La representación de la mujer trans en el cine chileno contemporáneo

Abstract

This article proposes ways of tracing the representations of transgender women in Chilean fiction, through the analysis of four contemporary films, shot during the last decade: Naomi Campbel (Nicolás Videla & Camila José Donoso, 2013), El diablo es magnífico (Nicolás Videla, 2016), La visita (Mauricio López, 2014) y Una mujer fantástica (Sebastián Lelio, 2017). All these works have transgender women as lead actresses and explore their identity configu-ration and the discrimination that they suffer in adverse circumstances. These films share four characteristics in their proposals of representing trans lead-roles in fic-tion: the violence that their closest environment exercise over a body that appears as “illegitimate”; the blurring between fiction and documentary modes, as the films are starred by women that have had to live their own transit and therefore they can contribute with their experiences to the realization of the cinematographic work; the filmmakers’ interest in reflecting the everyday life of the main characters, developing an audiovisual treatment that invites the spectator to take part in the character’s intimacy; and, finally, the solitude to which the main characters are subjected to, and, at the same time, share closeness with other characters that have also been socially marginalized. On this basis, we propose to characterize a way of addressing transgender issues in Chilean contemporary film.