Coloniality and gender: Relations between Zama (1956) by Antonio Di Benedetto and Zama (2017) by Lucrecia Martel

Abstract

In this article, I will relate the novel Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto with its cinematographic rewriting: Zama by Lucrecia Martel. As a starting point, I take a question from Rita Segato, which is closely related to certain cinematographic policies in Martel’s film, and that debates the ways in which contemporary art -and its works and interventions around gender - can dismantle the coloniality of power. I propose that Zama seeks answers to these questions. To investigate this, I will observe a fundamental change in the film adaptation: Martel eliminates the first person, dispenses with Diego de Zama -a heterosexual male- as the main narrator. The strong “I” of the novel becomes in the film a diverse and very broad collective of voices: voices of women, boys and girls, indigenous people, slaves. To what conclusions do these cinematographic policies lead us?