Chile’s Muestra Cine+Video Indígena turned 20 in October with five days of Indigenous film at a Santiago museum. The showcase, known as MUCIVI, ran October 20 to 24 at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. Nearly 200 works from nine countries responded to the call for entries.
Twenty years is a long run for a festival that doesn’t charge admission. Organizers say MUCIVI gets no money from the government or private sponsors. Even so, it hasn’t skipped a year since 2006. It gives Indigenous peoples a place to tell their own stories on a big screen. Many of the movies it shows never reach theaters or streaming services.
The festival’s directors, Alicia Herrera and Claudio Mercado, picked 33 works with help from screenwriter Marilen Llancaqueo and anthropologist Gonzalo Navarrete. More than half were by members of Indigenous nations or filmmakers who worked closely with communities, and 13 were directed by women.
Entries arrived from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. They included documentaries, fiction, animation, music videos, kids’ films and performance pieces. Organizers named the final lineup on August 9, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
The stories explore identity, language, spiritual life, ties to the land, and the struggles Native communities face today. Highlights included Runa Simi, by Augusto Zegarra of Peru, and Ŋa Hinarere, by Chilean director Leonardo Pakarati. Kueka, Memoria Ancestral came from Venezuelan director María de los Ángeles Peña Fonseca, and Li Cham from Mexico’s Ana Ts’uyeb. Brazil sent five titles, including Jamary by Begê Muniz.
Short pieces made the cut too. Clorinda, by Peruvian director Yaymy Mamani Ccallaccasi, runs nine minutes. Recado, by Chilean filmmaker Alan Freddy Paillan Manquepillan, lasts 10 minutes.
Herrera said the team chose with care because it wanted the anniversary to be “a memorable celebration.” The program also brought back favorites from past editions. After an invitation-only opening night, free shows ran twice a day in the museum’s Sala Andes. Audiences met filmmakers in talks between screenings. One session, “20 Years of Cinema and Resistance,” looked back at the festival’s cultural and political history.
For the first time, the party started outside the capital. Screenings opened October 1 in La Paz, Bolivia. Stops in Chile stretch from Arica in the north to Punta Arenas in the south. One even reaches Rapa Nui. The movies play in cultural centers, schools, universities and film clubs. Herrera said the goal is to spread culture beyond Santiago. People in the regions, she noted, have few places to see work like this.
MUCIVI began in 2006 at Cine UC, the movie theater of Santiago’s Universidad Católica. The Precolombino museum hosts it now. Mercado said Chile has nothing else like it. Festivals in Valdivia, Viña del Mar and Arica make room for Indigenous work, he noted, but none is fully devoted to it.
Each chosen work also goes into the museum’s film archive. Anyone, from teachers to researchers, can watch them later in the museum library.
The anniversary season isn’t over yet. Through the end of November, the lineup is playing at seven more sites around Santiago. Among them are the Cineteca Nacional, the Matucana 100 cultural center and the Peñalolén Ceremonial Center for Indigenous Peoples. La Cava de San Miguel is new to the list this year. Shows also continue in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina, across nearly 40 venues.
People who can’t attend in person will get one more chance. A free online edition will stream December 1 to 15 in the participating countries. Viewers can find it on OndaMedia.
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