Picturing environmental crisis in Colombia: a reading of "Land and Shade", by César Acevedo

• In Event: Space and Ecocriticism in Latin American Film

Abstract

As the journalist Alfredo Molano points out, wars in Colombia have always been paid with land. While the political actors of the conflict have mutated, the struggle for land ownership has remained at the origin of the massive internal displacements and the extreme territorial reconfigurations that have characterized the history of the country. Indeed, one of the results of this struggle has been the expansion of extractive economies, which has transformed thousands of hectares of land that were once local sustainable farms or biodiverse forests, thus displacing farmers and altering ecosystems. Despite its scale, the violence of this process is often overlooked. The imbrication of violence and neoliberalist practices, and its consequent social and environmental effects, has not been fully apprehended in the cultural domain.

In what ways does contemporary Colombian cinema address this type of violence? This paper analyzes how the film Land and shade (2015), directed by César Acevedo, reframes the division between the social and the natural in order to elucidate the environmental crisis produced by neoliberalism in Colombia. By juxtaposing a family drama with the expansion of sugar cane plantations, the movie offers a clear critique of the devastating effects of this industry in the Valle del Cauca region. Furthermore, as it presents a scenario where the human tragedy is intermingled with the natural catastrophe, it articulates an ecological imaginary that questions the distinctions between the private and the public, and the human and the non-human.

Author

• Daniel Coral Reyes