Documentary Film from the Southern Cone during Exile (1970-1980)

CAMPO, JAVIER

Stanford

Conferencia; Panel Discussion: Political Documentary Film and Video in the Southern Cone (1950s-2000s); 2013

Center of Latin American Studies. Stanford University

The political activist works of the period immediately preceding exile (1968-1976 for the Argentine case and 1970-1973 in the Chilean case) were precursors of films from exile in their combative tone, their new techniques of documentation, and, in some cases, their radical political-discursive perspective. At the same time, the condition of exile produced changes that anticipated the humanitarian narratives that would become operational (in cinema, literature, and national historiography, for example) after the democratic transition, and these changes had corollaries in the films produced. The changes are chronologically visible in the difference between the early militant documentaries and the reflections on the condition of the exiles themselves and the demands for safeguarding human rights of the later stages of the dictatorships.