An apology for nature

Galician women filmakers in the wake of ecocriticism

Abstract

This work tracks the emergency of ecocritical discourses in the disruptive experiences of Novo Cinema Galego [New Galician Cinema] and looks for an alternative way of understanding and relating to non-human nature in the feminine gazes. The strategical alliance of women and nature arises of the similar conditions of oppression that both suffer under anthropocentric and patriarchal structures, obvious in the depiction of conventional cinema: if woman appears as object of desire, nature is represented as passive background. In which way can an ecocinema subvert this condition? What happens when non-human nature takes the leading role? We will try to answer these questions by analysing the landscape in Carla Andrade’s work, and contextualising her approach together with those of Ángeles Huerta, Xiana Gómez-Díaz, Diana Gonçalves or Lucía Vilela. All of them propose, from a rich formal and thematic variety, an apology for nature built from the female.