The wood and its main product, tannin, were highly coveted between 1918 and 1945 and became a focal point of political and social struggles connected with the evolution of trade unionism, as well as the emergence of the Radical Civic Union and Peronism.
[3] After the return to civilian rule in 1983, the government of Raúl Alfonsín abolished censorship, placing Wullicher and Manuel Antín in charge of the National Film Institute.
[4] Wullicher's 1995 film La nave de los locos (The ship of fools) is set in a small town in Patagonia, where a Mapuche Indian chief sets fire to a tourist complex that is under construction, and refuses to defend himself.
The story contrasts his approach of waiting for help to arrive from the ship of fools, a traditional source of strength that caused him to start the fire, and that of his appointed defense lawyer, a white woman who argues that he acting in self-defense since the commercial structures were being built on the sacred burial grounds of his ancestors.
[1] His book Magic Bay (Spanish title: Bahía mágica) was the subject of the animated adventure film of the same name released in December 2002.