transvestism, 240 Treré, Emiliano, 201, 206, 213 Triste realidad (2004), 292 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru), 305, 313 Tsunki Aumantsamu (2014), 212

INDEX

Tulcán, 77 Tupac Amaru Movement, 305 U Ukamau Group, 31, 243 Umaran, Nerekan, 7, 144 Un abismo y dos almas (1925), 222 Unified Indigenous Television Plan (Colombia), 66 Universidad Central del Ecuador, 77, 103 Universidad de las Artes (Ecuador), 230 Universidad de Lima, 279, 289 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 150 Universidad Nacional del Altiplano Puno, 280 Universidad Salesiana de Ecuador, 79 University Center for Cinematographic Studies (Mexico) (CUEC), 97 Uribe Vélez, Álvaro, 331, 340 Urtimala (2010), 352 Uruguayness, 4 Ushui, la luna y el trueno (2014), 56 Úteros ilegales (2019), 253 V Valdivia, Juan Carlos, 131, 351, 355 Valle del Cauca, 181, 187 Valle del Chota, 158, 161 Valle del Chota laboratory, 166 Valle, Gustavo, 221, 228–231 Vallejo, Aida, 184, 190 Vallejo, Henry, 287–289, 291 Vanegas-Toala, Vanessa, 198, 201, 213 Varotto, Viola, 16, 17 Velásco, Didier, 326, 333 Velasco Maidana, José María, 350

377

Venero, César Alberto, 282 Venezuela, 10, 30, 76, 83, 325, 342 Vicio maldito (2002), 293 Video films from Nigeria and Ghana, 281 Video indígena (Indigenous video), 92 Videos Creados con Dibujos (Videos Created with Drawings), 13, 129 Vincenot, Emmanuel, 3, 259 Virgen Barbie (2010), 249 Virgen del cerrro (2010), 253 Visconti, Luchino, 6 Visita inesperada (2014), 204, 212 Visual anthropology, 21, 47, 117, 180 Visuality, 11, 38, 49, 53, 67, 107, 171, 174 Visual studies, 11

W Wallmapu Festival Internacional de Cine y Artes Indígenas (Wallmapu International Festival of Indigenous Cinema and Arts (Chile), 145 Walsh, Catherine, 51 Walter, Jaime, 347, 353, 356 Warmayllu, 124, 129, 130 Williams, Linda, 318–320 Wiñaypacha, 11, 32–35, 40, 45, 279, 280, 285, 288, 289, 294, 295 Wiwa, 12, 49, 56, 59, 64 Wood, David, 31, 32, 35

Y Yallico, Patricia, 75, 100 Yapallag (1989), 97 Yawar Wankav (2014), 283 Young, Gwenda, 220 Yuruparí, 56, 57

378

INDEX

Z Zamora Chinchipe (Ecuador), 210 Zapata, Sergio, 6, 9, 20, 347 Zapatista Army of Nacional Liberation (EZLN), 207 Zapatistas, crónica de una rebelión (2007), 207

Zapatista uprising, 124, 307 Zibechi, Raúl, 126 Zuasnabar, Geraldine, 283 Zweig, Noah, 1–4, 18–20, 30, 143–145, 185, 200, 219, 220, 257, 258, 325, 327, 359