Film Review: Two Stories about Extractivism

• Date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Daniela García Grandón,Andrew R. Smolski,Emilia Cordero Oceguera
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20975010
• Subject Matter: Film Review

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20975010

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 236, Vol. 48 No. 1, January 2021, 285–288

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20975010

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

285

Film Review

Two Stories about Extractivism

by

Emilia Cordero Oceguera, Daniela García Grandón,

and Andrew R. Smolski

Translated by

Mariana Ortega-Breña

Ernesto Cabellos Damián Hija de la laguna (Daughter of the Lake). Peru, 2015.

In Ernesto Cabellos Damián’s documentary Hija de la laguna we see an iteration of the

dynamics inherent to capitalist accumulation: the struggle between the owners of the

product and the people. In the penultimate scene the camera records dozens of community

members walking through a valley singing “The water belongs to the people and not the

miners.” They arrive at a place on the shore of Cajamarca’s Blue Lagoon whose ownership

is in dispute. The protesters stand on a hilltop declaring their communal right to the prop-

erty, and the director gives us a panoramic view in which we can see, as they can, the

Yanacocha mine’s private security forces and the federal riot police awaiting them in the

valley. Next comes a distance shot in which the community members are distributing food

and talking. In contrast, the security forces and the police are shot from several meters

away, generating a distance and thus locating them in the eyes of the protesters and

increasing the dramatic tension between the oppressed and their oppressors. Attention is

then directed to the arrival of the representatives of the Attorney General’s Office, who are

trying to end the mobilization although they profess to be neutral. Next the director, in

silence, foregrounds the faces of some community members to illustrate the tension, show-

ing their anguish and determination. A medium shot shows the protagonist, Nélida Ayay,

informing a local radio station of a possible police attack on the protesters. Finally, and

without explanation, the police and the security forces go away. This is a story of a momen-

tary victory against capital. The filmmaker is telling the story of a social struggle in

Cajamarca, Peru, against gold extraction in the Conga lagoons by the Yanacocha mine

(which is controlled by a joint venture involving the World Bank, the Peruvian company

Buenaventura, and the U.S. Newmont Mining Corporation). He tells it from the experience

of the activist Nélida Ayay. If Yanacocha wins, Ayay and her people will run out of water

and may be displaced, with the area ending up contaminated. Tangentially, the documen-

tary shows another mining conflict in Bolivia, where the town has already run out of water

because of mining pollution (Figure 1).

The documentary does a good job in giving pride of place to a woman’s story with-

out overlooking those of the others involved. It shows how Ayay, who is studying to be

a lawyer, listens to locals and explains their rights to them while connecting us to a

Emilia Cordero Oceguera and Andrew R. Smolski are doctoral students in the Department of

Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University, and Daniela García Grandón is

an adjunct assistant professor of sociology at that university. While their names appear In alpha-

betical order above, they have equal shared authorship of this review. They thank Marion García

Grandón for her comments and revisions and Ernesto Cabellos Damián for providing the photos

that appear with their text. Mariana Ortega-Breña is a freelance translator based in Mexico City.

975010LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20975010Latin American PerspectivesCordero, García, and Smolski / FILM REVIEW

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