Dieses Gespräch wurde auf Englisch geführt.
Barbara Wurm: I would like to invite you to introduce yourself to our audience. How does FOREST UP IN THE MOUNTAIN relate to your other work?
Sofia Bordenave: I am a lawyer specialising in Indigenous and human rights. I have been working in this field for 25 years, and I have maintained a very close relationship with Mapuche organisations in Patagonia. However, I have always kept my legal work separate from my filmmaking. But with this case, particularly the case of Rafael Nahuel, something happened in our country, in our region, and within the case itself that made me feel this story had to be told – and told by its protagonists, for the audience to truly understand. The case was also part of my work as a lawyer. During the first year, I supported the official lawyers representing Rafael’s family. I was also working alongside organisations that were committed to supporting them. So this story is connected to my legal work, not directly with the community, but very closely with the family, especially Rafael Nahuel’s parents. They are a very vulnerable family in Bariloche, the city where these events took place.
David Montenegro: How was the legal process and trial covered by Argentine media? What nuances, details, or contextual elements, potentially significant for understanding the broader socio-political landscape, are not represented in the film and may have been deliberately omitted?
SB: The case of Rafael Nahuel as well as the period immediately preceding and following his killing, enabled the national government to construct a narrative portraying the Mapuche people and their communities as enemies of the Argentine nation. A discourse associating Mapuche identity with violence was progressively established. Several individuals featured in the film, such as Johanna, who delivers the final testimony, as well as two young men, including Fausto, who later died by suicide, and Lautaro, who appears in the legal records, were included in official terrorist lists maintained by the Argentine government. These individuals live under precarious socio-economic conditions while supporting their families in very vulnerable contexts. Consequently, public discourse surrounding the case became deeply polarised. On one side, many argued the incident constituted a clear case of institutional violence. Within our region, it was further interpreted as part of the historical continuity of genocidal policies aimed at denying the existence of Indigenous peoples or reducing their presence to a merely folkloric expression. Conversely, an opposing narrative framed the events as a manifestation of Mapuche violence and terrorism, portraying Mapuche communities as anti-patriotic and anti-national agents. This division was particularly impactful, significantly contributing to the stigmatisation of the Pueblo Mapuche.
DM: I guess this did not begin only in the past fifteen years when right-wing governments reinforced narratives against Mapuche communities.
SB: Our approach emerges from collaborative work across multiple disciplines addressing Indigenous issues in Argentina, particularly those concerning the Mapuche people. The Patagonian region constitutes one of the last territories incorporated into the Argentine nation-state. Within this historical framework, this process is frequently understood as a genocide, not only because of the systematic violence enacted against Indigenous communities, but also because of its relative proximity in modern national history. Unlike colonial violence associated with the arrival of Columbus, this process unfolded within the consolidation of the modern Argentine state. One of the central ideas often explored is that it was a successful genocide precisely because it is not widely recognised as such. The dominant narrative suggested that Argentina was incorporating these lands, civilising them, bringing culture, and assimilating Indigenous populations. Across Latin America, the commemorations surrounding the 500 year anniversary of the colonial expansion of Columbus generated a profound resurgence of Indigenous political and cultural movements. This resurgence fostered processes of reclaiming identity, rights, and cultural practices. It also prompted broader sectors of society to reassess genealogies of belonging, leading many individuals who had not previously identified themselves as part of Indigenous communities to re-examine their personal and familial histories within these suppressed narratives.
DM: The case of Rafael Nahuel exemplifies this.
SB: Yes, exactly. He was a young man from a working class neighbourhood who had begun a process of reclaiming his Indigenous identity just before he was killed. This period of identity recovery coincided with a significant expansion of Indigenous rights recognition across Latin American constitutions and public discourse. A renewed sense of pride emerged around Indigenous cultures and histories, although this recognition often remained confined to the symbolic and folkloric rather than extending to material rights. Indigenous crafts, flags, and visual representations were widely celebrated, yet when demands concerned land or natural resources, public and institutional responses shifted considerably. Argentina experienced this process in ways similar to other Latin American countries. In recent years, however, tensions intensified, particularly in Patagonia, which has become an increasingly desirable and disputed territory. The growing interest of private and state economic projects with Mapuche territorial claims generated renewed political and media strategies portraying Mapuche communities as antagonistic to the nation. This constructed an ‘otherness’ that echoes historical narratives dating back to the 19th century ‘Conquest of the Desert’, now rearticulated through contemporary conflicts over land and sovereignty. The Argentine government has fostered an ideological tendency within sectors of the population to conflate nation and state as interchangeable concepts, leaving little room for the recognition of pluri-national models such as those seen in Canada or Switzerland. Behind this rhetoric lie concrete economic interests driven by the increasing value and strategic importance of these territories. In this sense, the construction of the Mapuche as an internal ‘other’ responds to material disputes over land and resources.
DM: At the end of the film, there’s this conversation about whether they see themselves as Argentine or part of the Mapuche nation. How key is that tension to understanding their cosmology?
SB: Yes, and there is something they have developed very strongly: their political conceptual framework. One thing they often say is that, for example, when people talk about intercultural education, they don’t want the Bible to simply be taught in Mapuzungun, their language. What they want is an education that is truly reciprocal, where non-Mapuche children also learn about Mapuche culture. For them, intercultural education is a two-way exchange, not something that merely ‘allows’ them space while turning them into a kind of enclave or folkloric display. Their proposal is actually for a richer, more diverse society. It is not about isolation or secession… It never has been. However, there are persistent attempts to portray them as wanting to take over Patagonia. In today’s world, where increasingly outrageous claims can circulate freely, these narratives unfortunately gain traction and become installed as accepted ideas.
The presence of colonialism becomes even more evident through the images than through a speech.
BW: You also make it very clear that there was a forest before, that there was something there before everything that followed. I would like to ask about the variety of materials used in the film, it’s very special. The film begins in medias res, without explanation or framing. We enter directly into the territory through a reconstructed perspective. As it unfolds, the film explores subtle details and signals that the audience has to decipher.
SB: The trial material is public, and I attended the trial, so I was already very familiar with it. In a way, this became the film’s core. The other elements, especially the two interviews with Mirta and Lorena, were meant to contextualize the trial. I did not want to make a film about a criminal case. It was a political event that contained a criminal case within it. Because of that, the political scenario needed to be reconstructed. I already knew Lorena and Mirta because I had worked with them before. I also knew how clear and articulate they are when telling their story, and how important their voices would be in providing that context. During the final hearing, when Joana, Rafael’s cousin, spoke, she said something that stayed with me. She said that Rafael wanted to live better. I began to understand that, for him, living better meant being in the woods, being in that territory. At that moment, I realised that this was also a story about the forest. Living better meant being there, in the forest, in that land. Since I already knew Mirta, I asked her to speak about the history of the forest and the woods. And I still work with Lorena today. She speaks about the experience of young people in the city who become conscious of their Mapuche identity. Many people question this process and say, ‘Since when are you Mapuche? I knew you from school. I knew you before, and now suddenly you are Mapuche. This is something new.’ This is often a way of delegitimising their identity, and Lorena talks very clearly about that process. In many ways, this is a film primarily made for Argentine and Chilean audiences. As you mentioned, there are many keys and nuances, and the film also responds to arguments from people who claim that the Mapuche are not a unified people. Then there are the archival images from museums, which are very eloquent in showing the historical depth of this case. Through these images, colonialism becomes visible. Some of these photographs could have been taken in other parts of the world, in Africa or Asia. The presence of colonialism becomes even more evident through the images than through a speech. That was, in part, the visual strategy of the film.
The idea was that there would be nothing external to the film’s sonic universe.
DM: There is something particularly striking not only about the images from the past, but also about the use of sound across past and present.
SB: The sounds at the beginning were initially based on the wind, but the small bells you hear belonged to Mapuche women who were standing below during the ocular inspection, while they were demanding to be allowed to go up. Together with Atilio Sanchez, who did the post-production sound, we worked by taking fragments from the ocular inspection and from the trial itself, and transforming those sounds into very small particles that are used throughout the film. The idea was that there would be nothing external to the film’s sonic universe. Everything had to come from within the events themselves. Only at the end, during the credits, we introduced a few musical elements by Sebastián Teves, who created something very abstract using a bass. Even then, some of the pulses you hear come from the judge’s microphone, which occasionally malfunctioned. We used those sounds as textures within the images.
DM: The trial scenes can be very violent on a symbolic level. I understand that the trial itself was very extensive and lasted for several years. How did you decide which moments of the trial to include and which ones to leave out?
SB: The trial lasted several months because hearings took place twice a week. A sentence has already been issued, but is currently under appeal and review. A final decision regarding the definitive sentence and its terms is expected in February 2026. We were less interested in presenting the trial as a judicial case, with its specific contradictions and conflicts, and more interested in showing the system itself, the legal apparatus as such. We often imagine trials as heroic moments, where someone stands up and delivers a powerful speech and someone else challenges them. In reality, the system is much less heroic and often very bureaucratic. There was something about that sense of dehumanisation that felt important to portray. At the same time, I also think the moments we chose reflect that the judges were attentive to the people present. They were not portrayed as cruel. For me, this approach conveyed a stronger sense of the system rather than focusing narrowly on the individual case.
DM: So there is not a definitive sentence yet?
SB: The conviction is definitive. What we still don’t know is the length of the sentence, how many years they will serve in prison. But they will have to serve prison time.
BW: So the film is really unfolding while the case is still continuing.
SB: Yes, exactly. That is why I chose not to include the final resolution in the film. The absence of that resolution is, in itself, a kind of resolution.
The system is not heroic.
BW: There is a lot of courtroom discussion in the film that feels less focused on the specific legal case and more like a commentary on the discourse, attitudes, and the bureaucratic mechanisms at work. How did you decide how long to remain in each scene and when a moment had said enough? The material seems to operate on a broader level beyond the specific case, would you agree?
SB: We were more interested in the system and its functioning than in the case itself. There is something about how that system operates. Within that structure, you could place this crime or another one, but the system would still function according to the same rules, which are often very imprecise. The idea of a classic courtroom film, with a brilliant lawyer delivering powerful speeches and dramatic confrontations, does not really exist in reality. In reality, there are people trying to navigate a process that often feels absurd. The system is not heroic. It is, in many ways, more absurd than heroic. But that absurdity can also function as a kind of strategy.
BW: I imagine the film is not only commenting on the judicial system in Argentina, but also on courtroom logic more broadly.
SB: Yes, I think that in other parts of the world it is not so different.
BW: Is the collaboration of Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in your film a topic? Did you feel barriers? Or how did you gain the trust from all the Mapuche people who worked with you?
SB: I have known Lorena and Mirta for several years now. I work with them almost daily. I am a lawyer for the organisations they are part of, and we have built strong relationships over many years. So trust developed naturally. During the trial, during the editing process, and throughout everything, we continued working together on other cases and situations, collaborating in different ways. I simply turned on a microphone, and they spoke. I think that worked because it is the result of many years of working together and many years of conversations. Trust is based on shared work. The political complexity, how each person positions themselves in relation to right or left political perspectives, exists and will continue to exist. Not because they are Mapuche, and not because there is any rule that Mapuche people should align in one particular way. In fact, many Mapuche people say that both the right and the left have been equally cruel to them, or that in Argentina there has never truly been a left that represented them. That is part of the complexity.
DM: There is something really distinctive about the film’s visuals, the diffraction of the frames. It seems to echo the fragmentation of Mapuche identity, and also the erosion of the territory itself.
SB: That is mainly the work of Pablo Weber. We discussed it extensively because I was already familiar with his previous short films and considered him a very lucid and creative filmmaker. I wanted him to bring that distinctive sensibility to the visual language of the film, which is why he is credited not only as editor but also as screenwriter, since he worked with the material in a way that shaped the narrative itself. His work went beyond editing and became a form of script construction through montage. Together, we explored ways to sustain the viewer’s interest and create a sense of visual fascination. This film embraces visual richness as a way to engage with a story that, unfortunately, has been repeated many times, the State killing a young man in a context of racism toward an Indigenous community. We felt it was necessary to create visual and narrative devices that could generate fascination and emotional engagement.
BW: I would like to ask about your expectations regarding the reception of the film. You mentioned its importance in Argentina, but I imagine it could also be quite provocative for some audiences. Do you think it will generate significant debate or controversy?
SB: I hope so. The worst thing that could happen would be for it not to open a discussion. We want discussion. And when I say 'we’, I am speaking from both of my roles, as a filmmaker and as a lawyer. We want to create a room for that conversation. What we hope the film will do is open a space for dialogue and debate, because we believe that through discussion, especially among certain sectors of society, often middle sectors that may not have such fixed or definitive positions, it is possible to build understanding and coexistence. So yes, our expectation is precisely that: to open a discussion.
