Indigenous people of southern Patagonia in Chilean documentary cinema: From 'objects' to subjects of law

Indigenous People of Southern WPatagonia in Chilean Documentary Film: From 'Objects' to Legal Subjects" analyzes two recent documentaries, El botan de nacar (Patricio Guzman, 2015) and Tanana, estar listo para zarpar (Cristobal Azocar y Alberto Serrano, 2016). Guzman incorporates the indigenous people of Southern Patagonia into his emblematic work on memory, but he does so in a way that portrays them as exotic, timeless, or relegated to the past. Consequently, he erases and ignores their resurgence as legal subjects, which is very much part of the current sociopolitical scene in Southern Patagonia. Tanana, on the other hand, revolves around the present of the Yaghan community of Puerto Williams and the construction of a boat to sail to the places where Martin Gonzalez Calderon, the film's protagonist, used to live. In this way, the documentary focuses on the legacies, continuities, and changes in the indigenous people and on the community's work to recover memories and places. The film becomes a space in which to affirm and obtain rights, specifically the right to sail the seas that belonged to them.