ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review how Latin American Indigenous groups make use of digital cinematic spaces to create visual texts that serve to contest hegemonic views about their societies. The central ideas are that underrepresented communities who face invisibility, abuse, and injustice can make use of digital platforms to mediate their own content; based on the themes that are relevant to them. A total of 30 documentaries, fictional, and animated films produced in nine countries across the continent are analyzed in terms of thematic content. A focal point is that the selected films stand out for having an impact at a local, national, and regional level; more than anything through their presence within digital spaces, such as YouTube and Facebook. This implies that the corpus of films that serve as objects of study also serve as reflections of how indigeneity enters two media realms simultaneously: digital cinema and social media. The feedback of both local and international audiences to the films through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are evidence that the goal of these communities to disseminate their perception of their own realities has been successful. Throughout this chapter, the term Purposeful Digital Interaction is used to refer to this process by which users of digital platforms gain and exchange knowledge about specific issues based on information disseminated by the groups that are directly affected.
