Memorias en reflejo: cine documental, archivo y territorio en la obra de Juan Francisco González

Abstract

The interview with Juan Francisco González offers a reflection on documentary cinema as a practice of memory, archive, and territorial construction in Chilean and Latin American contexts. Drawing on his trajectory between Punta Arenas, Cuba, France, and his collective work with MAFI, the filmmaker frames documentary as a critical device capable of questioning official narratives, making historically marginalized subjectivities visible, and producing situated forms of knowledge.

Throughout the conversation, González examines films such as Propaganda, Dios, Maria K, Antu Liwen, canto de resistencia, Aukinko, el eco de todas nosotras, and Fantasmagoría as moments within a broader inquiry into the relation between image, territory, and memory. His answers shift the emphasis away from a purely auteur-driven model toward collective and community-based modes of production, in which filmed space, collaboration with the people portrayed, and the critical reuse of archives make it possible to develop a filmic memory tied to social conflict, peripheral identities, and cultural resistance.