I live in Patagonia and work closely with Mapuche organisations and communities. I have followed the legal process surrounding the murder of Rafael Nahuel from the very beginning. Most of what I know from my work as a human rights lawyer, I learned from the Mapuche – their thought, their strategic vision, and their powerful capacity for resistance.
This film was born out of a need – both expressive and political – to find another way to tell the story of violence, or, rather, the story of the territorial conflict between the Mapuche and the Argentine State, rooted in the genocide paradoxically called the ‘Conquest of the Desert’.
Making a film about the death of a young man at the hands of state security forces is vital to me, as it carries an unavoidable call to denounce. But placing that murder within a broader context – one that reveals our civilisational project, a culture that refuses to co-exist with other cultural expressions and other forms of life – can provoke deeper questions that move us.
In this documentary, beyond examining our systems of justice, which have turned into empty rituals, I want to convey how much better it is to live in a world that is culturally and environmentally diverse.
This film is an invitation to defend environmental and cultural diversity, to respect and stand alongside other ways of being in the world.
Sofía Bordenave
