Retórica de la representación de la marginalidad en el cine

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Citizenship, History and Social Justice in Documentary Film by and about Indigenous Peoples
Paper Title (Session Paper)
Citizenship, History and Social Justice in Documentary Film by and about Indigenous Peoples Edit Paper Title
Author Edit Author
Kathryn Lehman, [email protected]; University of Auckland (Presenter)
Abstract Edit Abstract
Documentary and feature films focusing on Indigenous peoples have their origin in ethnographic photography, which attempts to replicate the real by having the camera physically approach the individuals filmed, framed in their environment, to effectively visualize them from a distanced perspective as subjects of analysis in a simplified setting designed to clarify for the viewer the issues the filmed subjects face. In this approach, the director is not implicated in the subaltern subject’s dilemma. Although the more recent phase of third cinema attempted to achieve a similar goal from a Marxist or Althusserian perspective, locating Indigenous peoples as one subsector of the left, the specificities of their fundamental claims remained hidden. This study first establishes why this legacy renders the fundamental claims of Indigenous peoples largely invisible and inaccessible to most viewers even today, by quoting Indigenous comunicadores’ comments about their own filmmaking and their fundamental claims more broadly. It then analyzes two films, one documentary and one feature film that relies on documentary strategies, to propose that non-Indigenous filmmakers can contribute to enabling some Indigenous claims to be communicated when the director uses a self-critical approach in questioning his or her own ability to tell this story about history of the Other. It is by working in collaboration with Indigenous comunicadores who educate the director about our shared history that some of their claims become clear.

Sub Track

• Film Studies

Chair

• Cynthia M Tompkins, Arizona State University

Individual Presentations

• Citizenship, History and Social Justice in Documentary Film by and about Indigenous Peoples - Kathryn Lehman, University of Auckland

• Heterocronías de exclusión en la representación de las fronteras latinoamericanas en el cine de Hollywood - Elina M Tranchini, Universidad Nacional de La Plata

• No futuro: Realismo sucio y desencanto en los márgenes del cine - Thomas Matusiak, Princeton University

• Representación del afecto dos obras sobre los mapuche Gerónima (Raúl Tosso, 1986) Para los pobres piedras (Mathieu Orcel - Cynthia M Tompkins, Arizona State University