Mapuche artist, filmmaker, and curator Francisco Huichaqueo joined students in the seminar SPA 247 / LAS 247: Nature and Its Planetary Crisis: Perspectives from Latin America, taught by Professor Catalina Arango Correa, for a virtual Q&A following the screening of two of his acclaimed films: Mencer: Ñi Pewma (2011) and Künü (2023), from his residence in Concepción, Chile.

The event, held as part of the course’s ongoing exploration of the planetary ecological crisis through Latin American history, social movements, and cultural production, offered students a unique opportunity to engage directly with an Indigenous filmmaker whose work challenges dominant narratives of nature, territory, and development models rooted in extractivism.

During the discussion, Huichaqueo reflected on Mencer: Ñi Pewma, a film that explores the aesthetics of eco-horror and environmental collapse through the lens of Mapuche cosmovision. He emphasized how the film is grounded in Indigenous spiritual and cultural understandings of land, loss, and resistance—particularly in relation to the environmental degradation caused by industrial forestry and the spread of pine and eucalyptus monocultures in southern Chile, which continue to displace Mapuche peoples from their ancestral territories.

Huichaqueo also addressed the broader social and political tensions that shape Mapuche and other Indigenous territorial claims, situating his work within a long-standing struggle for eco-cultural Indigenous justice.

The conversation continued with a discussion of Künü (2023), which Huichaqueo described as an “act of restitution.” The film documents an agreement between a forestry company and Mapuche leaders from over 70 communities, resulting in the construction of a sacred ceremonial site and civic center in the Chilean city of Loncoche. While Huichaqueo acknowledged the uniqueness of this agreement amid a long and ongoing territorial conflict, he and the students explored its symbolic significance—especially when viewed through Mapuche cultural values such as Igel Mongen, or “good life,” and its implications for envisioning more just eco-cultural futures.

The event provided students with a meaningful space to reflect on the intersections of Indigenous worldviews, environmental crises, artistic expression, and the politics of land and territory.