The memory cinema of a generation.: Three first-person documentaries by central american women directors and the heritage of their countries civil wars during the 90s.

Abstract

This work focuses on three recent Central American films, works that share many aspects among them and that are born out of the need for a cinema of memory in the region. Three women filmmakers take on the task of recounting in first person the trauma of their generation, sharing their micro-stories that are inserted into the narrative of the larger story. Marcela Zamora Chamorro's Los ofendidos (2016) for El Salvador, Gloria Carrión Fonseca's Heredera del viento (2017) for Nicaragua, and Ana Bustamante's La asfixia (2018) for Guatemala.

I will point out the implications of the creation of such works in the social and political context surrounding their realization, their premieres and local distribution and the repercussions generated in their countries. Supported by interviews conducted with the directors on the occasion of this work, to discuss the history of their countries, the need for a political cinema of social transformation, a cinema of memory, their motivations, the ethical role of the documentary filmmaker and the inheritance of militancy. Always keeping an eye on the policies of the States involved that generate these dissident narratives.