Gerillaharcok, őslakos közösségek és filmes részvételiség
Guerrilla Warfare, Indigenous Communities, and Participatory Filmmaking

Summary/Abstract: The article challenges the “rhetoric of newness” associated with studies of participatory media, pointing to the parallel historical contexts of film authorship, political activism and self-organizing, and indigenous cultural practices. The case study is El coraje del pueblo (1971), a film interpreted by Western film historical discourses as a prime work by New Latin American Cinema militant filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés. At the same time, Sanjinés is a member of the Ukamau group, which aims at the revolutionary agitation of indigenous people in Bolivia through the appropriate means of filmic expression. El coraje del pueblo is based on the historical events of the so-called San Juan Massacre, using re-enactment and involving survivors as its creative method. The analysis locates the film within Sanjinés’ oeuvre as well as within the context of Bolivian community radio and indigenous communication practices, in order to nuance its interpretation based on the criteria of film authorship. By doing so, it points out that, from a formal and narrative viewpoint, all above mentioned discursive components are indispensable to understand the film, hence, participatory and community media projects may only be satisfactorily explained when observed through a plurality of complex historical narratives.

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