Documentary Vuelvo donde nunca estuve as alternate temporalities for Selknam territories

Abstract

Documentary cinema is an artistic medium that enables the presentation of factual events from the author’s own perspective. This is where storytelling becomes crucial, as the filmmaker must convey an idea to the viewer in such a way that the audience receives, processes, and reflects upon it. Recently, the standardization of the creative process in documentary filmmaking has resulted in productions that follow a fixed narrative pattern, primarily based on a neutral recounting of events within a linear timeframe (before and after). Streaming platforms are now flooded with standardized documentaries featuring true crime, reality television, world travel, and nature observation. Within this universe of standardized productions, documentaries breaking from this norm are rare, often independently produced on smaller budgets. One such example is the documentary Vuelvo donde nunca estuve (“Returning Where I Have Never Been”), which I co-directed with journalist Constanza Vásquez Palau. The film documents the journey of a young woman from the Selk'nam People who returns to live in her ancestral territory in Tierra del Fuego, Chilean Patagonia, over a hundred years after the genocide perpetrated against her people by European settlers. This essay is a reflection on the temporal patterns employed in the documentary's scriptwriting, in which the concepts of “before” and “after” blur into a layering of historical events that accumulate within the same physical space, sharing a non-linear temporality. My background as an architect specialized in heritage provides unique tools for documentary filmmaking, allowing me to analyse the physical spaces where the protagonist's actions unfold, and to draw historical and contextual information essential for writing the script. Ultimately, the script evolved into a collage of events occurring in different periods but within the same physical space, challenging linear temporality through non-linear storytelling. The protagonist’s worldview, deeply influenced by her indigenous ancestors, gradually permeated the production, becoming an integral part of the script itself.