“History will lie, as it always has.”

Landmarks (2025) - an overview by Stephen Sheehy  

“History will lie, as it always has.” 

Landmarks, or Nuestra Tierra in its original Spanish, is an eye-opening documentary chronicling the 2009 murder and subsequent trial of Javier Chocobar, a leader of the indigenous Chuchagasta community in Argentina, at the hands of 3 armed men attempting to evict the local people from their land. From here unfolds a tale of the legacy of colonialism in Latin America. 

Directed by Lucrecia Martel, the Argentine director and screenwriter of acclaimed films: La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman and Zama. She is regarded as one of Latin America’s finest auteurs, her work has received international notoriety and accolades. Both The Holy Girl and The Headless Woman were nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Landmarks itself won Best Film at the 2025 BFI London Film Festival. Her narrative films are known for their critiques of gender and sexuality. But themes of race, class, nationalism and colonialism can be found throughout her oeuvre, and these are explored deeply in Landmarks. 

The film opens with images of the International Space Station before cutting to bird’s eye view shots of agricultural land in Argentina. The once wild and open countryside has been divided and subdivided ad infinitum. All in the name of extracting resources and uprooting the people who have resided there for generations. The land has been commodified. Against this backdrop, we are introduced to the Chuchagasta people and are taken on a journey with them as they detail the events that led to Javier Chocobar’s death but also take us into their lives and homes, as they share their personal stories.  

Martel utilises multiple types of media to tell the story, through old film photographs taken by the Chuchagasta, to camcorder footage of the incident, to drones that glide over the landscape, like an invasive alien spectre. Keep an eye out for how she retains the buzz of the drone’s propellers and their jerky panning movements in the film, whereas most filmmakers go to pains to hide and disguise them. 

The film stresses how bureaucracy is a tool of the imperial state to subjugate the indigenous population and deny them their rights. It also explores how education can be weaponised to make a people feel helpless and rob them of their identity.  

There are parallels to be found here with Ireland’s history with colonialism. Scenes play out that are depressingly reminiscent of colonial attitudes and actions towards Ireland under British Imperial rule, particularly around the time of the plantations, when evictions, often through use of force, were rampant. And the film stresses the importance of retaining ancestral knowledge and cultural heritage. But this story of cultural erasure and imperialism isn’t a historical text, it is a current reality for the Indigenous in South America. 

A picture over 15 years in the making, and requiring cutting 300 hours of footage down to a 2 hour runtime. Landmarks not only portrays the events of Chocobar’s case but a sprawling examination and indictment of post-Colonialism. And through it all runs a vein depicting a joyous, loving community that is still so closely bonded together. They are involved in each other’s lives from literal birth to death.  

“They never taught us that we were Indigenous. They never taught us about our rights.” 

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