Lucrecia Martel

Moving between classrooms – static interiors and roaring, raucous exteriors – Leagues explores the subject of academic exclusion in native communities. Named after an archaic unit of measurement, Martel's postcolonial film depicts how education, though a social tool, can also create division and discrimination.

In 2009, a man and two accomplices try to evict members of the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta in northern Argentina. Claiming ownership of the land and armed with guns, they kill the community’s leader, Javier Chocobar. The murder is caught on video. It takes nine years of protests before court proceedings are finally opened in 2018. During all this time, the killers remain free. The film combines the voices and photographs of the community with courtroom footage to explore the long history of colonialism and land dispossession that led to this crime.

Amalia is an adolescent girl who is caught in the throes of her emerging sexuality and her deeply held passion for her Catholic faith. These two drives mingle when the visiting Dr. Jano takes advantage of a crowd to get inappropriately close to the girl. Repulsed by him but inspired by an inner burning, Amalia decides it is her God-given mission to save the doctor from his behavior, and she begins to stalk Dr. Jano, becoming a most unusual voyeur.

Amid the sweltering summer heat in northern Argentina, two middle-class families retreat to a crumbling country estate and a modest townhouse, where strained relationships, simmering tensions, and the presence of children and servants quietly expose the fractures of family life. Between idle days, gossip, and unspoken desires, the boundaries of class, tradition, and faith are reflected in their everyday interactions.

In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.

During the 2020 lockdown, Lucrecia Martel returns to her home in Salta, Argentina’s most conservative region. Here she follows Julieta Laso who, like a muse, introduces her to a group of female artists and defiant people who exchange glances and opinions around a fire.

Snatches of conversation, movements in coastal areas, videos circulating on the Internet warning of a conspiracy. From the Bermejo river basin there are people who sail in camalotes to the islands that are emerging in the Delta. Maybe it’s an invasion, perhaps an attempt at re-foundation.

Seemingly abandoned, a young woman walks through the porous city of Buenos Aires with her camera, finding potential mothers at every turn.