Module description
This module focuses on avant-garde cinema in Latin America—particularly Tercer Cine and Cinema Novo—and their contemporary legacies in the twenty-first century. It explores the relationship between film and activism, examining how directors and producers in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile have articulated the role of art in imagining political and social change.
Key topics include the relationship between cinema and post-colonial and decolonial aesthetics; cultural resistance to authoritarianism; the intersections of race, gender, and social inequality; and the links between film, collective memory, and national identity.
Students will watch and discuss films by key Latin American directors, including Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Andrés Wood, Patricio Guzmán, Lucrecia Martel, Fernando “Pino” Solanas, and Anna Muylaert, among others. The module begins with iconic Cinema Novo and Tercer Cine films and aesthetic manifestos, moves on to post-dictatorship cinema that rethinks the relationship between aesthetics, memory, and democracy, and concludes with twenty-first-century films addressing structural social issues from both regional and global perspectives.
No previous knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is required. All films are screened with English subtitles.
Assessment details
800-word review (30%); 2000-word essay (70%)
Reassessment: Students are reassessed in the failed elements of assessment and by the same methods as the first attempt
Educational aims & objectives
By the end of the module, students will have developed a strong understanding of Latin American cinema, alongside enhanced insight into the historical and political processes that have played a critical role in shaping contemporary debates in the region.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable, and practical skills appropriate to a Level 5 module and, in particular, will be able to:
- demonstrate knowledge of key themes in Latin American cinema, as well as the specific historical, political, and cultural factors shaping national contexts in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile;
- apply relevant conceptual frameworks to the analysis of representations of collective memory and traumatic political and social processes in contemporary cinema in Brazil and other Latin American countries;
- employ appropriate independent research strategies in order to plan and complete the module assessment.
Teaching pattern
two hours per week plus film screenings
Suggested reading list
Core Films may include
- The Courtyard of the Ballads/ O Pátio das Cantigas (1942), dir. Francisco Ribeiro.
- Entranced Earth/ Terra em Transe (1967), dir. Glauber Rocha.
- How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman /Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês (1971), dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos.
- A Bee in the Rain/ Uma Abelha na Chuva (1972), dir. Fernando Lopes.
- Non, or the vain glory of command/ Non, ou a vã glória de mandar (1990), dir. Manoel de Oliveira.
- Foreign Land / Terra Estrangeira (1995), dir. Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles
- The murmuring coast / Costa dos Murmúrios (2004), dir. Margarida Cardoso.
- The Second Mother/ Que horas ela volta? (2015), dir. Anna Muylaert
No knowledge of Spanish/Portuguese language is required. All films have subtitles in English.