Film Screening of “Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks)” and Q&A with Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel

In a prolific year of narratives and documentaries reckoning the profound lasting effects colonialism has had on generations of indigenous people, Lucrecia Martel’s latest Nuestra Tierra/Landmarks might be the most brazen condemnation. Martel—having already proven her mastery of deflating the European-linked bourgeoises in Argentina through her narrative films—sets her sights on the three men accused of murdering Chuschagasta leader Javier Chocobar in 2009. Through eye witness accounts, police records, and grainy video, Martel exposes the arrogance on display when wealthy landowners, Dario Luis Amín and ex-police officers Luis Humberto Gómez and José Valdiviesoare approached by a small group of Chuschagasta residents. Words are exchanged, and a gun is fired—multiple times. Still reeling from the murder, Chuschagasta residents are interviewed and given a chance to finally share their story rather than be sidelined in the margins. It all comes to a head in an enraging, if not utterly fascinating, courtroom proceedings where tone cuts as much as a bullet to the gut. A film that all should see, Nuestra Tierra is a more than worthy addition to a magnificent filmography.