Abstract:
This article opens by asserting that Latin American Indigenous media production and distribution processes challenge ethnographic documentary practice, and these stories and histories are narrated most effectively through Indigenous produced documentary, feature and animated film in culturally appropriate contexts. By foregrounding Indigenous peoples as sources and producers of knowledge not only about their own cultures or media practices, but also about social communication in the modern nation-states, citizens begin to unlearn colonial and nation-state history. Two films somewhat critique colonization and nation-state orthodoxy in this way because of Indigenous participation in their production: También la lluvia (2010) is analysed as it critiques social realist conquest film traditions using insights offered by those participating in the film, and documentary performs a central role in this critique. The documentary film Tierra adentro (2011) challenges the current nation-state narrative of citizenship in Chile and Argentina through a form of participatory documentary-making that relies on four historical precedents. The distribution of these films also furthers these goals.