In October 2009, Javier Chocobar, a member of the indigenous Chuchagasta community in northwest Argentina’s Tucumán Province, tried to defend himself and his people from being forcibly evicted from their land by a local landowner and two former police officers. As a result, the 68-year-old Chocobar was shot and killed, and two other community members were wounded.
In her expansive and enlightening first feature documentary, Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel (Zama) takes a sweeping approach to this tragic true story, triangulating the murder trial of the three men, the lives of the Chocobar and his fellow Chuchagasta people, and the centuries-old, colonialist legacy of land and property theft across Latin America.
With a ravishing, at time vertiginous visual approach to filming the natural beauty of the contested land, Martel pays cinematic tribute to people whom others systematically tried to erase from history. 2025, Argentina/U.S./Mexico/France/Netherlands/Denmark, DCP, in Spanish with English subtitles, 122 minutes. Recommended for 15+