Lucrecia Martel surprised audiences at the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival with the presentation of her first feature-length documentary, Nuestra Tierra, and used that international stage to denounce the devastation currently afflicting Palestine, while at the same time defending the value of cinema as a tool to narrate the injustices of the present. During the press conference, the filmmaker from Salta appeared moved and declared: “Every day we see images and sounds from Palestine, a country that is being devastated, a people devastated,” a statement that quickly resonated beyond the festival.

The director began her remarks in an intimate, almost confessional tone, noting that at another point in her life she had wished to retire, to spend time in the plaza, to live in peace, but history had placed her at this crossroads. “This is the time we’ve been given,” she said, addressing younger generations as well, and stressing that the aspiration for personal tranquility now seems like an impossible illusion in the face of today’s global context. For Martel, cinema in this scenario regains a crucial function: to be a space of resistance and memory at a time when violence and injustice prevail with such harshness.

The feature she brought to Venice, Nuestra Tierra, focuses on an emblematic case of violence against Indigenous peoples in Argentina: the murder of community leader Javier Chocobar in 2009 in the province of Tucumán. Chocobar, a member of the Chuschagasta community, was killed by landowner Darío Amín amid a territorial dispute, while defending his people’s right to remain on their ancestral lands. Amín was sentenced to 22 years in prison, while two former police officers involved in the attack also received prison terms, though they were later released.

Martel recounted that her approach to the case began after seeing cell phone footage that captured the killing. Those images, later circulated online, struck her deeply and led her to launch an investigation that spanned more than a decade. The documentary, developed over 14 years, weaves together archival materials, court documents, interviews, and footage of the trial, which was finally held after years of protests from the victim’s family and community. The director emphasized how those initial images became even more painful once she understood the historical and colonial roots that explain the persistence of racism in Argentina.

At the press conference, Martel also pointed out that the film explores how legal language and bureaucratic structures have long served as mechanisms to perpetuate the exclusion of Indigenous communities. “This film addresses the racist mechanisms of our mother tongue, which deny many the access to a vital space,” she said. With Nuestra Tierra, Martel proposes a critical gaze that goes beyond the crime itself and delves into the institutional roots of violence.

The film, which was originally titled Chocobar, is an international co-production involving companies from Argentina, the United States, Mexico, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The script was co-written by Martel and fellow filmmaker María Alché, while producer Benjamín Domenech stressed that the work seeks to offer audiences a deep understanding of past events in order to imagine a fairer future for Indigenous peoples.

In her statements, Martel also reflected on the ethical dilemmas of documentary filmmaking. She acknowledged that there is always a question of whether a filmmaker exploits the suffering of a community in order to travel the world with a film. However, she insisted that it is necessary to take that historical and political risk, because cinema has the capacity to build bridges of understanding toward others and toward oneself. “By protecting ourselves, let’s not avoid the historic risk of trying to understand others, and through them, our countries and ourselves,” she said with conviction.

In the same vein, she criticized a contemporary tendency to confine stories to homogeneous voices, where women only speak about women, men about men, and Indigenous people only about themselves. “Cinema entered into that zone of impotence. It is essential to take the risk of conversing with others and making mistakes in that conversation,” she argued, posing a challenge to the filmmaking community.

Recalling her experience filming the trial for Chocobar’s murder, Martel explained that they learned only two weeks beforehand that they would be allowed to record, forcing them to organize hurriedly. She described the trial as a kind of dramatic staging in which the tricks of language that sustain racism and the contested legitimacy of land ownership were laid bare. For the filmmaker, that proceeding ultimately became a fundamental part of the film’s narrative, even though at first she had doubted whether to include it.

The presentation of Nuestra Tierra in Venice thus became not only a space for cinematic exhibition but also one of denunciation and political reflection. Martel used the visibility of one of the world’s most prestigious festivals to connect two arenas of violence: the devastation of Palestine and the historical struggles of Argentina’s Indigenous peoples. Her intervention was a reminder that cinema, far from being mere entertainment, can and must be a tool to illuminate the shadows of injustice and to unsettle those who prefer to look away.