FLM 231 NEW LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA

An overview of contemporary Latin American cinema, focusing on the political and aesthetic landscape of the region in the aftermath of dictatorships and within the shifting terrain of neoliberal politics toward the end of the 20th century. Students will explore how filmmaking has been oscillating between the political impulse of the revolutionary cinemas of previous decades and the demands of new market economies and policies. The class will delve into how contemporary films engage with discourses on history, memory, and human rights in the post-dictatorship moment across the continent; the impact of neoliberal economic policies and the representations of poverty, violence, and the precarity of life; migrations and borders; gender debates; racial issues and discrimination; and indigenous peoples’ struggles. In so doing, students will examine the diversity of cinematic languages and strategies in Latin America as expressions of the medium’s possibilities to reflect on and take part in the region’s ever-present political and social conflicts.