On Tuesday, Mar. 3, a selection of short films by documentary filmmaker Fernando Saldivia Yáñez ’20 was presented in the Weitz Cinema, followed by a Q&A session between the audience and Yáñez. The visit was integrated into Cinema and Media Studies (CAMS) Professor Cecilia Cornejo’s Documentary Studies class, but was open to the community.
Yáñez is a graduate of Carleton’s CAMS Department and received a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has received the Ann Arbor Film Festival Vox Populi Award and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Special Jury Award, and his films have been exhibited in festivals around the world. He is based between his hometown of Puerto Williams, Chile and Chicago, and recently started Maqui Films, his own production company.
Four short films were shown during the event. The first film, “Early Autumn,” focuses on the rhythms of insect life and was created as the final project for Yáñez’s first CAMS class at Carleton. The second film, “The Roots Weaver,” was Yáñez’s comps project. The film follows the indigenous Yaghan process of grass weaving, starting with three young girls gathering raw materials and ending with their grandmother’s craftwork as she creates earrings for the girls to wear.
In Yáñez’s third film, “Your Tomorrow Will Be My Song,” Chilean couple Suni and Alondra discuss a possible return to their home in the Andes, and what their wedding could look like. After their conversation, the couple begins to sing together. During the Q&A, one student asked Yáñez about the song’s meaning, and he explained his reasoning behind leaving the music untranslated.
“I can tell you in a general sense, it’s a song about longing. It was sung in Quechua. Usually in my films, I don’t aim for an encyclopedic approach. So if there’s something that, for whatever reason, I’m not expected to understand in the moment, I don’t seek to translate it, because that remains within the intimacy of the people who are doing that,” answered Yáñez.
The last film, “Winter Portrait,” shows a Mapuche couple revisiting their wedding day as they watch an old video recording. They are noted as one of only two couples married in the indigenous language of Mapadungun. During the Q&A, Yáñez revealed that the couple in the film were actually his uncle and aunt and discussed the heritage of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group.
“[The Mapuche] were the one group in Chile who were able to stop the Spaniards, so actually the Spanish border during the colonial time was the Mapuche territory,” explained Yáñez. “They fought in the Independence War, but basically, once the countries gained independence, they betrayed the Mapuche and took over their territory.”
“Because of that, there have been a lot of land reclamation movements, because the communities are very much still alive. The presence of my uncle and aunt happens within that context,” said Yáñez. “The thing is, the language the media uses to talk about these communities is usually one of violence. So I wanted to make a film that focused on the actual daily life of a traditional Mapuche couple.”
The event was supported by the CAMS Department, the Indigenous Engagement in Place Initiative and the International Film Forum.
“One thing that we as faculty can do once students graduate is actually continue to support them. In the case of Fernando, it hasn’t been hard because he’s very prolific. And he’s been making work that is actually interesting,” said Cornejo, “And it has been getting attention. So for me, [inviting Yáñez] is a way of continuing that relationship.”
This is the second time that Cornejo has brought Yáñez to Carleton as a part of her Documentary Studies class.
“I just think it’s also a way of invigorating the class,” said Cornejo. “To bring someone to campus who is much closer in age than I am to students, and for them to see that this is a human being. I’m not saying that it’s been easy [to succeed as a filmmaker], but he’s doing really well. I think it’s really important for students to see what they maybe cannot imagine just yet.”
Many of Cornejo’s students seemed to appreciate the opportunity, especially appreciating the ability to interface with Yáñez in person.
“We do the screenings every week, but it was good having the filmmaker here,” said Sophie Ismail ’26, a student in the Documentary Studies class. “That was a different experience. I liked getting to ask some questions.”
“Hearing people ask questions at the end made understanding the films a lot more exciting,” said Jose Velazquez ’28, another Documentary Studies student.
Yáñez himself was once Cornejo’s student, but his path to film was not straightforward.
“Back home in Chile, I was doing a lot of ecology projects related to freshwater invertebrates.
I actually started college at the University of Chile — I did a semester in biology,” Yáñez said. A mentor recommended he join a program that helped Chilean students apply to college in the United States. He then applied and was accepted to Carleton.
“When I first got here, I continued to take biology and environmental studies classes,” Yáñez said. His first CAMS class was Digital Foundations, and eventually he decided to focus his studies on filmmaking.
“Film seemed like the language that better translated what I wanted to say in terms of nature and environment. The more I learned about it, the more I felt like this was my thing, this was my way to express [myself],” stated Yáñez. He also expressed that he was drawn further into the documentary-making world through Cornejo’s mentorship.
“I remember another professor told me, ‘There is a Chilean in town, there is a student from Chile!’” recalled Cornejo. “We were maybe the only Chileans in Northfield. So he put us in touch, and I remember we met at Goodbye Blue Monday. I saw Fernando, and I gave him a hug, and he was very stiff. I was so happy to see another Chilean, and I think Fernando was a little frightened. It was not my intention.”
Soon, Cornejo recruited him to work on her projects “Ways of Being Home” and “Say Their Names,” which were both artistic collaborations with the Northfield Latinx community. The two worked together for the next four years.
Yáñez graduated during the uncertainty of the pandemic, and spent the next year filming footage in his hometown and preparing graduate school applications. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is also Cornejo’s alma mater, Yáñez further developed his artistic style.
“The way I usually describe my work is that I explore daily life, I explore the quotidian, and within that, what I see as the poetics and the politics manifest,” said Yáñez. “The idea that by focusing on small details of daily life, more ‘trivial’ moments, one can actually get a lot — a different perspective from a certain individual, from a certain culture. So I’m always trying to keep it within people’s own rhythm of doing things.”
Again and again, audience members marveled at Yáñez’s sense of artistic patience.
During the Q&A, community member and artist Pepe Kryzda shared a story of Yáñez’s time as a student that captured his observational way of being. “Right before the pandemic, my wife, [French] Professor Éva Pósfay, and I were walking in the Arb, it must have been early fall. And we came across someone sitting on a fallen tree looking up at something. It turned out to be Fernando. Then, when we went up to say hello, he signaled to be quiet, then pointed up to a tree, and, sure enough, there was an owl.”
Cornejo remarked that this observational spirit can be felt through Yáñez’s artistic projects.
“In [Yáñez’s] case, it’s a very active patience,” said Cornejo. “There is a lot of curiosity there, and the assumption that things are interesting. For me, [watching his films,] I become aware of the fact that these simple moments are incredibly complex and rich. And I feel like [they] meet me at a kinder rhythm.”