La Vida En Común - Feature Documentary - Argentina

A puma stalks Pueblo Nación Ranquel. Hunting is a rite of passage, and the older boys want to kill it. But Uriel decides to take another path.

La vida en común was shot in an indigenous community in the north of Argentina. The local government built twenty four concrete tents in the middle of the desert. A modern camp where lots of ranquels from nearby cities moved to. It is a community’s origin, and the origin of a scenography that is also the protagonist of this film.

​Ezequiel Yanco is a historian and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires (1976). He received a bachelor's degree with honors in history from the University of Buenos Aires, and an MFA on creative writing from New York University. 

Director Ezequiel Yanco

Ezequiel Yanco is a historian and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires (1976). He received a bachelor's degree with honors in history from the University of Buenos Aires, and an MFA on creative writing from New York University. 

​He taught at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. He has contributed to magazines such as Los Inrockuptibles and Le Nouvel Observateur. He co-edited Desconfiar de las imágenes (Caja Negra, 2013), a book that compiles a selection of Harun Farocki’s articles.

​Director Statement
​On this film, I was interested in bringing together my academic training as a historian and my practice as a filmmaker, two careers paths that I have pursued separately until now.  I wanted to investigate the Conquest of the Desert, the land expropriation and genocide of the native population by the Argentinian army at the end of the 19th century, recording at the same time the present of that territory and its inhabitants.

A few years ago, I went to the provinces of La Pampa and San Luis, looking for locations and characters for the film. In one of those trips, I found Pueblo Nación Ranquel, which caught my attention because San Luis had created an artificial community in the middle of the desert, to settle the Ranqueles families of the nearest villages. An experiment of communal life for various indigenous people who have never lived in a community before.
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I settled the point of view of the film on Uriel and his passage towards adolescence. In this way, I could approach the games, activities and life experiences of the other kids and teenagers. Role-playing games have a strong fictional potential, transforming the documentary into narrative material. From Uriel’s point of view I got really close to their daily life, to the new experiences of the indigenous life, their cultural legacy and the socio-political tensions of the community, leaving in a permanent offscreen the lives of the adults.

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AniFab judges aggregate score for La Vida En Comun is 9.1 out of 10 with one judge noting, "Wow, stunning.  To be transported by this boy into his world, to feel what he feels, to eloquently lay out in front of me and flow into a state of unconscious consciousness.  This story inspires and motivates.  I want to see / know more.