Territorial Cinema: An Intercultural, Translocal, and Expanded Community Process

This chapter proposes a rereading of community cinema in dialogue with the notion of “small(er) cinemas,” “hybrid media activism” and the “eco-territorial turn,” as an emerging political-communication practice that is part of the repertoires of the eco-territorial defense networks struggles against the extractive industry in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Using multisited ethnography, the author analyzes the production and exhibition practices of the Etsa-Nantu/Cámara-Shuar audiovisual creation laboratory, which generates cinema with and from the view of the Shuar people, who are threatened by mining, oil, hydroelectric and logging industries. The chapter proposes the notion of eco-territorial community cinema that includes an “expanded community” perspective in an intercultural key, connecting indigenous and non-indigenous actors, as well as translocal elements since this is revitalized in various urban and rural areas.