Aiming at the heart: the political dimensión of a documentary film

Abstract

This article considers the political dimension of Apuntando al corazón (Aiming at the Heart), a documentary film made by UNIMINUTO communication scholar Claudia Gordillo and Italian independent filmmaker Bruno Federico. The film critically analyzes the militarist propaganda campaigns of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s government. This article argues that, while Aiming may be considered as a counterhegemonic intervention, what is politically salient about the film is its capacity to create articulations across social sectors. Moving from a textualization of Apuntando that considers it as object to a contextualization of the film that considers it as event, this article holds that, while the film does unveil the deceit of propaganda – and of Uribe’s discourse –its political dimension lies in the ways in which it affects its audiences and primes them for political action.