the frightened breast (2009): representation of ancestry as an alternative to the coloniality of memory policies in Latin America

Abstract

This article revisits the scenario of memory policies and the actions of Transitional Justice in Latin America after dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, since the second half of the 20th century, and then explores the potential of cinema in the construction of decolonial and counter-hegemonic memories. We argue that the film La teta asustada, directed by Claudia Llosa and released in Peru in 2009, presents other narratives, recovering traditions, rituals, cosmologies and experiences that have been historically silenced, thus reaffirming the power of practices such as orality, corporeality and territoriality. To carry out the proposed analysis, we draw on specialized bibliography on feminist film criticism, memory studies and decoloniality. We hope to contribute to the valorization of ancestry in Latin American cinema less as a nostalgic return to the past and much more as a political practice of (re)existence, which connects distinct temporalities, reaffirms community ties and proposes alternatives to the Eurocentric and American civilizing model, as well as to memory policies that select paradigms of human rights violations, instituting hegemonic memory patterns.