Images of Peru: a national cinema in crisis

A brief look at the major trends in the history of the national cinema of Peru suggests that the relationship between the development of the moving image and the onset of modernity in that country has always been awkward. Many have argued that the advent of cinema coincided in most parts of the world with the decades when modernity was already ‘at full throttle . . . a watershed moment in which a series of sweeping changes in technology and culture created distinctive new modes of thinking about and experiencing time and space’. However, the reality for the majority of Latin American countries was quite different. As Ana M. López points out, it simply is not possible to link the rise of cinema in that part of the world to ‘previous large-scale transformations of daily experience resulting from urbanization, industrialization, rationality and the technological transformation of modern life’. Such developments were only just starting to emerge, so that as cinema was launched across the world, modernity in Latin America ‘was above all a fantasy and a profound desire.

New configurations for Peruvian cinema: the rising star of Claudia Llosa

After a decade-long hiatus during which the existence of a home-grown cinema in Peru had been threatened by a lack of government and public support, a new generation of directors broke onto the scene in the twenty-first century with a distinctive approach to both the production and circulation of their films, as well as to their relationship with the ‘national’, in terms of policy, funding and audience engagement. This study takes one of those directors, Claudia Llosa, as the main case study, and considers the development of her profile as an internationally recognized Peruvian film-maker whose award-winning debut works (Madeinusa, 2006 and La Teta Asustada/Milk of Sorrow, 2009) sparked controversy and critical debate for their challenging portrayals of the Quechua culture of Peru. This article examines her successes on the international festival and commercial exhibition circuits, considers some of the scholarly and critical responses to her work, and asks what impact Llosa has had on the development of cinema in Peru through her engagement with the transnational

Deconstructive humour: subverting Mexican and Chicano stereotypes in ‘Un Día Sin Mexicanos’

a long time, US cinema developed unshakeable stereotypes of Mexican ‘otherness’, with characters of Mexican cultural and ethnic heritage stigmatised as criminals or as sensual objects of desire. Filmmakers in Mexico, meanwhile, treated Mexican Americans as misfits who belonged nowhere, or ignored them and their complex experience completely. The emergence of a distinct ‘Chicano cinema’ in the 1960s allowed for the development of a more powerful set of images of Mexican Americans, exploiting the very tool of communication that had been used against them, and for the circulation of a more productive and reflective dialogue around the questions of identity, agency and resistance that arise. This article focuses on the use of humour as a subversive tool to deconstruct certain myths and stereotypes of Mexican and, to a certain extent, Mexican American (or, Chicano) identity in Sergio Arau’s popular debut feature, Un Día Sin Mexicanos (2004). The “Mexicans” referred to in the film’s title and used in much of its dialogue stand metonymically for all Hispanic immigrants, whether recently arrived, or born in the US and of Hispanic descent, including Chicanos. Its narrative was inspired by the introduction of controversial anti-immigration legislation in California in 1994, and the Californian State is here made representative of anywhere in the US where there is a Mexican or Chicano population. This essay situates the film within the context of a growing Chicano population in the US and a high level of immigration from Mexico itself. It asks to what extent the feature version, which takes the form of satire, offers a critique of the Mexican immigrant experience, and of discrimination more broadly against Hispanic minorities. In so doing, it explores the ways in which the politics of resistance that are so often aligned with these experiences are inscribed in its narrative form

Peruvian cinema, national identity and political violence 1988-2004

The role of national cinema in shaping, reflecting and contesting a complex national identity that is the site of conflict and struggle is the central interest of this study of contemporary Peruvian cinema, 1988-2004. This project examines the relationship between cinema, state and identity in Peru, with a specific focus on the representation of the political violence between the state and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) that began in 1980. It looks in particular at portrayals of important events, characters and consequences of the bloody conflict that for a time threatened to destabilize the nation entirely. It considers these representations in the context of a time of great change for Peruvian society and of transition for Peruvian national cinema, and addresses the relationship between developments in film policy and the formation of Peruvian national identity in cinema. As such, it draws on debates about the nature and function of national cinemas, as well as on discussions between artists, cultural theorists and sociologists about the evolution of peruanidad since the declaration of independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. Once the main elements of the cinematic and social crises have been explored and established in Chapters Two and Three, the remainder of the project consists of three sets of chronologically ordered analyses of individual films that somehow defied the national cinema crisis, and that provoked debate on both the conflict itself, and on broader questions pertaining to the relationship between national identity and violence. The conclusion considers these films as an interlinked body of cinematic works that share similar themes and concerns. It summarises the issues they tackle, the ideological and formal approaches they take to those issues, the potential social and cultural impact, and their contribution to the crystallization of a Peruvian national identity at the start of the twenty-first century

The British film industry: creativity and constraint

An article on the potential impact of the changes to film policy, culture and infrastructure in light of significant changes in 2010-11

Made in Peru: Lima Film Festival comes of age

The Festival de Cine de Lima (Lima Film Festival) was launched in 1997 as ‘elcine’ with ten days of screenings composed of 21 features and 38 shorts from ten Latin American countries alongside a three-day event in the southern city of Arequipa. Over 15,000 spectators attended what was described by its organisers as an ‘unprecedented event’[1] – not just for its statistics but also for the way it encouraged private enterprise to support a major cultural activity, involved many young people in its organisation, included events designed to provoke debate about the value of cinema, sparked mass participation on the part of the public through its competition voting system, and caught the attention of the national and international press. In August 2015, the 19th edition introduced around 300 international films to audiences across the Peruvian capital and beyond, with more of those films than ever before made by Peruvian directors, including several selected for the feature competition. Indeed, while many of the original features of this resilient festival have been retained it has been intriguing to witness the gradual increase in profile granted by the event to home-grown talent. After years of tension and mistrust between the most prominent film critics in Peru and many local film-makers battling with a precarious set of cultural, political, and financial circumstances, this change signals a welcome recognition of national production by those that have tended to look beyond national borders for inspiration. Moreover, despite the relative paucity of co-ordinated film production activity in Peru compared with other Latin American nations, it would seem that this festival (and other smaller film events that have emerged around the city over the last two decades[2]) provides some evidence of a growing interest in cinema ‘made in Peru’. This article aims to shed some light on the development of this key cultural event, to unravel its role as instigator and mediator of national and regional cinema, and to consider its place as part of the film ecology of Peru

Out of the shadows: ‘new’ Peruvian cinema, national identity and political violence

In May 1980, just as the Peruvian nation returned officially to democracy after twelve years of military rule, a splinter group of the national pro-Chinese Communist Party, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), broke into a polling station in the region of Ayacucho and destroyed the ballot boxes there. This subversive act marked the onset of two decades of violent struggle, a ‘dirty war’ that persisted through three presidencies (Belaúnde, García, Fujimori), including the capture of leader Abimael Guzmán in 1992, and a legacy of corruption and repression throughout the 1990s. As Robin Kirk remarked in his introduction to Gustavo Gorriti’s seminal text on the history of this insurrection, the military forces were considered to be just as brutal in their retaliation: ‘The Shining Path sowed only misery for Peruvians. In that task, it received timely and energetic aid from the army, which tilled with matching fervour’ (xiv). The politically-motivated violence of this period left more than 60,000 victims dead or disappeared, and a devastated country on the verge of socio-political and economic collapse. Very few citizens were left unscarred by the events, and in the final report from the public enquiry established through a nationwide Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, every Peruvian was urged to take some responsibility for the national recovery. According to Pilar Coll (59), the authors of that report even claimed that many in power had failed in their duty to protect all citizens by turning a blind eye to discriminatory excesses on all sides of the conflict

Latin American cinema [Stephen M. Hart (Reaktion Books, 2015)]

Stephen Hart, Professor of Hispanic Studies at University College London, coined the phrase ‘slick grit’ in 2006 when he delivered a paper in London on the ‘dynamics of contemporary Latin American Cinemas’ as part of a symposium on the transnational in Latin American and Iberian cinemas. At that point, he was using the term as a means to unravel and articulate the reason for the phenomenal box office success of turn-of-millennium films such as Fernando Meirelles’s Cidade de Deus (City of God) and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores perros (Love’s a Bitch), which he argued had ‘opened up a dialogue’ with Hollywood to transform the face of Latin American films, resulting in worldwide critical acclaim and commercial success

The right of access, the right to hear, and the right to speak: applying First Amendment theories to the network neutrality debate

Scholarship on the network neutrality debate has focused primarily on economic and technological arguments for or against regulation to protect the Internet\u27s open and democratic qualities. Concerned that congressional discussion is similarly two-dimensional, this thesis examines the First Amendment concerns in the debate. Following Moran Yemini\u27s 2007 paper, a matrix of possible First Amendment claims on the Internet is created. Legal case analysis identifies which of these claims are supported by Supreme Court precedent. The only potential First Amendment challenge to neutrality regulation would be broadband service providers\u27 (BSPs\u27) claim that the regulation infringed on their editorial rights. If regulations were brought before the Court, it would likely apply its intermediate scrutiny test from the Turner v. Federal Communications Commission cases in 1994 and 1997. Network neutrality regulation would almost certainly satisfy the Turner test, thus the Court would accept this minor infringement of BSPs\u27 editorial rights

Reframing transitions and contesting memories: the archive and the archival object in Peruvian cinema

This essay considers the stories behind the production and screening of two very different Peruvian films that both reveal much about the way the archive, the archival object and archival fragment have worked to disrupt and force a reconsideration of key moments in Peruvian political history of the twentieth century. One, a feature film by Francisco Lombardi, Ojos que no ven/Eyes that don’t see (2003), provides a provocative perspective on the impact of the televisual revelations of the corruption at the heart of President Fujimori’s government (1990-2000). The second, a documentary made by Kurt Herrmann at the behest of the military, Alerta en la Frontera/Border Alert (1941), offers a patriotic recording of the border campaign against Ecuador which was banned at the time and had its first public screening seventy years later. The analysis suggests that the delay in viewing events of such national importance forces not only a reconsideration of those events and their disruptive effect on a collective, official sense of national history and identity, but also a questioning of the way that contemporary political figures and events might be considered. This article also takes account of the key role of Peru’s national film archive in shaping the nature of national heritage, culture and memory