Contemporary Indigenous Film and Video Production

Abstract

In recent decades, Latin American Indigenous peoples have transformed films, documentaries, animations, music videos, TV programs, and other audiovisual productions into fundamental tools of their own social, political, and cultural struggle for self-determination and self-representation. To say it simply, Indigenous self-determination means here the collective right of Indigenous peoples to be the media producers and proprietors of their own images, voices, and forms of communication. Likewise, other contemporary forms of Indigenous cultural production, such as contributions in literature (see the Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies article Indigenous Voices in Literature) and social science as well as critical thought, film, and video Indigenous appropriations are challenging the long-lasting silence, racism, and exclusion imposed over these populations. By becoming the media agents of their own voices and images, Latin American Indigenous peoples are not only giving new sociopolitical meanings to audiovisual technologies and filmmaking; but they are also decolonizing hegemonic forms of communication that have misrepresented and stereotyped them. Unlike Hollywood commercial films, low-budget Indigenous audiovisual productions are rooted in the collective need of defending their native territories, their political organizations and social projects, and their own cultural identities, worldviews, traditions, and native languages. Indigenous film and video productions are not purely individual projects, driven by economic profit and dominant ideological interests; rather, they are a communitarian, transnational, intercultural, and multilingual enterprise in which the same members of a community or extended family actively participate behind and/or in front of the cameras. Films and videos have become an essential part of Indigenous contemporary creative expression and cultural survival as well as tools for their political demands and social projects. This article provides a preliminary exploration of contemporary Indigenous film and video production in Latin America. Key national and international Indigenous film festivals; film catalogues; audiovisual projects and organizations; online Indigenous films, videos, and TV programs as well as a growing number of research studies, interviews with filmmakers, and manifests and declarations on Indigenous communication are considered. A modest tribute is made to all Indigenous peoples who are transforming audiovisual communication into a form of liberation.