Materiality, Ways of Life and Animality in films by Ignacio Agüero and José Luis Torres Leiva

Abstract

This article explores the exchanges between humans and non-humans in two contemporary Chilean films: El otro día (2012), by Ignacio Agüero and El viento sabe que vuelvo a casa (2016), by José Luis Torres Leiva. These films form an assembly and are connected through the figure of Agüero, who directs one film and stars in the other. Both organize their narratives around a spatial and topographical device that facilitates the contact between human and non-human materialities. These films are built through dialogue and in relationship with others, but also involve an attentive look at the environment, in which organic and inorganic presences emerge. These presences affect the treatment of temporality, editing, and generic distinctions between documentary and film fiction.