Bodies that Persist

This essay by Elizabeth Ramírez-Soto, co-editor of the Special Focus section “Chilean Film and Media: Fifty Years Later (1973/2023),” discusses the nonfiction responses to the 2019 estallido social (social uprising) as part of a longer history of documentary resistance. Ramírez-Soto argues postdictatorship Chilean documentary oscillates between an emphasis on the bodies of the direct victims of state-sanctioned violence and an emphasis on the bodies of the films themselves as haptic images. Focusing on the work of the anonymous group Colectivo Cinematográfico Pedro Chaskel (CCPCH), one of the many collectives that took to the streets to document the popular revolt in 2019, Ramírez-Soto reveals how through the recycling of militant documentaries, these films establish a link with the past and with its images of resistance.