In pursuit of a symbiotic cinema: Shun by the Ecuadorian Sani Montahuano and Yollotl by the Mexican Fernando Colin Roque

Abstract

This article develops a comparative analysis of the short films Shun (2021) by the Ecuadorian filmmaker of indigenous Sápara nationality, Sani Montahuano, and Yollotl (2020) by the Mexican filmmaker Fernando Colin Roque. The study is framed in the discussions on the so-called ontological turn from the perspective of art and visuality and conducts its inquiry from a critical visual methodology, which includes a compositional and an interpretative analysis based on the description of the films and interviews with both authors. The article arrives at the conclusion that both short films represent the possibility of a symbiotic cinema, one whose visuality proposes an inter-species symbiosis from a treatment of the camera that assumes diverse corporeal and submerged perspectives, showing the inter-representation between humans and non-humans. Always thought of as a potentiality, this cinema could highlight Amerindian thought as a possible response to the climate crisis that principally affects impoverished and racialized populations and cultures in Latin America.