Nuestra Tierra

In 2009, a man and two accomplices try to evict members of the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta in northern Argentina. Claiming ownership of the land and armed with guns, they kill the community’s leader, Javier Chocobar. The murder is caught on video. It takes nine years of protests before court proceedings are finally opened in 2018. During all this time, the killers remain free. The film combines the voices and photographs of the community with courtroom footage to explore the long history of colonialism and land dispossession that led to this crime.

This film chronicles Argentina’s strategies to deny the Chuschagasta Community their territory. Drawing from the 2018 trial of Javier Chocobar’s assassins (2009), community conversations, and their photo archives, we reconstructed the community’s journey from the 17th century to today.
The world appears bent on self-destruction. Hatred reignites with war promises, fuelled by arguments steeped in celestial rhetoric. Again, some believe a divine order dictates their claims over human neighbours. Global shifts and rapid technological leaps have accelerated history beyond our grasp. What is humanity’s importance? Our destiny? Reason offers no refuge, delegated to machines not fully intelligent, yet speaking our language. It is very easy to get confused. Those in power embrace nationalisms, sparking wars and forced migrations. This may be our greatest, possibly last, adventure: finding a common destiny for Earth. We each inhabit a space, close to neighbours. Deep in my heart, I envision this film for machines that require complex narratives to be kinder than us. We need new narrative structures that don’t endorse the conflict-driven opposition that leads to war.
This film addresses our mother tongue’s racist mechanisms, which deny many access to vital space. The language of documents — lives lost to dubious papers and futile bureaucracy. A historical document is a script for a non-existent scene, serving its signers. Cinema can be useful here, that’s my deepest wish.
Dear reader, usefulness means contributing to the common good. To that end, Latin America offers many such opportunities. Much remains to be done.

PRODUCTION 1:
Rei Pictures - Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matias Roveda
Mendoza 3820
C1430BRL Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel: +54 1145435395
E-mail: info@reipictures.com
Web: http://reipictures.com
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/reipictures___/ - Instagram

PRODUCTION 2:
Louverture Films - Joslyn Barnes
1133 Broadway, Suite 1124
10010 New York, United States of America
Tel: +1 212 229 3960
E-mail: info@louverturefilms.com
Web: https://www.louverturefilms.com/

PRODUCTION 3:
Piano - Julio Chavezmontes
Valladolid 16, Roma norte, Cuauhtémoc
6100 Ciudad de México, Mexico
Tel: +52 5563944081
E-mail: info@somospiano.com
Web: https://en.somospiano.com
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/somospiano/ - Instagram

PRODUCTION 4:
Pio & Co - Sandrine Dumas, Marie-Pierre Macia, Claire Gadea
81, Rue de la Tombe Issoire
75014 Paris, France Tel: + 33 6 74 64 11 05
E-mail: sdbrekke@gmail.com

OTHER PRODUCTIONS:
Snowglobe - Katrin Pors, Mikkel Jersin
Lemming Film - Leontine Petit, Erik Glijnis

WORLD SALES:
The Match Factory - Agathe Valentin
Domstraße 60
50668 Cologne, Germany
Tel: +49 2215397090
E-mail: info@matchfactory.de

INTERNATIONAL AND ITALIAN PRESS OFFICE:
Claudia Tomassini, Lorenzo Ormando - claudiatomassini + associates
E-mail: festivals@claudiatomassini.com

Layla Hancock-Piper
E-mail: layla@cineticmedia.com