Abstract
During the nineties, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (COANIE) organized social mobilizations to contest the advances of the neoliberal agenda and other effects of globalization. The decisions of the elite drove the country to an economic and political crisis; regardless of its negative aspects, the crisis exacerbated the proliferation of marginal groups demanding political recognition and fostering creativity to survive through a broken economy. The twentieth first century began at the worst moment of the economic crisis, but also with the emergence of the new audiovisual formats that offered an opportunity to make a living creatively: VCD and DVD piracy was constituted as a sort of informal industry and amateur filmmakers began emerging from the most unexpected places. This dissertation explores how Ecuadorian filmmakers question the meaning of art and culture as well as the concepts of equality, happiness and well-being within the capitalist discourse and the way it perpetuates hierarchies of class and race. The filmmaker’s politics of representation and cultural practices ended up manifesting the need to decolonized them. Through aesthetics and market strategies, these filmmakers act like anarchic chameleons that refuse to disappear in the normativity of the social environment.