Alexandra Cuesta cites eternal wanderer Henri Michaux as one of the inspirations for her first feature. Itâs curious, then, that the opening sequence of Territorio (the first film Cuesta shot in her native Ecuador) shows us a boat heading for the shore. It is very likely that, to Cuesta, the image of water hides the same connotation than it does to the author of âThe Sea of Breastsâ: returning home, being sheltered in the motherâs womb. Without detouring from the formal approaches of her previous work, Cuesta traces a journey that crosses the country from north to south, drawing a human cartography in which the aim is to achieve an impossible balance between the foreign travelerâs gaze and the earnest familiarity of those who return home temporarily.
