Transitions of the Chilean documentary (2000-2018): Towards an epistemology of the documentary image

Abstract

This article seeks to define and interrogate the epistemic and aesthetic transformations of Chilean documentary film between 2000 and 2018. The article raises a series of questions related to the representational function of Chilean contemporary documentary cinema, which has moved from analogy and registry towards different explorations of the filming device. Based on the observation of a field in motion, the article discusses how the classic limits of the documentary film have been increasingly being blurred as well as expanded towards new explorations, problematizing the relationships between social document and fictional imagination. The article argues that recent Chilean documentaries allow us to discuss the epistemological and aesthetic reach of the documentary form, beyond the aesthetics of realism. Thus, films open the question about the performative nature of documentary cinema, outside of the binary categories with which it has historically been thought.