Demanding transformations. Argentine critical documentaries of the 1980s

Abstract

One of the characteristics for which Latin American cinema are highlighted is for their militant politics. But there have also been a large number of films that do not record marches or street fights, but rather silent or silenced claims. Documentaries about native indigenous communities that were traditionally considered only ethnographic. Films about ways of sowing and rural grazing that denounce the contamination of the environment. Audiovisual reviews on the cultural penetration of patriarchal models. All those new perspectives that today are frequently explored by local documentaries burst onto the scene in the 1980s. The Cine Testimonio group, Miguel Mirra, Ana Zanotti, Lorenzo Kelly and Carlos Procopiuk made contributions to ethnographic cinema from critical reflections. Likewise, Juan Schröder and Humberto Carrizo presented complaints about the negative transformation of the environment with contributions from the incipient ecology. Cine Testimonio Mujer, with Laura Búa and Silvia Chanvillard as directors, presented critical positions on parenting and patriarchy in the first documentaries made with a feminist perspective. On the other hand, the films were made from and produced in different places in Argentina.