2. The scenes filmed within the Chuschagasta community create a very intimate and immediate feeling. How did you earn their trust, and how did you organize your team to capture these images?

During one of my early trips to the community – I think it was the second – I saw the head of the community at the time, Demetrio Balderrama, arrive on horseback at the soccer field and take a roll of papers from his saddlebags. Certain moments reveal the future. Demetrio explained these papers to us sheet by sheet. He knew by heart the numbers of dozens of case files that were floating around in the provincial government offices. Balderrama could decipher the illegible signatures of dozens of officials, and discover who had replaced whom every time a new government came to power.

His accounts were full of details about the endless waits in the hallways of public agencies. He'd arrive at a front desk, only to be told a paper was missing—an insignificant piece of paperwork that simply makes it impossible to be heard by the State. The first conversations with Demetrio pointed to the attention to detail and intimacy that this film would require.

I have a long-standing relationship with the community. I wanted them to trust me, but that's not easily achieved because disappointment is the most frequent experience with visitors from the city. The assignment I gave to the various people who accompanied me to the community was to scan all the documents they gave us—documents and photos– with their permission. We would record conversations about each photo. Then we would go off for months of work. We'd classify and organize all the information, and when we returned, we would deliver what we had investigated and the digital files of all the documents and photos. But the mistrust didn't just go away. There were many reasons for them to be suspicious. It was painful to accept that they were right. I am not a warm person. I don't make friends easily. I had to make a huge effort. I didn't make promises I couldn't keep. I had team members with great spiritual integrity who made everything easier.

3. The courtroom scenes play very much like a legal thriller. It must have been difficult to obtain permission to film the entire proceedings. How did you manage to get this edge-of-your-seat material?

For many years, my co-writer María Alché and I read the thousands of papers that made up the land claim cases. It spanned many decades, with many people involved, deeds, and property maps. We had dozens of diagrams, even a database that a friend helped us create to categorize the papers. Later, Milena Acosta, a historian, joined us to start a meticulous search for historical documents. A little while after that, Gabriela Uassouf began to collaborate with the production and in our research efforts, because we needed to talk to many specialists about specific things. All that work started in 2012. Meanwhile, the community held marches in the city of Tucumán, demanding justice. When we were told the trial would happen, it was August 2018. We found out with only two weeks' notice. We didn't have funding, but the producers from Rei Pictures and from Louverture Films decided to go ahead with the shoot. There were many people involved who needed to be paid for their work: three cameras, sometimes four, that recorded the trial in the morning and conversations with historians and lawyers in the afternoon. Tucumán is 1,500 kilometers from Buenos Aires. So, travel and accommodation needed to be financed. We were fortunate with the accommodation; Alejandra García, who belongs to a human rights organization, provided us with an apartment all those years, every time we went to Tucumán. It was the same apartment where the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team stayed while searching for the disappeared of Argentina’s last dictatorship.

We recorded the trial, 300 hours of footage. But the intention was always to create an archive; I didn't think the trial would be part of the film. What happened in the trial was revealing. I have two notebooks of notes that I wrote during those days. An oral trial where papers went back and forth as if the truth lay within them. Our culture is the culture of paper. But the voices of the people in the trial, their looks, the tone of the questions, revealed the tricks we have been using for centuries—they were undeniable, childish, and shameful. And the voice of the Chuschas—moved, pained, angry, and at times hopeless. A trial is a theatrical work unlike any I had never seen in my life.

The court allowed us to place the cameras where we wouldn't interfere with the trial's proceedings. And with a microphone, we recorded the sound coming from a speaker in the room, along with the rest of the media.

4. Was there any material you would have liked to show but couldn't access for some reason?

Of course, it's very difficult to access documents, especially when those documents affect land ownership. History is written by hiding things. Yes, I would have liked the Land Registry Office and its sub-areas, such as State-Owned Real Estate, and so many other public bodies, to let us access documents that the community has the right to. But since the community is not listed as the owner of the lands that were usurped from it, it is not considered an interested party in the matter. This paradoxical structure is a form of torture: demanding that someone have a paper, but not allowing them access to the documents they need to get that paper.

5. NUESTRA TIERRA (LANDMARKS) meticulously reconstructs a historical narrative, in legal documents, maps, paintings, and other images, according to which Argentina's indigenous population was never there or died out in the colonial past, trying to portray the Chuschagasta as illegal occupants on their own lands. Would you say that is still the prevalent narrative in Argentina today?

The Argentine nation is an invention that demands the sacrifice of all for the well-being of a few. But it could be different. Every human institution creates a founding myth. Our myth is outrageous; it doesn't name those who fought for independence as soldiers, as cooks, as nurses. As workers, as farmers. It's a history of wealthy boys, families who acquired land with sacrifices, but above all, by sacrificing others. Sometimes people think that this continent was almost empty and that it was petty of the indigenous people not to share it. But the Spanish invasion was not into empty spaces; it was into the villages. Because space is nothing without people to work it. First, they usurp the people's working time, then their space. The continuous failures of our country are not explained only by the lack of expertise in state administration. It is not possible to build a free, sovereign, prosperous nation by lying all the time.

6. Are indigenous groups officially recognized by the Argentine state? What is their legal status? Are there measures to reclaim their cultural heritage or otherwise address past injustices?

In 1985, the communities succeeded in getting a law passed that allowed them to initiate land claims as communities. Until then, families or individuals had to face costly legal processes that ended in evictions or a permanent situation of threats and aggression. Because obtaining justice requires money—another paradox. That's when a record of communities began, and it has expanded over time. There are constant threats from neighbors with titles of questionable legitimacy to prevent it.

In 1994, the Constitution was reformed, and an article was added that recognized the pre-existence of indigenous peoples in the territory that is now Argentina. An obvious fact, but still. This seemed to be the beginning of a national reckoning. But there wasn't much progress until 2006 when, for the first time since the founding of the Argentine Republic, a diagnosis of the situation of indigenous peoples was initiated. It wasn't an agrarian revolution; it wasn't a land expropriation plan. It was an attempt to understand the situation of a significant part of our country's population. It was called Law 26.160. And that's when the violence started to escalate. What terrifies Argentina is knowing its history, the one that includes all of us. Dozens of indigenous peoples have been murdered since then. Javier Chocobar is one of them. Last year, the current president revoked the law, choosing against learning our history.

In order to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples, the government—made up of children of European immigrants—requires them to be like they were in the past. But how far in the past? Indigenous communities in our country continue to demand both territorial rights and justice for the unpunished crimes. The core of their demand is so simple: a life needs its own space and peace to thrive.

7. NUESTRA TIERRA (LANDMARKS) is highly anticipated because the project took years to complete. Can you tell us about the difficulties you encountered while making this film and why you persevered against all odds?

The greatest difficulty in this film was undoing the preconceptions, including my own, that form the official national narrative in Argentina. I wasn't educated on another planet. And then, we experienced firsthand the difficulties of accessing historical documents and getting answers from state agencies. In short, the daily experience of any indigenous community. After that, there were many narrative decisions we will discuss when the film is released.

8. What is the current situation for the Chuschagasta community, almost seven years after the guilty verdicts for Javier Chocobar's murderers? Do you see any improvement since the trial?

The Chocobar murderers, sentenced in 2018, were released after two years, which is what happens when a conviction is not final or confirmed. In Argentina, there are two more instances if a convicted person appeals their sentence. The convicted individuals appealed, and the sentence was confirmed by the Tucumán Court. But they appealed again. Today, the case is in the hands of the National Supreme Court of Justice, which has not ruled on it for years. Another terrible evil that plagues the country is the indifference of the justice system to centuries of injustices. Meanwhile, the Chuschas continue to make exhausting trips and go through endless bureaucratic procedures. Sometimes they are optimistic, sometimes a little less so. They are reclaiming their land and demanding justice for Javier Chocobar's killing, taking advantage of every possibility within the Argentine bureaucracy.

9. NUESTRA TIERRA (LANDMARKS) is your first feature documentary. What interested you about this format, and how did your filming process differ from your approach to fiction?

I believe fiction is protected from the idea of truth. We care about verisimilitude, but not truth. That's amazing. Documentary is a very difficult genre because it claims to have a greater connection to reality than fiction. It seeks the truth. Something impossible when dealing with the official history of a country, which is a fiction of monumental proportions.