Tracing Lesbian Cinema in Latin America

This chapter discusses the representation of lesbian bodies, desires, and identities in Latin American cinema. It contextualizes the production of LGBTQ cinema in Latin America, and its accompanying body of criticism. In doing so, the chapter identifies a critical lacuna that it then proceeds to address by first providing a historical tracing of several important films dealing with lesbian and gynosexual desires—including movies by such directors as Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Abel Salazar, Diego Lerman, Lucía Puenzo, María Luisa Bemberg, Julia Solomonoff, and Raúl Fuentes. The chapter then proceeds to explore why these films are understudied within the field. The chapter broadens the scope of the current studies on queer Latin American cinema by adapting their theoretical and taxonomical structures to lesbian-themed films, to thus provide a point of reference for future filmic production and critique.

Transgresiones domésticas y agencia femenina en “Las dependencias” (1999) de Lucrecia Martel=Domestic Transgressions and Female Agency in Lucrecia Martel’s Las dependencias (1999)

<p align="left"><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>Este trabajo estudia la representación fílmica de la empleada doméstica en <em>Las dependencias</em> (Lucrecia Martel, 1999), telefilm dedicado a la escritora argentina Silvina Ocampo. Este documental es pionero dentro del cine latinoamericano contemporáneo por el lugar central que la doméstica ocupa como sujeto femenino complejo e idiosincrático, un protagonismo inexistente en el cine del siglo pasado. A través del análisis de los testimonios de las empleadas, de los espacios y objetos domésticos y de la intertextualidad con el cuento de Ocampo <em>Las vestiduras peligrosas</em>, exploro la representación de las diferencias de clase, la dinámica de poder en la relación afectiva entre criada-señora y las diferentes estrategias de resistencia que hacen de la empleada un sujeto con voz y agencia propia.</p><p align="left"><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This article studies the filmic representation of the female domestic worker in <em>Las dependencias</em> (Lucrecia Martel, 1999), a film about the Argentine writer Silvina Ocampo. This is a pioneer documentary in contemporary Latin American cinema based on the centrality given to the housekeeper as a complex and idiosyncratic character, a portrayal not found in 20^th century Latin American cinema. Through the analysis of the female workers’ testimonies, domestic places and objects, and the intertextuality with Ocampo’s short story <em>Las vestiduras peligrosas</em>, we explore the representation of class differences, the power dynamics and the affective dimensions found in the servant-mistress relationship, and the strategies of resistance that make the domestic worker a subject with a voice and agency of her own.</p>

Beatriz Palacios: Ukamau’s Cornerstone (1974–2003)

Beatriz Palacios’s instrumental role in the Ukamau group has been largely ignored by film historiography and criticism. The authorial persona of her comrade and husband, Jorge Sanjinés, has eclipsed Palacios’s work and ideas. Her erasure is due to the perspectives chosen to analyze Ukamau (male-centered auteurist and formalist approaches) and to the almost exclusive use of the voice of Sanjinés (interviews, essays, and films interpreted in an authorial key) to construct the group’s history. Ignoring the contribution and importance of Palacios’s work and not accounting for her share in the authorship of the films made during the years they lived and worked together impedes a correct understanding of the complexity of the production context and the amplitude of the contribution of Ukamau to Latin American cinema. While her work as a producer is increasingly recognized, delving into her roles as a disseminator of political cinema in alternative circuits, evaluator of the impact of the movies on the popular classes, and documentary director completes the portrait of her all-encompassing life and career. En gran medida, el papel instrumental de Beatriz Palacios en el grupo Ukamau ha sido ignorado por la historiografía y la crítica cinematográficas. La persona autoral de su camarada y esposo, Jorge Sanjinés, ha eclipsado la obra e ideas de Palacios. Dicha eliminación se debe a las perspectivas elegidas para analizar Ukamau (enfoques y formalistas) y al uso casi exclusivo de la voz de Sanjinés (entrevistas, ensayos y películas interpretadas en clave autoral) para construir la historia del grupo. Ignorar la contribución e importancia del trabajo de Palacios, así como su participación en la autoría de las películas realizadas durante los años que vivieron y trabajaron juntos, impide una correcta contribución de Ukamau al cine latinoamericano. Mientras que su trabajo como productora es cada vez más reconocido, ahondar en su labor como divulgadora de cine político en circuitos alternativos, evaluadora del impacto de las películas en las clases populares y directora de documentales, completa debidamente retrato de su vida y carrera.

Domestic Labor in Twenty-First Century Latin American Cinema, Elizabeth Osborne and Sofía Ruiz-Alfaro (eds) (2020)

Review of: Domestic Labor in Twenty-First Century Latin American Cinema, Elizabeth Osborne and Sofía Ruiz-Alfaro (eds) (2020) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 242 pp., ISBN 978-3-03033-295-2, h/bk, €103.99, e/bk, €85.59

Shifting conceptions of Alejandro González Iñárritu: Interpreting the auteur

This introduction to a Special Issue of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinema charts the shift in Alejandro González Iñárritu's directorial persona from transnational auteur to mainstream figure over the course of his six feature films and virtual reality installation: Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), The Revenant (2015) and the installation Carne y arena (Virtually Present, Physically invisible) (2017). It argues that this shift into a (predominantly Anglo) mainstream is reflected in the different ways in which his last names (apellidos) are used, abbreviated or even excised altogether, and in the differing approaches to him as auteur employed by the authors of the different articles, but that Iñárritu’s persona and creative collaborators continue to be primarily determined by his Mexican and Latin American identity.

The Natural Order of Things

Forced to slow down by the COVID-19 pandemic, Film Quarterly columnist Manuel Betancourt found himself drawn to films that embraced stillness. Marking a refreshing change from the urban settings that dominate much Latin American cinema, Los silencios (Beatriz Seigner, 2018), Selva trágica (Tragic Jungle, Yulene Olaizola, 2020), and Ceniza negra (Land of Ashes, Sofía Quirós Úbeda, 2019) are set in jungle and rural landscapes complete with lush, dreamy soundscapes. Privileging mood over plot, these films revel in their sense of being unmoored from familiar locales, becoming portals that open onto a different way of looking at the world.

The Present and Future Dystopias of Nuevo orden and Medida provisória

FQ columnist Manuel Betancourt identifies an uncanny trend in recent Latin American cinema: the depiction of future dystopias that, despite subtle sci-fi touches, feel more than ever like tweaked visions of already harrowing presents. His column focuses on two new films that exemplify the power such a genre holds on the region’s cultural imagination: Michel Franco’s Nuevo orden (New Order, 2020) and Lázaro Ramos’s Medida provisória (Executive Order, 2020). Both films feel much ripped from the headlines, a timely response to years of unrest and decades (if not centuries) of racist governance. Betancourt warns that such speculative attempts should be approached with both caution and optimism. A dystopian film need not function solely as a funhouse mirror but can also be a window into a new paradigm, with sci-fi touches offered as potential tools to illuminate ways to carve newer, better futures.

The Black Film Ambassador

In celebration of the Pacific Film Archive at 50, Josslyn Luckett, a former student of PFA programmer and UCBerkeley professor Albert Johnson reflects on the global reach of his career and legacy. One of the founding “co-conspirators” of Film Quarterly, Johnson presented African, Asian, and Latin American cinema at the PFA for three decades, while programming U.S. directors from Vincente Minnelli to Melvin Van Peebles across the globe. While Johnson became known for his iconic “Craft of Cinema” profile series at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), this article highlights under-acknowledged aspects of his film curation and writing, including his early championing of many of the independent Black directors known now as the L.A. Rebellion.