Visualising Lithium Extraction as the Decapitation of Mother Salt in Cartier and Longo's En el nombre del litio (2021)

Abstract

The feature documentary En el nombre del litio (In the Name of Lithium, 2021), directed by Argentine filmmakers Tian Cartier and Martin Longo, portrays the resistance of the Kolla and Atakama Indigenous communities against lithium mining in northwest Argentina. The film evaluates the mining project through a Pachacentric ethical lens, serving as an example of what this article defines as cosmocentric cinema. It exposes the lithium enterprise as a form of ecosocial torture, which can lead to the destruction of the salt flats, symbolically resulting in the ‘decapitation’ of Mother Salt.