Annali - AAMOD, n.23 - Labanta! Ex colonie portoghesi e cinema italiano , 2024
Annali 23, AAMOD: https://www.cpadver-effigi.com/blog/labanta-ex-colonie-portoghesi-e-cinema-ital... more Annali 23, AAMOD: https://www.cpadver-effigi.com/blog/labanta-ex-colonie-portoghesi-e-cinema-italiano/ Questo saggio è una traduzione di parti dello Studio Preliminare di M. Mestman (pp. 7-177) del libro in spagnolo Los condenados de la tierra: un film tra Europa e il Terzo Mondo (Alberto Filippi e M. Mestman, Akal, Buenos Aires 2022).
Cinema e Storia, Cinema italiano postcoloniale, 2024
Tra il 1966 e il 1968, il cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini e il filosofo italo-venezuelano Albe... more Tra il 1966 e il 1968, il cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini e il filosofo italo-venezuelano Alberto Filippi realizzano il film I dannati della Terra, ispirato al libro omonimo di Frantz Fanon. In questo saggio, analizzo il film come un “caso” particolare di configurazione del cinema terzomondista italiano dell’epoca. Voglio mostrare come i concetti, le idee o le riflessioni che il film porta avanti siano stati elaborati in dialogo con prospettive e discorsi politici storicamente situati e forgiati nei processi di resistenza, liberazione o indipendenza (italiani, europei, del Terzo Mondo) e, più precisamente, in attività ed eventi ai quali gli autori del film parteciparono. Sebbene questi scambi risalgano ad anni precedenti, mi concentrerò qui sulla partecipazione di Orsini e Filippi al Congresso Culturale dell’Avana (gennaio 1968), nonché sulla relazione di quell’esperienza con le prime riprese realizzate l’anno precedente in Guinea Bissau (marzo-aprile 1967). (all’epoca colonia portoghese) nell’ambito delle case di produzione della sinistra italiana (l’Ager Film e l’Unitelefilm), il tutto alla vigilia della contestazione del ’68, quando I dannati fu completato ed esibito.
Iberic@l - Revue d'études ibériques et ibéro-américaines, n.23, 2023
(English below)
Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968)... more (English below) Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968), intitulé L’heure des brasiers, réalisé par Santiago Álvarez. L´ essai se concentre sur les appropriations et les citations de diverses expressions de la culture visuelle cubaine florissante de l'époque, en particulier les images de l’exposition Du Tiers-Monde. L'article analyse cette manifestation culturelle collective et le film d'actualités comme des expressions de la confluence de l'internationalisme et de l'expérimentation d'avant-garde autour du Congrès.- Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/iberical/943 ISSN : 2260-2534 - Éditeur: Sorbonne Université - Laboratoire CRIMIC
This essay studies the film-newsreel about the Havana Cultural Congress (1968), entitled The Hour of the Furnaces, directed by Santiago Álvarez. It focuses on the appropriations and quotations from various expressions of the thriving Cuban visual culture of the time, in particular, images from the exhibition From the Third World. The article analyses this collective cultural manifestation and the newsreel as expressions of the confluence of internationalism and avant-garde experimentation around the Congress.
Martina Kopf und Sascha Seiler (Hg.), Die 1968er Jahre. Utopie und Desillusion in Literatur, Film und Musik, 2023
Dieser Beitrag erschien zuerst in: Humberto Pérez-Blanco und Javier Campo (Hg.): A Trail of Fire ... more Dieser Beitrag erschien zuerst in: Humberto Pérez-Blanco und Javier Campo (Hg.): A Trail of Fire for Political Cinema. The Hour of the Furnaces Fifty Years Later, Bristol: Intellect, 2019, 135–158. Der Autor und die Herausgeber danken dem Rechteinhaber (Intellect) für die Erlaubnis zum Nachdruck (mit wenigen Ergänzungen bzw. Modifikationen) in der deutschen Übersetzung. Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Martina Kopf.
, Nancy Berthier y Camila Arêas, eds., Noticiero ICAIC: Memoria del mundo, , 2023
Este ensayo en torno a las noticias sobre Argelia aparecidas en el Noticiero cinematográfico cuba... more Este ensayo en torno a las noticias sobre Argelia aparecidas en el Noticiero cinematográfico cubano forma parte del libro colectivo dirigido por Nancy Berthier y Camila Arêas sobre el Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano. El Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano es el único noticiario producido por el ICAIC y lleva el sello de este lugar de realización tan cercano al poder. Creado 83 días después del derrocamiento del dictador Fulgencio Batista, como primera institución cultural de la Revolución, el ICAIC se inscribió en una dinámica de relevo ideológico del régimen. Durante una treintena de años, entre junio de 1960 y julio de 1990, el Noticiero informó sobre la actualidad nacional e internacional a un público cubano especialmente aficionado a sus ediciones casi semanales. Difundido en las salas de cine y en los cine-móviles que recorrían la isla, el Noticiero compitió con éxito con los informativos de televisión e informó de una manera diferente, más diversificada, sintética, militante y artística. Aún hoy, los cubanos recuerdan con cierta nostalgia la época en la que acudían al cine cada semana para informarse y discutir colectivamente la actualidad nacional e internacional en función de la última edición del NIL. Las 1493 ediciones de noticiarios cinematográficos cubanos constituyen un acervo formidable, cuyos negativos originales fueron incluidos en el registro “Memoria del Mundo” de la Unesco en 2009.
Esta obra es la edición española de un conjunto de textos que se presentó en el Coloquio «El Noticiero ICAIC: una fuente sobre/de/para la historia» celebrado en París en octubre de 2021. El propósito del evento fue conformar con ese conjunto de textos un libro de referencia que publicó inicialmente en francés el Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual de Francia. Su autoría corresponde a historiadores y estudiosos procedentes de Francia, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos, Brasil, Chile y Cuba, quienes desde distintos ángulos y temáticas analizan ese extraordinario medio informativo.
Instituciones participantes
Cinemateca de Cuba, Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Centro de Investigación Interdisciplinar sobre Mundos Ibéricos Contemporáneos (CRIMIC) de la Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Laboratorio de investigación sobre los espacios criollos y francófonos (LCF) de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual (INA) de Francia. Asociación Cultural Hurón Azul para la promoción de la cultura cubana, España.
De la contratapa:
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italove... more De la contratapa:
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italovenezolano Alberto Filippi realizaron el film I dannati della terra/Los condenados de la tierra, inspirado en el libro homónimo del revolucionario afrocaribeño Frantz Fanon. Este ensayo cinematográfico de intervención sobre la necesidad ética y política de hacer la revolución, una revolución que abarque tanto al Tercer Mundo como a Europa, recorre la historia de la intensa amistad entre el cineasta de la izquierda italiana Fausto Morelli y el joven militante fanoniano Abramo Malonga, así como sus diálogos sobre las luchas de liberación africanas (...).
Medio siglo después, M. Mestman y A. Filippi han recuperado este film, mucho tiempo olvidado, y han reconstruido y documentado el contexto cultural y político en el cual fue concebido, así como las polémicas que suscitó(...)".
(Se Incluye la tapa, el Indice General y el Estudio Preliminar a cargo de M.Mestman)
Nancy Berthier et Camila Arêas, dirs., Noticiero ICAIC 30 ans d’actualités cinématographiques à Cuba. Bry-sur-Marne, INA Éditions, 2022, 2022
Les processus révolutionnaires à Cuba (1953-1959) et en Algérie
(1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé ... more Les processus révolutionnaires à Cuba (1953-1959) et en Algérie (1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé dans l’essor du Mouvement des pays non-alignés et sont devenus des points de référence en Amérique latine et en Afrique pour la radicalisation politique de ce que l’on appelle le Tiers-Monde pendant la « longue décennie des années 1960 » ou les longs 60s. Dans le même temps, ces deux révolutions ont exercé une influence notable sur les gauches du Premier Monde et ont remis en question – du moins pendant un temps – les stratégies du soi-disant «socialisme réel» et de la « coexistence pacifique ». Il s’agit bien sûr d’une histoire complexe aux multiples variantes. Les relations entre ces deux processus ont été nouées avant l’indépendance de l’Algérie (5 juillet 1962), et le Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano (NIL) a consacré plusieurs reportages à l’Algérie au cours des années 1960 et au début de la décennie suivante. Ce chapitre les passe en revue et tente de montrer comment s’est configuré une sorte de parallélisme (historique et programmatique) entre les deux pays, qui a mis en évidence une épopée internationaliste et anti-impérialiste commune, tout en faisant allusion aux aléas de la situation politique algérienne, et en reflétant les changements d’orientation dans les relations entre Cuba et l’Algérie, ainsi qu’avec les pays du Tiers-Monde et l’URSS. Les références à l’Algérie dans le NIL apparaissent essentiellement entre 1960 et 1974, où trois périodes ont pu être identifiquées par rapport aux thèmes abordés et à l’histoire politique algérienne : entre 1960 et 1965, nous trouvons les premières références à la lutte de libération jusqu’au renversement du président Ahmed Ben Bella. Entre 1966 et 1971, on peut parler d’un « silence » du NIL à l’égard de l’Algérie. Enfin, entre 1972 et 1974, les actualités mettent en avant la figure du président Houari Boumédiène, associée au projet du Mouvement des pays non-alignés.
Imagofagia. Revista de la Asociación Argentina de Estudios de Cine y Audiovisvual, 2022
La hora de los hornos (1968) y el manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), de Octavio Getino y F... more La hora de los hornos (1968) y el manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), de Octavio Getino y Fernando Solanas, tuvieron un notable impacto en el cine político internacional durante la década de 1970 e incluso en períodos posteriores. Entre los documentos y testimonios sobre esa experiencia, se destaca el dossier L’influence du “troisième cinéma” dans le monde (La influencia del “tercer cine” en el mundo), organizado en 1979 por Guy Hennebelle junto a Monique Martineau y su entonces naciente colectivo CinémAction, y publicado en un número especial de la Revue Tiers Monde, bajo la dirección de Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre. En su edición original de 1979, el grupo CinémAction presentó este documento como un estudio que podría llegar a conducir a un coloquio y a una refundación del manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine”. Aquí publicamos la tercera sección de ese dossier, una encuesta a once críticos, cineastas o historiadores de diferentes países de Europa, Africa y América Latina sobre dicha influencia. Desde hace algunos años venimos recuperando este dossier de CinémAction en nuestros escritos y buscamos difundirlo entre los investigadores interesados en el Tercer Cine y el cine militante o cine de intervención. Gracias a la autorización y gentileza de Monique Martineau-Hennebelle y de Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre, a inicios de 2021 publicamos una traducción al inglés de la encuesta en el journal Framework, junto a otros documentos. Ahora, en el presente número de Imagofagia, la publicamos en español. Al final del documento, incluimos también un artículos de Guy Hennebelle donde cuenta la historia del Grupo CinémAction, el surgimiento de la revista y los diversos dossiers publicados en sus primeros años.
Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies Volume 9 Number 3, Jun 1, 2021
The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a p... more The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a prominent example of the connection between the European cinema of intervention and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. Set as a 'film within a film', the movie tells the story of a leftist filmmaker, Fausto Morelli, who faces the challenge of finishing a film about the liberation struggles of sub-Saharan Africa by building on the documentary footage that was bequeathed to him by his student and friend, the young Abramo Malonga, an African (Bantu). This article recovers overlooked and little-known documents about the film to show that it is the expression of an active cinematic Third Worldism forged in previous years between the legacy of the Resistenza Partigiana (Italian Resistance) and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. At the same time, the article analyses the ways in which the film 'dialogues' with experimental trends of the contemporary avantgarde artistic scene in order to challenge the viewer to debate the 'open ideological hypothesis' of the film and take an active part in the political struggles of the time.
Special Issue: DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
INTRODUCTION Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
ESSAYS Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971) “Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema” //
Group CinémAction “L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979) “The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World” //
Octavio Getino “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979) “Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’” //
PHOTO-ESSAY Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema” //
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world. -----------------------------------
Abstract: The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina. First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents. As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
INTRODUCTION Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
ESSAYS Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971) “Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema”
Group CinémAction “L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979) “The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World”
Octavio Getino “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979) “Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’”
PHOTO-ESSAY Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema”
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world.
Abstract: The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina. First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents. As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
Mestman, M. “Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal, 1974”. Publicado en e... more Mestman, M. “Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal, 1974”. Publicado en el Cuaderno número 3 Rehime, Buenos Aires, 2013-2014. This book includes unedited and previously unpublished material that provides insight into world political cinema in the 1960s and 1970s: the conferences, workshops and debates of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The conference was attended by filmmakers, producers and ’68 film groups from France and the first world, along with Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema. The title proposed for this book, Estates Generals of Third Cinema, highlights the revolutionary nature of the projects that characterized these times. Several fragments of the audiovisual recording of the conference (never before released) are included on the DVD that accompanies this book. These images allow us to reconstruct the debates of this intense political moment, debates among Latin Americans like Miguel Littín, Julio García Espinosa, Fernando Pino Solanas and Walter Achugar; Africans such as Med Hondo, Tahar Cheriaa, Férid Boughedir and Lamine Merbah; European critics like Guido Aristarco, Guy Hennebelle, Lino Micciché and Jean Partick Lebel; Canadians such as Fernand Dansereau, Gilles Groulx, André Paquet and Yvan Patry; as well as independent film distributors and groups like Slon/Iskra, Tricontinental, Mk2, The Other Cinema, and many others. After this research, André Pâquet prepared a Dossier with lot of another Documents and video recordings of the Conferences of the meeting for the Cinématheque Québécoise: http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/preambule/ There we can see two TV programs about the meeting (with english subtitles) that Mariano Mestman, Andrés Habegger and Fernando M. Peña made in Argentina, following the original research: http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/ During 2015 M. Mestman and Masha Salazkina prepared a Special Topic on the Rencontres… for the Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue Canadienne d´Études Cinématographiques (V.24, N.2), including articles by Vicent Bouchard, Marion Froger, Michael Chanan, Ignacio del Valle, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Irene Rozsa and Viviane Saglier, and an interview with André Pâquet and Carol Faucher by André Habib. (In english and French): http://www.filmstudies.ca/journal/cjfs/archives/24.2-fall-2015
... In this context, a Cinematheque was created within the 'Manuel Ugarte' Thir... more ... In this context, a Cinematheque was created within the 'Manuel Ugarte' Third World Institute under the ... In Italy, Gianonni used to take part in events like the Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo ... Back in Buenos Aires in 1973, Giannoni politically adhered to the Frente Amplio por el ...
Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2. (2015); pp. 29-40., 2015
Abstract:
Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world go... more Abstract: Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world got together at the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal, June, 1974). The list of participants included: filmmakers, producers and ‘68 film groups from France and elsewhere; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of a burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians and producers; and members from film institutes and distributors from Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the sheer number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference holds a serious claim to being one of the most important worldwide events in political cinema of the period. The most ambitious goal of the gathering in Montreal was to forge or strengthen ties among politically committed cinemas in the wake of the ruptures of 1968 in Europe as well as the emergence of Third Worldist filmmaking. The idea of an “Estates-General of Third Cinema”—an expression simultaneously referencing the events of May ’68 in France (Estates General of Cinema / Les États Généraux du Cinéma Français), combined with the notion of Third Cinema—stemmed from this goal and was incorporated into several projects of the period. In terms of the New Latin American Cinema, the documents and audiovisual records of the Rencontres… provide insight into this period of organization of filmmakers in the region. In the most common accounts of this historical moment, three key aspects revealed in the Montreal Documents are often ignored or attributed little importance: a) the fact that during the Rencontres, Latin American filmmakers had given shape to an initial group that is the immediate predecessor of the renowned Latin American Filmmakers’ Committee created in September that same year (1974); b) that the political relations among the most well-known Latin American figures (like Fernando Solanas, Edgardo Pallero, Walter Achugar, Miguel Littin, Julio García Espinosa) were wrought with tensions and conflict; c) that within the goal of organizing and forming a group of Latin American filmmakers, the Third Worldist trends -seen in the gatherings in the Third World Cinema Committee meetings of Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974) and (in some way also) Montreal (June 1974)- were aimed at forming a Latin American Filmmakers Federation (FELACI) that would operate under or follow the example set by FEPACI (the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers). This article focuses on these questions. Notes on the audiovisual documents: While many of the Montreal meeting’s documents where initially compiled in 1975, the audiovisual recordings of the event remained invisible until a few years ago. In total there were fifty one video recordings, although only forty eight have been preserved. I found these recordings in the Cinemathèque Québécoise archives in 2012. Thanks to the kindness and collaboration of André Pâquet and Jean Gagnon—director of collections at the Cinemathèque—a digital transfer of 32 of the 48 tapes was made, financed with funds from a Research Project of the CONICET, Argentina. They are now available in DVD for public consultation in Montreal and Buenos Aires. In the summer 2013/14, I published a research dedicated to the Montreal meeting, as well as some documents, and a DVD with three hours of audiovisual recordings. (M. Mestman, Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los Documentos de Montreal, 1974; Rehime, Volume 3, Buenos Aires, Summer 2013/2014). These materials were presented and discussed in April 2014 at a symposium organized by Luca Camianti and Masha Salazkina at Concordia University (Montreal). The idea for the 2015 dossier of the Canadian Journal for Film Studies (edited with Masha Salazkina) was assemble in depth research on the themes and problems debated during the meeting, emerged from that encounter.
ACLARACION: Este texto es una revisión actualizada a 2016 del publicado originalmente en 2002, co... more ACLARACION: Este texto es una revisión actualizada a 2016 del publicado originalmente en 2002, con un título ligeramente diverso. En 2016 se publicó en un número especial de la revista Secuencias, de homenaje al Profesor Alberto Elena, como se sabe, uno de los mayores historiadores de los cines del Tercer Mundo, del Sur o periféricos. En su versión original, el texto intentaba aportar nuevos documentos que mostraban la continuidad del famoso Encuentro de Cineastas del Tercer Mundo de diciembre de 1973 celebrado en Argel en una segunda reunión realizada en Buenos Aires en mayo de 1974. Pero en los años que siguieron a su publicación original, fueron apareciendo otras fuentes sobre el mismo tema o afines, hasta que en 2012 di con los registros audiovisuales de una suerte de continuidad de ese vínculo, ahora ya no en el Sur, sino en Montreal (Canadá). De ahí, el cambio también en el título respecto de la versión original (aquí se agrega Montreal). Este último encuentro del cine político mundial fue realizado en junio de 1974 y allí la tendencia tercermundista forjada entre Argel y Buenos Aires se expresó en toda su plenitud. Si bien publiqué estos materiales de Montreal en 2014 me pareció oportuno reeditar aquí el viejo artículo de la relación entre los dos primeros eventos (Argel-Buenos Aires) pero modificado en aspectos que fui corrigiendo en estos más de quince años y agregándole no sólo lo de Montreal, sino otros datos que fueron apareciendo recientemente en la bibliografía, como la presencia del argentino Raymundo Gleyzer en los vínculos con el cine argelino (que muestran las cartas publicadas hace poco por Juana Sapire y Cynthia Sabat) o la del chileno Sergio Trabucco en el encuentro de Buenos Aires (de su libro de 2014),, entre otras informaciones de otras fuentes que también incorporé.
A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.) , 2018
In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968... more In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) and the inseparable proposal of Third Cinema (1969). In this chapter I will focus on a less explored aspect: the film’s journey in non-commercial, alternative or militant circuits linked to the student and workers movement in the first world throughout 1968 and the immediate following years. The Hour of the Furnaces and the manifesto Towards a Third Cinema can be inscribed, as it is well known, within a wider period, the so-called long 60s. After the pioneer essay by Fredric Jameson (1984) on this period – that according to him could be tracked back to sometime in the second half of the 1950s and could be extended until 1972-1974 – many other authors used the same concept and proposed different periodizations. As far as I am aware, the ‘widest’ locates the origins of the long 60s at the beginning of the Algeria War (1954) or the Bandung Conference (1955) and its ending in the Sandinist Revolution (1979). Of course, it is a periodization that takes into account also the idea of the global 1960s inasmuch as the 1960s account for the expansion of a common sensibility at an international level that tries to cover a wide range of processes of rebellion, revolt, insurrection and revolution in a number of countries around the world. That temporal extension (long 60s.) and geographical (global 60s.) is quite apt to think about The Hour of the Furnaces in its national and international context. Although its world premiere took place amidst the revolts of 1968, at the same time, it is possible to find the conditions that made the film possible as far back as the middle of the 1950s. And this not only because its third worldism dialogues with Algeria and Bandung, but also because 1955 is the year of the civic-military coup against the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and the beginning of the so-called “Peronist resistance” against successive governments. The whole of the second part of the film, sometimes disregarded by academic accounts, concerns itself precisely with Peronism and “the Resistance”. At the same time, we can extend its ‘sixties’ influence until the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we can take also as a significant fact the almost forgotten dossier organised in 1979 by Guy Hennebelle and the group CinémAction for the magazine Tiers Monde (1979) about the influence of the film and the manifesto in several countries around the world. As it is well known, in the 1980s, and even in later periods, the film and the document were revisited in new manifestos, events and proposals in different places. Although, from my perspective, the historical period of The Hour of the Furnaces (and of Third Cinema) had already concluded even in those years, its ideas (cinematic, political) could still dialogue without a doubt with oppositional and confrontational to power initiatives in many countries. In an important essay on the “changing geography” of Third Cinema, Michael Chanan (1997) reconstructed, among other questions, the history of the film and of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto; some misinterpretations and modifications of the original definitions of the three types of cinema; the connections of the film with parallel movements in different countries; and the “transnational function” of Third Cinema. The author also addressed the subsequent recuperation of the thesis put forward by the film and the manifesto and their dialogue with other perspectives more or less similar in the 1980s. In particular, he wrote of the pioneer recuperation by the scholar Teshome Gabriel in his works at the beginning of the decade. He also focused on the well-known Third Cinema Conference held in Edinburgh in 1986, organised by Jim Pines and Paul Willemen that focused on the relevance of the concept of Third Cinema for the oppositional practices in film and video in the 1980s in the metropolitan centres of First World countries. In what follows, I will return over some of the testimonies and ideas included in those two moments of the debate around Third Cinema. (the CinémAction dossier of 1979 and the meeting in Edinburgh of 1986 ) and I will survey other less well known sources and documents such as catalogues from parallel distributors, letters, testimonies or press notes from those days. From there, I aim to look at the place that The Hour of the Furnaces occupied in the circuit of political and militant cinema in the first world, the debates it sparked, the polemics in which it took part . Of course, it will probably be an incomplete journey but I do not think it is a question of summarising that history but of continuing to explore it. (...)
Published in the book A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.), Intellect, 2018; pp.135-158.
This is an introduction to a special issue of Canadian Journal of Film Studies that seeks to reco... more This is an introduction to a special issue of Canadian Journal of Film Studies that seeks to reconstruct history of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference on political cinema held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The long list of participants included filmmakers, producers and film collectives from France; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians, producers, and distributors from all over Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference could be considered the most important event in world political cinema of the period. However, despite its obvious importance to reconstructing the history of the international(ist) film movements of the 1960s and 70s, the meeting has been completely overlooked in scholarship. This special issue seeks to rectify this omission by bringing together essays analyzing different aspects and geopolitical agendas which shaped this conference, basing its findings on the are audiovisual recordings of the talks, workshops and debates of the conference, which are currently archived at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
El título de este ensayo alude a dos manifestaciones culturales experimentales, de vanguardia en ... more El título de este ensayo alude a dos manifestaciones culturales experimentales, de vanguardia en torno al Congreso Cultural de La Habana de enero de 1968: la exposición Del Tercer Mundo, una intervención colectiva realizada en el Pabellón Cuba de la Rampa, y el noticiero cinematográfico (luego documental) sobre el Congreso, titulado La hora de los hornos y dirigido por Santiago Álvarez. En este sentido, el título podría considerarse literal, porque me propongo analizar cómo incorporó el noticiero las imágenes de esa exposición (También otras expresiones de la cultura visual cubana). Al mismo tiempo, junto al subtítulo (Internacionalismo y Vanguardia) se refieren al sentido histórico de ambas producciones así como del mismo Congreso: en torno al lugar del Tercer Mundo en esos años que Ernesto Che Guevara (citando a José Martí) había propuesto como una “hora de los hornos”. A partir de investigaciones que recuperaron el Congreso Cultural y la exposición Del Tercer Mundo, se facilita el abordaje de La hora de los hornos (cubana) en estas páginas. De este modo, primero recorreré algunos aspectos generales del Congreso Cultural en relación con la presencia allí de la dirigencia del cine cubano (I) y comentaré los rasgos principales de la exposición del Tercer Mundo (II). Luego me detendré en el análisis de cómo el noticiero incorpora las imágenes de la exposición así como numeroso y variado footage de archivos propios y ajenos, que intentaré identificar (III). Finalmente, contextualizaré ambas manifestaciones culturales en el momento atravesado por la cultura visual cubana y mencionaré el diálogo de este noticiero y su director con eventos artísticos y culturales inmediatamente previos, para concluir por qué –desde mi punto de vista- La hora de los hornos reconoce particularidades dentro del conjunto de la obra de Santiago Álvarez (IV y V).
La versión definitiva de este ensayo será publicada en 2022, en el libro con las ponencias del Simposio internacional "Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)”, organizado por Katerina Valdivia Bruch en marzo de 2021 desde Berlín.
Se incluye, en el siguiente orden:
Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce aut... more Se incluye, en el siguiente orden: Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce autores.
Abstract: 1968 constituye un punto de referencia ineludible en la historia del siglo XX. La expresión 68, como indicación de una nueva sensibilidad político-cultural, ha sido estudiada desde diversas disciplinas, también para lo cinematográfico. Pero, ¿hasta dónde se ha indagado su significación en América Latina? Este libro se pregunta por las rupturas que acarreó el cine del 68 en la región. ¿Cómo interpretarlo más allá de la mirada “eurocéntrica” que hasta hace poco dominó los relatos?, ¿qué significados y valores comunes reconoce con fenómenos ocurridos en otras cinematografías, hegemónicas o del Tercer Mundo?, ¿a qué años remite el momento 68 en cada lugar?, ¿cómo superar las visiones generales sobre América Latina como conjunto y en cambio precisar en las singularidades de lo ocurrido en cada país? Estos y otros interrogantes motivan los ensayos a cargo de destacados especialistas. Aun cuando indagan en un período más amplio, la “larga década del ´60”, muestran que el 68 constituye un momento clave de las rupturas. Sin excluir las perspectivas comparadas o los vínculos transnacionales, los capítulos profundizan en las configuraciones culturales nacionales en que dichas rupturas tuvieron lugar. Y al mismo tiempo focalizan en la coopresencia en cada caso de tres dimensiones características: lo experimental, lo contracultural y lo político.
Autores (por orden de artículos): David Oubiña, Javier Sanjinés, Ismail Xavier, Iván Pinto, Sergio Becerra, Juan Antonio García Borrero, Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón, Cecilia Lacruz, María Luisa Ortega, Mirta Varela, Paula Halperin.
Annali - AAMOD, n.23 - Labanta! Ex colonie portoghesi e cinema italiano , 2024
Annali 23, AAMOD: https://www.cpadver-effigi.com/blog/labanta-ex-colonie-portoghesi-e-cinema-ital... more Annali 23, AAMOD: https://www.cpadver-effigi.com/blog/labanta-ex-colonie-portoghesi-e-cinema-italiano/ Questo saggio è una traduzione di parti dello Studio Preliminare di M. Mestman (pp. 7-177) del libro in spagnolo Los condenados de la tierra: un film tra Europa e il Terzo Mondo (Alberto Filippi e M. Mestman, Akal, Buenos Aires 2022).
Cinema e Storia, Cinema italiano postcoloniale, 2024
Tra il 1966 e il 1968, il cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini e il filosofo italo-venezuelano Albe... more Tra il 1966 e il 1968, il cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini e il filosofo italo-venezuelano Alberto Filippi realizzano il film I dannati della Terra, ispirato al libro omonimo di Frantz Fanon. In questo saggio, analizzo il film come un “caso” particolare di configurazione del cinema terzomondista italiano dell’epoca. Voglio mostrare come i concetti, le idee o le riflessioni che il film porta avanti siano stati elaborati in dialogo con prospettive e discorsi politici storicamente situati e forgiati nei processi di resistenza, liberazione o indipendenza (italiani, europei, del Terzo Mondo) e, più precisamente, in attività ed eventi ai quali gli autori del film parteciparono. Sebbene questi scambi risalgano ad anni precedenti, mi concentrerò qui sulla partecipazione di Orsini e Filippi al Congresso Culturale dell’Avana (gennaio 1968), nonché sulla relazione di quell’esperienza con le prime riprese realizzate l’anno precedente in Guinea Bissau (marzo-aprile 1967). (all’epoca colonia portoghese) nell’ambito delle case di produzione della sinistra italiana (l’Ager Film e l’Unitelefilm), il tutto alla vigilia della contestazione del ’68, quando I dannati fu completato ed esibito.
Iberic@l - Revue d'études ibériques et ibéro-américaines, n.23, 2023
(English below)
Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968)... more (English below) Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968), intitulé L’heure des brasiers, réalisé par Santiago Álvarez. L´ essai se concentre sur les appropriations et les citations de diverses expressions de la culture visuelle cubaine florissante de l'époque, en particulier les images de l’exposition Du Tiers-Monde. L'article analyse cette manifestation culturelle collective et le film d'actualités comme des expressions de la confluence de l'internationalisme et de l'expérimentation d'avant-garde autour du Congrès.- Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/iberical/943 ISSN : 2260-2534 - Éditeur: Sorbonne Université - Laboratoire CRIMIC
This essay studies the film-newsreel about the Havana Cultural Congress (1968), entitled The Hour of the Furnaces, directed by Santiago Álvarez. It focuses on the appropriations and quotations from various expressions of the thriving Cuban visual culture of the time, in particular, images from the exhibition From the Third World. The article analyses this collective cultural manifestation and the newsreel as expressions of the confluence of internationalism and avant-garde experimentation around the Congress.
Martina Kopf und Sascha Seiler (Hg.), Die 1968er Jahre. Utopie und Desillusion in Literatur, Film und Musik, 2023
Dieser Beitrag erschien zuerst in: Humberto Pérez-Blanco und Javier Campo (Hg.): A Trail of Fire ... more Dieser Beitrag erschien zuerst in: Humberto Pérez-Blanco und Javier Campo (Hg.): A Trail of Fire for Political Cinema. The Hour of the Furnaces Fifty Years Later, Bristol: Intellect, 2019, 135–158. Der Autor und die Herausgeber danken dem Rechteinhaber (Intellect) für die Erlaubnis zum Nachdruck (mit wenigen Ergänzungen bzw. Modifikationen) in der deutschen Übersetzung. Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Martina Kopf.
, Nancy Berthier y Camila Arêas, eds., Noticiero ICAIC: Memoria del mundo, , 2023
Este ensayo en torno a las noticias sobre Argelia aparecidas en el Noticiero cinematográfico cuba... more Este ensayo en torno a las noticias sobre Argelia aparecidas en el Noticiero cinematográfico cubano forma parte del libro colectivo dirigido por Nancy Berthier y Camila Arêas sobre el Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano. El Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano es el único noticiario producido por el ICAIC y lleva el sello de este lugar de realización tan cercano al poder. Creado 83 días después del derrocamiento del dictador Fulgencio Batista, como primera institución cultural de la Revolución, el ICAIC se inscribió en una dinámica de relevo ideológico del régimen. Durante una treintena de años, entre junio de 1960 y julio de 1990, el Noticiero informó sobre la actualidad nacional e internacional a un público cubano especialmente aficionado a sus ediciones casi semanales. Difundido en las salas de cine y en los cine-móviles que recorrían la isla, el Noticiero compitió con éxito con los informativos de televisión e informó de una manera diferente, más diversificada, sintética, militante y artística. Aún hoy, los cubanos recuerdan con cierta nostalgia la época en la que acudían al cine cada semana para informarse y discutir colectivamente la actualidad nacional e internacional en función de la última edición del NIL. Las 1493 ediciones de noticiarios cinematográficos cubanos constituyen un acervo formidable, cuyos negativos originales fueron incluidos en el registro “Memoria del Mundo” de la Unesco en 2009.
Esta obra es la edición española de un conjunto de textos que se presentó en el Coloquio «El Noticiero ICAIC: una fuente sobre/de/para la historia» celebrado en París en octubre de 2021. El propósito del evento fue conformar con ese conjunto de textos un libro de referencia que publicó inicialmente en francés el Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual de Francia. Su autoría corresponde a historiadores y estudiosos procedentes de Francia, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos, Brasil, Chile y Cuba, quienes desde distintos ángulos y temáticas analizan ese extraordinario medio informativo.
Instituciones participantes
Cinemateca de Cuba, Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Centro de Investigación Interdisciplinar sobre Mundos Ibéricos Contemporáneos (CRIMIC) de la Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Laboratorio de investigación sobre los espacios criollos y francófonos (LCF) de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual (INA) de Francia. Asociación Cultural Hurón Azul para la promoción de la cultura cubana, España.
De la contratapa:
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italove... more De la contratapa:
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italovenezolano Alberto Filippi realizaron el film I dannati della terra/Los condenados de la tierra, inspirado en el libro homónimo del revolucionario afrocaribeño Frantz Fanon. Este ensayo cinematográfico de intervención sobre la necesidad ética y política de hacer la revolución, una revolución que abarque tanto al Tercer Mundo como a Europa, recorre la historia de la intensa amistad entre el cineasta de la izquierda italiana Fausto Morelli y el joven militante fanoniano Abramo Malonga, así como sus diálogos sobre las luchas de liberación africanas (...).
Medio siglo después, M. Mestman y A. Filippi han recuperado este film, mucho tiempo olvidado, y han reconstruido y documentado el contexto cultural y político en el cual fue concebido, así como las polémicas que suscitó(...)".
(Se Incluye la tapa, el Indice General y el Estudio Preliminar a cargo de M.Mestman)
Nancy Berthier et Camila Arêas, dirs., Noticiero ICAIC 30 ans d’actualités cinématographiques à Cuba. Bry-sur-Marne, INA Éditions, 2022, 2022
Les processus révolutionnaires à Cuba (1953-1959) et en Algérie
(1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé ... more Les processus révolutionnaires à Cuba (1953-1959) et en Algérie (1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé dans l’essor du Mouvement des pays non-alignés et sont devenus des points de référence en Amérique latine et en Afrique pour la radicalisation politique de ce que l’on appelle le Tiers-Monde pendant la « longue décennie des années 1960 » ou les longs 60s. Dans le même temps, ces deux révolutions ont exercé une influence notable sur les gauches du Premier Monde et ont remis en question – du moins pendant un temps – les stratégies du soi-disant «socialisme réel» et de la « coexistence pacifique ». Il s’agit bien sûr d’une histoire complexe aux multiples variantes. Les relations entre ces deux processus ont été nouées avant l’indépendance de l’Algérie (5 juillet 1962), et le Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano (NIL) a consacré plusieurs reportages à l’Algérie au cours des années 1960 et au début de la décennie suivante. Ce chapitre les passe en revue et tente de montrer comment s’est configuré une sorte de parallélisme (historique et programmatique) entre les deux pays, qui a mis en évidence une épopée internationaliste et anti-impérialiste commune, tout en faisant allusion aux aléas de la situation politique algérienne, et en reflétant les changements d’orientation dans les relations entre Cuba et l’Algérie, ainsi qu’avec les pays du Tiers-Monde et l’URSS. Les références à l’Algérie dans le NIL apparaissent essentiellement entre 1960 et 1974, où trois périodes ont pu être identifiquées par rapport aux thèmes abordés et à l’histoire politique algérienne : entre 1960 et 1965, nous trouvons les premières références à la lutte de libération jusqu’au renversement du président Ahmed Ben Bella. Entre 1966 et 1971, on peut parler d’un « silence » du NIL à l’égard de l’Algérie. Enfin, entre 1972 et 1974, les actualités mettent en avant la figure du président Houari Boumédiène, associée au projet du Mouvement des pays non-alignés.
Imagofagia. Revista de la Asociación Argentina de Estudios de Cine y Audiovisvual, 2022
La hora de los hornos (1968) y el manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), de Octavio Getino y F... more La hora de los hornos (1968) y el manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), de Octavio Getino y Fernando Solanas, tuvieron un notable impacto en el cine político internacional durante la década de 1970 e incluso en períodos posteriores. Entre los documentos y testimonios sobre esa experiencia, se destaca el dossier L’influence du “troisième cinéma” dans le monde (La influencia del “tercer cine” en el mundo), organizado en 1979 por Guy Hennebelle junto a Monique Martineau y su entonces naciente colectivo CinémAction, y publicado en un número especial de la Revue Tiers Monde, bajo la dirección de Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre. En su edición original de 1979, el grupo CinémAction presentó este documento como un estudio que podría llegar a conducir a un coloquio y a una refundación del manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine”. Aquí publicamos la tercera sección de ese dossier, una encuesta a once críticos, cineastas o historiadores de diferentes países de Europa, Africa y América Latina sobre dicha influencia. Desde hace algunos años venimos recuperando este dossier de CinémAction en nuestros escritos y buscamos difundirlo entre los investigadores interesados en el Tercer Cine y el cine militante o cine de intervención. Gracias a la autorización y gentileza de Monique Martineau-Hennebelle y de Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre, a inicios de 2021 publicamos una traducción al inglés de la encuesta en el journal Framework, junto a otros documentos. Ahora, en el presente número de Imagofagia, la publicamos en español. Al final del documento, incluimos también un artículos de Guy Hennebelle donde cuenta la historia del Grupo CinémAction, el surgimiento de la revista y los diversos dossiers publicados en sus primeros años.
Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies Volume 9 Number 3, Jun 1, 2021
The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a p... more The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a prominent example of the connection between the European cinema of intervention and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. Set as a 'film within a film', the movie tells the story of a leftist filmmaker, Fausto Morelli, who faces the challenge of finishing a film about the liberation struggles of sub-Saharan Africa by building on the documentary footage that was bequeathed to him by his student and friend, the young Abramo Malonga, an African (Bantu). This article recovers overlooked and little-known documents about the film to show that it is the expression of an active cinematic Third Worldism forged in previous years between the legacy of the Resistenza Partigiana (Italian Resistance) and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. At the same time, the article analyses the ways in which the film 'dialogues' with experimental trends of the contemporary avantgarde artistic scene in order to challenge the viewer to debate the 'open ideological hypothesis' of the film and take an active part in the political struggles of the time.
Special Issue: DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
INTRODUCTION Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
ESSAYS Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971) “Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema” //
Group CinémAction “L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979) “The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World” //
Octavio Getino “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979) “Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’” //
PHOTO-ESSAY Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema” //
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world. -----------------------------------
Abstract: The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina. First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents. As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
INTRODUCTION Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
ESSAYS Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971) “Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema”
Group CinémAction “L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979) “The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World”
Octavio Getino “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979) “Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’”
PHOTO-ESSAY Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema”
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world.
Abstract: The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina. First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents. As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
Mestman, M. “Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal, 1974”. Publicado en e... more Mestman, M. “Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal, 1974”. Publicado en el Cuaderno número 3 Rehime, Buenos Aires, 2013-2014. This book includes unedited and previously unpublished material that provides insight into world political cinema in the 1960s and 1970s: the conferences, workshops and debates of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The conference was attended by filmmakers, producers and ’68 film groups from France and the first world, along with Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema. The title proposed for this book, Estates Generals of Third Cinema, highlights the revolutionary nature of the projects that characterized these times. Several fragments of the audiovisual recording of the conference (never before released) are included on the DVD that accompanies this book. These images allow us to reconstruct the debates of this intense political moment, debates among Latin Americans like Miguel Littín, Julio García Espinosa, Fernando Pino Solanas and Walter Achugar; Africans such as Med Hondo, Tahar Cheriaa, Férid Boughedir and Lamine Merbah; European critics like Guido Aristarco, Guy Hennebelle, Lino Micciché and Jean Partick Lebel; Canadians such as Fernand Dansereau, Gilles Groulx, André Paquet and Yvan Patry; as well as independent film distributors and groups like Slon/Iskra, Tricontinental, Mk2, The Other Cinema, and many others. After this research, André Pâquet prepared a Dossier with lot of another Documents and video recordings of the Conferences of the meeting for the Cinématheque Québécoise: http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/preambule/ There we can see two TV programs about the meeting (with english subtitles) that Mariano Mestman, Andrés Habegger and Fernando M. Peña made in Argentina, following the original research: http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/ During 2015 M. Mestman and Masha Salazkina prepared a Special Topic on the Rencontres… for the Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue Canadienne d´Études Cinématographiques (V.24, N.2), including articles by Vicent Bouchard, Marion Froger, Michael Chanan, Ignacio del Valle, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Irene Rozsa and Viviane Saglier, and an interview with André Pâquet and Carol Faucher by André Habib. (In english and French): http://www.filmstudies.ca/journal/cjfs/archives/24.2-fall-2015
... In this context, a Cinematheque was created within the 'Manuel Ugarte' Thir... more ... In this context, a Cinematheque was created within the 'Manuel Ugarte' Third World Institute under the ... In Italy, Gianonni used to take part in events like the Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo ... Back in Buenos Aires in 1973, Giannoni politically adhered to the Frente Amplio por el ...
Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2. (2015); pp. 29-40., 2015
Abstract:
Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world go... more Abstract: Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world got together at the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal, June, 1974). The list of participants included: filmmakers, producers and ‘68 film groups from France and elsewhere; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of a burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians and producers; and members from film institutes and distributors from Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the sheer number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference holds a serious claim to being one of the most important worldwide events in political cinema of the period. The most ambitious goal of the gathering in Montreal was to forge or strengthen ties among politically committed cinemas in the wake of the ruptures of 1968 in Europe as well as the emergence of Third Worldist filmmaking. The idea of an “Estates-General of Third Cinema”—an expression simultaneously referencing the events of May ’68 in France (Estates General of Cinema / Les États Généraux du Cinéma Français), combined with the notion of Third Cinema—stemmed from this goal and was incorporated into several projects of the period. In terms of the New Latin American Cinema, the documents and audiovisual records of the Rencontres… provide insight into this period of organization of filmmakers in the region. In the most common accounts of this historical moment, three key aspects revealed in the Montreal Documents are often ignored or attributed little importance: a) the fact that during the Rencontres, Latin American filmmakers had given shape to an initial group that is the immediate predecessor of the renowned Latin American Filmmakers’ Committee created in September that same year (1974); b) that the political relations among the most well-known Latin American figures (like Fernando Solanas, Edgardo Pallero, Walter Achugar, Miguel Littin, Julio García Espinosa) were wrought with tensions and conflict; c) that within the goal of organizing and forming a group of Latin American filmmakers, the Third Worldist trends -seen in the gatherings in the Third World Cinema Committee meetings of Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974) and (in some way also) Montreal (June 1974)- were aimed at forming a Latin American Filmmakers Federation (FELACI) that would operate under or follow the example set by FEPACI (the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers). This article focuses on these questions. Notes on the audiovisual documents: While many of the Montreal meeting’s documents where initially compiled in 1975, the audiovisual recordings of the event remained invisible until a few years ago. In total there were fifty one video recordings, although only forty eight have been preserved. I found these recordings in the Cinemathèque Québécoise archives in 2012. Thanks to the kindness and collaboration of André Pâquet and Jean Gagnon—director of collections at the Cinemathèque—a digital transfer of 32 of the 48 tapes was made, financed with funds from a Research Project of the CONICET, Argentina. They are now available in DVD for public consultation in Montreal and Buenos Aires. In the summer 2013/14, I published a research dedicated to the Montreal meeting, as well as some documents, and a DVD with three hours of audiovisual recordings. (M. Mestman, Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los Documentos de Montreal, 1974; Rehime, Volume 3, Buenos Aires, Summer 2013/2014). These materials were presented and discussed in April 2014 at a symposium organized by Luca Camianti and Masha Salazkina at Concordia University (Montreal). The idea for the 2015 dossier of the Canadian Journal for Film Studies (edited with Masha Salazkina) was assemble in depth research on the themes and problems debated during the meeting, emerged from that encounter.
ACLARACION: Este texto es una revisión actualizada a 2016 del publicado originalmente en 2002, co... more ACLARACION: Este texto es una revisión actualizada a 2016 del publicado originalmente en 2002, con un título ligeramente diverso. En 2016 se publicó en un número especial de la revista Secuencias, de homenaje al Profesor Alberto Elena, como se sabe, uno de los mayores historiadores de los cines del Tercer Mundo, del Sur o periféricos. En su versión original, el texto intentaba aportar nuevos documentos que mostraban la continuidad del famoso Encuentro de Cineastas del Tercer Mundo de diciembre de 1973 celebrado en Argel en una segunda reunión realizada en Buenos Aires en mayo de 1974. Pero en los años que siguieron a su publicación original, fueron apareciendo otras fuentes sobre el mismo tema o afines, hasta que en 2012 di con los registros audiovisuales de una suerte de continuidad de ese vínculo, ahora ya no en el Sur, sino en Montreal (Canadá). De ahí, el cambio también en el título respecto de la versión original (aquí se agrega Montreal). Este último encuentro del cine político mundial fue realizado en junio de 1974 y allí la tendencia tercermundista forjada entre Argel y Buenos Aires se expresó en toda su plenitud. Si bien publiqué estos materiales de Montreal en 2014 me pareció oportuno reeditar aquí el viejo artículo de la relación entre los dos primeros eventos (Argel-Buenos Aires) pero modificado en aspectos que fui corrigiendo en estos más de quince años y agregándole no sólo lo de Montreal, sino otros datos que fueron apareciendo recientemente en la bibliografía, como la presencia del argentino Raymundo Gleyzer en los vínculos con el cine argelino (que muestran las cartas publicadas hace poco por Juana Sapire y Cynthia Sabat) o la del chileno Sergio Trabucco en el encuentro de Buenos Aires (de su libro de 2014),, entre otras informaciones de otras fuentes que también incorporé.
A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.) , 2018
In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968... more In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) and the inseparable proposal of Third Cinema (1969). In this chapter I will focus on a less explored aspect: the film’s journey in non-commercial, alternative or militant circuits linked to the student and workers movement in the first world throughout 1968 and the immediate following years. The Hour of the Furnaces and the manifesto Towards a Third Cinema can be inscribed, as it is well known, within a wider period, the so-called long 60s. After the pioneer essay by Fredric Jameson (1984) on this period – that according to him could be tracked back to sometime in the second half of the 1950s and could be extended until 1972-1974 – many other authors used the same concept and proposed different periodizations. As far as I am aware, the ‘widest’ locates the origins of the long 60s at the beginning of the Algeria War (1954) or the Bandung Conference (1955) and its ending in the Sandinist Revolution (1979). Of course, it is a periodization that takes into account also the idea of the global 1960s inasmuch as the 1960s account for the expansion of a common sensibility at an international level that tries to cover a wide range of processes of rebellion, revolt, insurrection and revolution in a number of countries around the world. That temporal extension (long 60s.) and geographical (global 60s.) is quite apt to think about The Hour of the Furnaces in its national and international context. Although its world premiere took place amidst the revolts of 1968, at the same time, it is possible to find the conditions that made the film possible as far back as the middle of the 1950s. And this not only because its third worldism dialogues with Algeria and Bandung, but also because 1955 is the year of the civic-military coup against the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and the beginning of the so-called “Peronist resistance” against successive governments. The whole of the second part of the film, sometimes disregarded by academic accounts, concerns itself precisely with Peronism and “the Resistance”. At the same time, we can extend its ‘sixties’ influence until the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we can take also as a significant fact the almost forgotten dossier organised in 1979 by Guy Hennebelle and the group CinémAction for the magazine Tiers Monde (1979) about the influence of the film and the manifesto in several countries around the world. As it is well known, in the 1980s, and even in later periods, the film and the document were revisited in new manifestos, events and proposals in different places. Although, from my perspective, the historical period of The Hour of the Furnaces (and of Third Cinema) had already concluded even in those years, its ideas (cinematic, political) could still dialogue without a doubt with oppositional and confrontational to power initiatives in many countries. In an important essay on the “changing geography” of Third Cinema, Michael Chanan (1997) reconstructed, among other questions, the history of the film and of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto; some misinterpretations and modifications of the original definitions of the three types of cinema; the connections of the film with parallel movements in different countries; and the “transnational function” of Third Cinema. The author also addressed the subsequent recuperation of the thesis put forward by the film and the manifesto and their dialogue with other perspectives more or less similar in the 1980s. In particular, he wrote of the pioneer recuperation by the scholar Teshome Gabriel in his works at the beginning of the decade. He also focused on the well-known Third Cinema Conference held in Edinburgh in 1986, organised by Jim Pines and Paul Willemen that focused on the relevance of the concept of Third Cinema for the oppositional practices in film and video in the 1980s in the metropolitan centres of First World countries. In what follows, I will return over some of the testimonies and ideas included in those two moments of the debate around Third Cinema. (the CinémAction dossier of 1979 and the meeting in Edinburgh of 1986 ) and I will survey other less well known sources and documents such as catalogues from parallel distributors, letters, testimonies or press notes from those days. From there, I aim to look at the place that The Hour of the Furnaces occupied in the circuit of political and militant cinema in the first world, the debates it sparked, the polemics in which it took part . Of course, it will probably be an incomplete journey but I do not think it is a question of summarising that history but of continuing to explore it. (...)
Published in the book A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.), Intellect, 2018; pp.135-158.
This is an introduction to a special issue of Canadian Journal of Film Studies that seeks to reco... more This is an introduction to a special issue of Canadian Journal of Film Studies that seeks to reconstruct history of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference on political cinema held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The long list of participants included filmmakers, producers and film collectives from France; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians, producers, and distributors from all over Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference could be considered the most important event in world political cinema of the period. However, despite its obvious importance to reconstructing the history of the international(ist) film movements of the 1960s and 70s, the meeting has been completely overlooked in scholarship. This special issue seeks to rectify this omission by bringing together essays analyzing different aspects and geopolitical agendas which shaped this conference, basing its findings on the are audiovisual recordings of the talks, workshops and debates of the conference, which are currently archived at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
El título de este ensayo alude a dos manifestaciones culturales experimentales, de vanguardia en ... more El título de este ensayo alude a dos manifestaciones culturales experimentales, de vanguardia en torno al Congreso Cultural de La Habana de enero de 1968: la exposición Del Tercer Mundo, una intervención colectiva realizada en el Pabellón Cuba de la Rampa, y el noticiero cinematográfico (luego documental) sobre el Congreso, titulado La hora de los hornos y dirigido por Santiago Álvarez. En este sentido, el título podría considerarse literal, porque me propongo analizar cómo incorporó el noticiero las imágenes de esa exposición (También otras expresiones de la cultura visual cubana). Al mismo tiempo, junto al subtítulo (Internacionalismo y Vanguardia) se refieren al sentido histórico de ambas producciones así como del mismo Congreso: en torno al lugar del Tercer Mundo en esos años que Ernesto Che Guevara (citando a José Martí) había propuesto como una “hora de los hornos”. A partir de investigaciones que recuperaron el Congreso Cultural y la exposición Del Tercer Mundo, se facilita el abordaje de La hora de los hornos (cubana) en estas páginas. De este modo, primero recorreré algunos aspectos generales del Congreso Cultural en relación con la presencia allí de la dirigencia del cine cubano (I) y comentaré los rasgos principales de la exposición del Tercer Mundo (II). Luego me detendré en el análisis de cómo el noticiero incorpora las imágenes de la exposición así como numeroso y variado footage de archivos propios y ajenos, que intentaré identificar (III). Finalmente, contextualizaré ambas manifestaciones culturales en el momento atravesado por la cultura visual cubana y mencionaré el diálogo de este noticiero y su director con eventos artísticos y culturales inmediatamente previos, para concluir por qué –desde mi punto de vista- La hora de los hornos reconoce particularidades dentro del conjunto de la obra de Santiago Álvarez (IV y V).
La versión definitiva de este ensayo será publicada en 2022, en el libro con las ponencias del Simposio internacional "Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)”, organizado por Katerina Valdivia Bruch en marzo de 2021 desde Berlín.
Se incluye, en el siguiente orden:
Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce aut... more Se incluye, en el siguiente orden: Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce autores.
Abstract: 1968 constituye un punto de referencia ineludible en la historia del siglo XX. La expresión 68, como indicación de una nueva sensibilidad político-cultural, ha sido estudiada desde diversas disciplinas, también para lo cinematográfico. Pero, ¿hasta dónde se ha indagado su significación en América Latina? Este libro se pregunta por las rupturas que acarreó el cine del 68 en la región. ¿Cómo interpretarlo más allá de la mirada “eurocéntrica” que hasta hace poco dominó los relatos?, ¿qué significados y valores comunes reconoce con fenómenos ocurridos en otras cinematografías, hegemónicas o del Tercer Mundo?, ¿a qué años remite el momento 68 en cada lugar?, ¿cómo superar las visiones generales sobre América Latina como conjunto y en cambio precisar en las singularidades de lo ocurrido en cada país? Estos y otros interrogantes motivan los ensayos a cargo de destacados especialistas. Aun cuando indagan en un período más amplio, la “larga década del ´60”, muestran que el 68 constituye un momento clave de las rupturas. Sin excluir las perspectivas comparadas o los vínculos transnacionales, los capítulos profundizan en las configuraciones culturales nacionales en que dichas rupturas tuvieron lugar. Y al mismo tiempo focalizan en la coopresencia en cada caso de tres dimensiones características: lo experimental, lo contracultural y lo político.
Autores (por orden de artículos): David Oubiña, Javier Sanjinés, Ismail Xavier, Iván Pinto, Sergio Becerra, Juan Antonio García Borrero, Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón, Cecilia Lacruz, María Luisa Ortega, Mirta Varela, Paula Halperin.
(English below)
1a. edición: Editorial El Cielo por Asalto, 2000.
2a. edición: Editorial Eudeba,... more (English below) 1a. edición: Editorial El Cielo por Asalto, 2000. 2a. edición: Editorial Eudeba, 2008. Premio “Jorge Barón Biza” al aporte de investigación del año 2000, Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte.
En 1968, un grupo de artistas de vanguardia porteños y rosarinos protagonizó una serie de radicales acciones que pusieron en escena su ruptura con las instituciones artísticas modernizadoras y las formas establecidas de concebir y practicar el arte. Al postular que sus realizaciones experimentales eran efectivas contribuciones al proceso revolucionario (cuya resolución vislumbraban inminente) estos artistas redefinieron también los modos consabidos de articular arte y política. Cuando este libro se publicó por primera vez, en 2000, apostaba a intervenir en un incipiente espacio de luchas por definir el sentido y el impacto de aquella experiencia radical, apuntando al rescate de su condición de desafío sobre su tiempo y el nuestro. Ante la insistente (casi redundante) recuperación de estas experiencias -en particular Tucumán Arde- que viene teniendo lugar en la última década, resulta indiscutible hablar de su definitivo ingreso al canon. La tarea hoy ya no es reconstruir Tucumán Arde en tanto episodio olvidado o silenciado, reunir sus escasos restos materiales y devolverles alguna legibilidad, sino terciar en medio del clamor glamoroso por insistir en la condición radicalmente política de su herencia, que se resiste a quedar reducida a formas pacificadas, estilos renovados y clasificaciones tranquilizadoras, y que sigue obligándonos a preguntar –una y otra vez- por lo que aún no entendemos ni resignamos. Escribió el artista y teórico español Marcelo Expósito: “No hay concesiones en este libro ejemplar. Sus autores hacen lo que muy poca historiografía del arte: asumir las coordenadas autorreflexivas y de crítica de los lenguajes que caracterizan a su caso de estudio, para volverlas hacia la propia trama narrativa. Atacan la manera en que la historia recupera experiencias periféricas como ‘Tucumán Arde’, categorizándolas como arte conceptual y/o político, para restituirle su riqueza, límites y contradicción en un relato no reducido a la unidimensionalidad de lo estético.”
Abstract: This book presents a reconstruction of the actions and definitions of a significant group of avant-garde artists in Argentina who were involved in experimental visual arts. Throughout 1968, they decided to break with the institutions of art to which they were related (particularly Instituto Di Tella) in order to take their production elsewhere, away from the art milieu. We have called this process “the itinerary of ‘68”, for it is composed of a series of productions and public interventions carried out between April and December 1968. This was the path chosen by several groups of experimental artists to show that –in Raymond Williams’ words- they were forsaking an alternative stance to become engaged in one of opposition. Their intention was to confront not only with the institutions of art but also with the military regime then in power, and even with capitalism. We understand the itinerary of ’68 as an ephemeral yet paradigmatic expression of the tensions that strained the Argentine intellectual field at a time when a spiralling succession of events shook our country. Coincidentally, the two key trends of the decade became apparent. For the sake of brevity, let us say that modernising movements and revolutionary thinkers either struggled or reached some sort of agreement in the form of discourse, institutions, and cultural production.
Imago. Rivista di cinema e media - Università Roma Tre / Università La Sapienza, 2017
En italiano y portugués.
- " L´ora dei forni e il cinema politico italiano prima e dopo il `68".... more En italiano y portugués.
- " L´ora dei forni e il cinema politico italiano prima e dopo il `68".
Imago, rivista di cinema e media, numero 15. Roma, Bulzoni editore, 2017.
Dossier a cura di Ivelise Perniola e Luca Caminati.
- " A hora dos fornos e o cinema político italiano por volta de 1968".
Significação, São Paulo, v. 45, n. 50, p. 297-317, jul-dez. 2018.
DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2018.145159
Critical Arts. South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 2017
Montreal, June 2–8, 1974: Over 200 representatives of political cinema from 25 countries gathered... more Montreal, June 2–8, 1974: Over 200 representatives of political cinema from 25 countries gathered at the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma. Among the participants were militant filmmakers, members of 1968 film groups, producers, distributors, film critics, and historians, as well as film institute delegates from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and North America. Even though this was one of the most important worldwide events in the field of political cinema at the time, it has been largely overlooked by film historians. Between 2012 and 2013, Argentinian researcher Mariano Mestman located and digitalised numerous video recordings of the presentations and debates that took place at the Rencontres, which until now had remained largely unknown. In this article, the author analyses the video record of one of the conference's key political and theoretical debates, which concerned the relationship between audiovisual technology and social change. Given the markedly transitional character of the social use of media technologies during that period—from political film to militant video—and the diverse backgrounds of the participants, the discussion of experiences of activist media moved in multiple directions. Among these, the article highlights the debates around the crucial case of Canada's National Film Board's Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle documentary film and video project. The article's analysis of the discussions demonstrates that in spite of the diversity of their experiences and backgrounds, Canadian, European, and Third World participants were all looking for an alternative international political cinema greatly influenced by the ideas contained in Third Cinema.
DOSSIER "TESTIMONIO: DEBATES Y DESAFÍOS DESDE AMÉRICA LATINA"
Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinar... more DOSSIER "TESTIMONIO: DEBATES Y DESAFÍOS DESDE AMÉRICA LATINA" Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria, ISSN 2362-2075, Nº 1, marzo 2014, pp. 52-67
En 1968, los estudiantes mexicanos del Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos (CUEC-UNAM) acompañaron con sus cámaras las protestas del Movimiento Estudiantil entre los primeros incidentes de julio y la masacre de Tlatelolco del 2 de octubre. Esos registros fueron guardados durante algunos meses ante la persecución desatada por el gobierno de Gustavo Díaz Orda y entre 1969 y 1970 terminaron de editarse en el largometraje documental El grito (Leobardo López Arretche). El presente artículo estudia la singular configuración del testimonio en aquel documental y su articulación con la representación de las protestas masivas. Asimismo, se compara con otros casos de la “literatura testimonial” de esos años también llevados al cine, a partir de una clásica distinción de John Beverley entre dos momentos clave de la producción testimonial latinoamericana: la coyuntura de radicalización en que emerge el “género” en los años 60 y aquella posterior (y distinta) cuando se articuló en la denuncia de las violaciones de derechos humanos y las represiones más cruentas desde la década de 1970.
PAROLECHIAVE, Num.60: Voice (Rivista semestrale della Fondazione Lelio Basso), 2018
Le mie grida si confondevano con quelle della folla, perché intanto nella piazza continuava il ma... more Le mie grida si confondevano con quelle della folla, perché intanto nella piazza continuava il massacro. E le mie grida e quelle degli altri erano coperte dalle raffiche di mitra.
en: Mestman, M. y Varela, M. (coords.), Masas, pueblo y multitud en cine y televisión. Bs.As., Eudeba, 2013.
Publicado en: Mestman, M. y Varela, M. (coords.), Masas, pueblo y multitud en cine y televisión. ... more Publicado en: Mestman, M. y Varela, M. (coords.), Masas, pueblo y multitud en cine y televisión. Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 2013; ps. 179-215.
In: Joshua Malitsky (ed.), A companion to Documentary Film History, Wiley Blackwell, 2021
In: Joshua Malitsky (ed.), A companion to Documentary Film History, Wiley Blackwell
Introductio... more In: Joshua Malitsky (ed.), A companion to Documentary Film History, Wiley Blackwell
Introduction A history of the audiences of the film movement known as Third Cinema requires extensive research into the countries where it took place, given the diverse filmmakers who aimed to produce a cinema of “cultural decolonization” in Africa, Asia and Latin America (and even in the First World, until the Third-Worldist influence) in the 1960s and 1970s. This essay focuses on the screening experience of The Hour of the Furnaces (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Cine Liberación Group, 1968), one of the most important films of the movement. In other works, I have discussed how The Hour... circulated at political film festivals and among militant groups post-’68 in Europe and North America, showing the great number of countries where the movie was included in the catalogues of alternative film groups. On the pages that follow, in contrast, I will be focusing on the film’s outreach among militant audiences in Argentina from 1968-1972. I consider this film and its spectators a singular case of militant film for three principal reasons: first, because it introduces the theory of Third Cinema (1969). Secondly, unlike the international films produced under governments put into power by revolutionary processes during “the long 60s”—in Algeria post-independence, or in Cuba after 1959, to mention only two emblematic cases—The Hour... is a film made to oppose the military government in power in Argentina (1966-1973). Under an Argentine dictatorship, the screenings—a clear act of resistance to the regimes—were subject to varying levels of clandestinity (depending on specific circumstances), and it is only after Peronism’s return to power in 1973 that the film obtains a theatrical release. A third compelling aspect of this film is that, due to its length (more than four hours, divided into three parts), its sections were screened separately and combined in different ways depending on the audience. What is more, in some cases, certain sequences were cut or others selected especially for their political use in specific situations, in both Argentina and other countries. In this context, the notes that follow reveal how the Cine Liberación Group conceived of the militant outreach of The Hour... between 1968 and 1972. I will then examine the actual screening experience. In order to provide further insight into these practices, an internal group document by one of the “Mobile Film Units” responsible for screening the film is appended here. I believe this document is unique because of its detailed description of militant screening events (at homes, high schools, universities, neighborhood centers and union offices, or during factory conflicts); of film debates held in conjunction with the screenings, and of the different audiences of workers, students or the middle classes (professionals and intellectuals).It provides insight into the type of audiences that came to see The Hour... during the military regime in Argentina, and reveals certain aspects of the experience of both those who screened the film as well as those who came to watch it. The document provides a type of information on that experience that is absent (or only hinted at) in the texts that the Cine Liberación Group itself released. In fact, the group’s most widely disseminated and reprinted document, “Towards a Third Cinema,” though fundamental in its history, was published very early on, in October 1969. Due to the fact that it covers only the earliest period of the militant screenings, its overview of the workings of alternative screening venues and the spectators who dared to attend is limited to some degree. As I will show, later public documents released by Cine Liberación describe some of these aspects but do not cover the hands-on tasks associated with exhibitions as described by the groups that actually screened the film. This information was only detailed in testimonials or internal documents like the one reprinted in its entirety at the end of this essay.
SOLANAS por SOLANAS
A modo de homenaje a Pino (1936-2020)
“Nosotros hemos hablado aquí de la exp... more SOLANAS por SOLANAS A modo de homenaje a Pino (1936-2020)
“Nosotros hemos hablado aquí de la experiencia del Tercer Cine. Lo cual no quiere decir que hayamos querido marginar el tema político. Antes que todo somos militantes políticos. Y para eso tengo cuerda para rato para hablar” (Pino Solanas, Montreal, junio 1974)
Presentación del material: Dentro de la extensa obra de Pino Solanas, uno de los períodos más significativos se refiere a su película La hora de los hornos (1968) y el Manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), realizados ambos junto a Octavio Getino (1935-2012) y que tuvieron una enorme repercusión internacional. En ese marco, en junio de 1974, en Montreal, Solanas participó de los “Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma”, tal vez el encuentro más grande e importante del cine político mundial de las décadas de 1960-1970, donde confluyeron más de 200 grupos y cineastas del cine comprometido y militante de todo el mundo. Allí Solanas dio una de las conferencias principales que fue seguida de un durísimo debate sobre el grupo Cine Liberación y la situación del Peronismo en la Argentina. De esa discusión participaron algunas de las figuras clave del cine político latinoamericano e internacional, tanto en contra como a favor de la posición del cineasta argentino. En 2012 recuperamos 36 registros audiovisuales de esas y otras discusiones del evento en los archivos de la Cinemateca de Quebec (en Montreal) y en 2014 publicamos un volumen con un estudio preliminar y numerosos documentos, junto a un dvd con parte de ese material (“Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal”, accesible on line en la página de Academia). Al año siguiente, gracias al interés de María Laura Cali, realizamos dos programas de televisión para el CEPIA-Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación, producidos por ella, dirigidos por Andrés Habegger y conducidos por Fernando Martín Peña. Aquí repito el link, donde el EPISODIO 2 contiene estas imágenes de Pino que no tienen desperdicio por su valor testimonial.
Aclaración sobre el material y cómo consultarlo: En este link pueden consultarse los dos capítulos del Programa de televisión "ESTADOS GENERALES DEL TERCER CINE. LOS DOCUMENTOS DE MONTREAL (2015)". El debate protagonizado por Solanas se encuentra en el EPISODIO 2. Al ingresar al link pueden encontrarse ambos Episodios (con subtítulos en español e inglés). En este segundo episodio, luego de un testimonio de André Paquet (quien fuera el organizador del encuentro en 1974), el material se organiza en cuatro bloques sucesivos. Cada uno es introducido por una breve conversación (3 minutos) entre Fernando M. Peña y M. Mestman, que contextualiza la situación y da lugar a las imágenes (9 minutos de cada bloque). En la polémica participan Pino (acompañado por los argentinos Cacho Pallero y Humberto Ríos), Lino Micciché (entonces Director del Festival de Pesaro, Italia), Walter Achugar (Uruguay), Miguel Littín (Chile) y Julio García Espinosa (Cuba), entre otros.
Ficha técnica: Dirección: Andres HABEGGER Conducción: Fernando Martín PEÑA Investigación y Guión: Mariano MESTMAN Ambientación: Julieta ASCAR Dirección de Fotografía: Mariana RUSSO Cámara: Fernando ANTONIETTA Edición: Franco CRUZ Post producción de imagen: Santiago RICAR Post producción de sonido: Pablo POLIDORO Diseño gráfico: Enrique CHOMCZYK/Carola LANCI Jefe Técnico: Ariel CARREIRA Asistente técnico: Marco PAVÄN Asistente producción: Federico ALTMARK Producción General: Maria Laura CALI PRODUCIDO POR CEPIA MINISTERIO DE CULTURA DE LA NACION - 2015
Sociedad, número 27, Publicación de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales / UBA, 2008
Dossier: A 40 años de La hora de los hornos, a cargo de M. Mestman
Publicado en: Sociedad, número... more Dossier: A 40 años de La hora de los hornos, a cargo de M. Mestman Publicado en: Sociedad, número 27, Publicación de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales / UBA y Ed. Prometeo, Buenos Aires, 2008; ps. 27-79.
- Estudio preliminar: “Raros e inéditos del Grupo Cine Liberación” por M. Mestman -Documentos: Anexo I: “Informe de la Unidad Móvil Rosario presentado al II Plenario de Grupos Cine Liberación”. Diciembre 1970 Anexo II: “A los integrantes de Realizadores de Mayo”. Carta de Grupos de Cine Liberación, Bs.As., 15/11/1970. Anexo III: “Carta de Juan Domingo Perón a Octavio Getino” (Madrid, 10/03/1971) Anexo IV: “Destapar o no destapar. Esa es la cuestión” (Marta Traba, Marcha, 7/11/1969)
Publicado en: Orquera, Yolanda Fabiola, ed. Ese Ardiente Jardín de la República. Formación y desa... more Publicado en: Orquera, Yolanda Fabiola, ed. Ese Ardiente Jardín de la República. Formación y desarticulación de un campo cultural (Tucumán, 1880-1975). Córdoba: Editorial Alción, en prensa, pp. 349-376. Publicado originalmente en 2005.
Imágenes de lo real. La representación de lo político en el documental argentino, 2007
Publicado en: J. Sartora y S. Rival (eds.), Imágenes de lo real. La representación de lo político... more Publicado en: J. Sartora y S. Rival (eds.), Imágenes de lo real. La representación de lo político en el documental argentino, Bs.As., Libraria, 2007; ps. 51-70.
Ciak, si lotta! Il cinema dell´Autunno caldo in Italia e nel mondo - Annali 12, Archivio del Movimento Operaio e Democratico; ps. 115-128, 2011
A cura di Carlo Felice Casula, Antonio Medici, Claudio Olivieri, Paola Scarnati (2011) .
Operai ... more A cura di Carlo Felice Casula, Antonio Medici, Claudio Olivieri, Paola Scarnati (2011) .
Operai dietro il reticolato perimetrale delle fabbriche, arrampicati sui tetti, con cartelli e bandiere, che occupano gli impianti; lavoratori mobilitati, in manifestazioni massicce, che organizzano barricate nelle vie, scontrandosi con la polizia. Si tratta, come sappiamo, di immagini tipiche del conflitto sindacale nel XX secolo, che incontriamo in quasi tutte le pellicole girate sulla protesta operaia e popolare, sia come registrazione diretta, sia inglobate come archivio, sia ricostruite in un documentario od un film di fiction. Nel caso dell'Argentina, le immagini del Cordobazo (1969) furono emblematizzate dal cinema militante quali simbolo delle lotte di tutto un periodo. Ma il senso che è stato loro attribuito non è univoco e ci sono altre immagini dell'azione del movimento operaio argentino che sono disputate uno spazio nella memoria sociale della "lunga" decade degli anni sessanta.
Revista Archivos de historia del movimiento obrero y la izquierda. Buenos Aires, número 4, Editorial ADHILAC; ps. 11-30, 2014
En el cine político argentino de fines de la década de 1960 e inicios de la siguiente, las imágen... more En el cine político argentino de fines de la década de 1960 e inicios de la siguiente, las imágenes del Cordobazo se imponen como principal referencia visual de las luchas obreras. Presentes en casi todos los films, emblematizando un punto de inflexión en la historia política nacional, de algún modo desplazaron de nuestra memoria otras secuencias del accionar sindical. Sin embargo, hubo otras imágenes que en muchos casos compartieron con las del estallido cordobés-y otras veces le disputaron-la simbolización de las luchas del período. Entre ellas, las de ocupaciones fabriles del período 1963-1965.
“Imágenes de archivo / Memorias del trabajo. La crisis argentina del 2001”. Pubicado en: Jens And... more “Imágenes de archivo / Memorias del trabajo. La crisis argentina del 2001”. Pubicado en: Jens Anderman y Alvaro Fernández Bravo (eds.), La escena y la pantalla. Cine contemporáneo y el retorno de lo real. Buenos Aires, Ed. Colihue, 2013; ps. 243-262.
Publicado en: Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Número 22,
Madrid, segundo semestre 2005... more Publicado en: Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Número 22, Madrid, segundo semestre 2005, ps. 27-47.
In the late 1960s, the political cinema of Latin America gave relevance and a prominent place to ... more In the late 1960s, the political cinema of Latin America gave relevance and a prominent place to the voices of the people. In the case of Argentina, the worker's voice increased its presence in the films during a period of militant cinema that began in 1968 with the legendary La hora de los hornos [The Hour of the Furnaces]. Later films also incorporated the voice of the workers who played a central part in the largest popular uprising of the period, the Cordobazo (1969) and those of the militants in the so-called Peronist Resistance (1955 onwards). Amid criticisms of 'the limits of direct cinema' and the proposal of 'giving voice to the people' or of directly 'seizing the right to speak,' the worker's voice began to share the textual authority of films, an authority hitherto given almost exclusively to an omnipresent voice-over, typical of one important documentary tradition. If in many cases the voices of the people were connected, if not subordinated, to the theses of the filmmakers, they were nevertheless elaborated in all their complexity, with their place negotiated into the ensemble of the film's textual authority. This article analyses various ways of configuring working class voices/testimonies (those of the workers, the farm workers, and the Resistance), and considers the dialogues and negotiations between these voices and the revolutionary theses and imaginaries that were widespread in this period, as put forward in films concerning social protest and class identity in Argentina.
Abstract:
Español: El artículo analiza Los traidores (1973), el principal film político del cine... more Abstract: Español: El artículo analiza Los traidores (1973), el principal film político del cineasta argentino desaparecido Raymundo Gleyzer y el grupo Cine de la Base, sobre un sindicalista peronista corrompido en su camino hacia el poder. En primer lugar, se estudia las estrategias narrativas del film en relación con las reflexiones de Raymond Williams sobre cine y socialismo y con la noción estructura de sentimiento. En segundo lugar, se recorre los modos en que el film representa el mundo del trabajo y las manifestaciones obreras (ocupaciones fabriles, lucha de calles) en relación con algunos tópicos y motivos visuales del cine y la televisión. Finalmente, se propone una nueva interpretación respecto del discurso político sobre la alternativa obrera propuesta por el film.
English: The paper analyze the film The traitors (1973), the most important political film of the argentinian filmaker Raymundo Gleyzer and the Cine de la Base group, about a peronist trade unionist corrupted by his rise to power. In the first place, we study the narrative strategies of the film in relationship to the Raymond Williams reflections on cinema and socialism, and his notion of structure of feeling. In the second place, our analysis deals with the ways The traitors represent the world of labor and the workers' actions and demonstrations (factory occupations and street fighting) in relationship to some visual topics from cinema and tv. Finally, the paper propose a new interpretation about the political discourse about the working class alternative proposed by the film.
La representación Cordobazo en el cine argent de intervención polític Este artículo fue originalm... more La representación Cordobazo en el cine argent de intervención polític Este artículo fue originalmente publicado en la Revista Filmline), Barcelona, Vol. XII, n
El artículo analiza la película La terra trema (Luchino Visconti, Italia, 1948), su representació... more El artículo analiza la película La terra trema (Luchino Visconti, Italia, 1948), su representación del mundo del trabajo de los pescadores sicilianos, las vivencias de Visconti en torno al film, así como las lecturas y debates estéticos y políticos que acarreo a lo largo de la historia. M.Mestman, “Pescadores sicilianos en las redes del Conde Rojo milanés”. Publicado en el libro: Máximo Eseverri (coord.), Raab/Visconti. La tierra tiembla. Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 2011; ps. 180-207.
Presentación
En el mes de mayo de 1958 se inauguraba en Montevideo (Uruguay) la III Edición del ... more Presentación
En el mes de mayo de 1958 se inauguraba en Montevideo (Uruguay) la III Edición del Festival Internacional de Cine Documental y Experimental del S.O.D.R.E. (Servicio Oficial de Radio Difusión Eléctrica), el primer festival en América Latina especializado en cine documental. Esa edición es considerada por la historiografía como un punto de inflexión inexcusable en el desarrollo cinematográfico de la región. Dos elementos –frecuentemente citados- dan cuenta de la relevancia del evento: la presencia de John Grierson, invitado ese año a detentar la Presidencia Honoraria del Festival, y la celebración en paralelo del Primer Congreso Latino-Americano de Cineístas [sic] Independientes, momento determinante para la toma de conciencia sobre los problemas comunes y las posibles vías de futuro para un cine que pudiera cumplir en América Latina “la ineludible tarea de velar por su educación, cultura, historia, tradición y elevación espiritual de su población”. Con estas palabras se expresaban, en las resoluciones adoptadas, los delegados en el congreso en representación de Argentina (Simón Feldman, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Rodolfo Kuhn y Fernando Birri, entre otros), Bolivia (Jorge Ruiz), Brasil (Nelson Pereira dos Santos), Chile (Patricio Kaulen), Perú (Manuel Chambi) y Uruguay (Danilo Trelles y Roberto Gardiol, entre otros); quienes además llevarían a cabo la constitución de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Cineístas Inpendientes (ALACI).
En esos años, distintas líneas de fuerza alimentan la educación de la mirada de los cineastas que se orientan hacia lo documental donde se configura una red de gestos miméticos y originales que van a permitir el peculiar encuentro que se produce entre John Grierson y los cineastas latinoamericanos en 1958 en Montevideo.
De hecho, el cine latinoamericano se hallaba en un periodo de búsquedas y de definición para orientar los aires de renovación que comenzaban a hacerse patentes y canalizar las voluntades de acción y creación de los cineastas. Y si bien la influencia del documentalista escocés puede encontrarse en obras previas, esa visita a América Latina se configuró en un punto de referencia. Los cineastas latinoamericanos no encontraron en John Grierson simplemente la gratificación de ver reconocido su trabajo por una figura de prestigio internacional; buscaron la guía y el consejo de un hombre que como ningún otro había demostrado extraordinarias dotes para promover y generar espacios e instituciones con el fin de convertir el cine en instrumento al servicio de la expresión de la identidad nacional, dirigiendo las cámaras y los talentos creadores hacia aquellas realidades sociales y culturales que el cine narrativo comercial no representaba. Porque si algo tenían en común los cineastas que se reunían por primera vez en este Congreso de 1958 habiendo desarrollado sus trayectorias de manera independiente y con pocos contactos entre ellos, era la voluntad de crear un verdadero cine nacional en oposición a los cines imitativos de los modelos de Hollywood, aquel que representara y pensara, por primera vez, la realidad social, histórica y cultural de América Latina. El documental era una de las vías a transitar para lograrlo.
Para el maestro Grierson el viaje a Uruguay posiblemente se programara como uno más entre sus muchos desplazamientos por la geografía planetaria en busca de materiales para su programa This Wonderful World, que había comenzado a emitirse en la televisión escocesa el 11 de octubre de 1957; una apretada agenda de viajes la de aquel tiempo que lo ubicaban en mayo de 1958 en París y Bruselas para el Festival de Cine Experimental y aterrizando el día 25 de ese mes en Montevideo. Pero su encuentro con los forjadores de lo que ya se perfilaba como el Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano no se limitó a los días del SODRE, porque de allí el escocés se trasladó a Argentina, Chile, Bolivia y Perú; visitas estas dos últimas que recordaría como “un gran viaje y, de algún modo, el más hermoso que jamás hubiese hecho”.
Los encuentros y las reflexiones que esta visita a Sudamérica propició permiten explorar un interesante cruce de miradas, hasta ahora no estudiado, que arroja nueva luz sobre un periodo de la cinematografía latinoamericana crucial para comprender la centralidad que el cine documental alcanzaría luego en la activación de nuevas vías estéticas y expresivas ligadas a la transformación social y política (…)
Como homenaje al gran cineasta y amigo Jorge Denti, recién fallecido, recupero esta retrospectiva... more Como homenaje al gran cineasta y amigo Jorge Denti, recién fallecido, recupero esta retrospectiva que hicimos en 2009 en el marco del Festival de Cine de Derechos Humanos de Buenos Aires. Es decir, años antes de su notable película "La huella del doctor Ernesto Guevara" (2013).
By Mariano Mestman and Chirstopher Moore, in: Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures (Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla eds.), 2021
The Documentary School oF Santa Fe and its founder, Fernando Birri, are inescapable references i... more The Documentary School oF Santa Fe and its founder, Fernando Birri, are inescapable references in the story of the New Latin American Cinema. The school grew out of a brief course offered by Birri in 1956. The young Argentine had recently returned from studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and he was asked to help organize a course on film with the Instituto Social at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL) in Santa Fe, Argentina. The course was deemed a great success and, soon thereafter, Birri and the UNL institutionalized their efforts by establishing the Instituto de Cinematografía, which began offering classes in April 1957. In the years that followed, the IC would further consolidate itself, becoming known across Argentina and throughout Latin American for its focus on social issues of the time. This chapter returns to 1956 and the beginnings of that experience. There, the local converged with the transnational, and an internationally renowned film program was born out of a faith in amateurs—their knowl- edge, their perspective, and their capacity for self-expression. In Part I, we show how Birri’s initial effort—an introductory course on documentary,offered at the university’s margins (as part of its extension program, out of the social sciences division), and counting among its enrollees painters, schoolteachers, lawyers, even social workers—drew inspiration in equal parts from professional and amateur realms. In Part II, we analyze a key aspect to the filmmaker’s early approach: the use of fotodocumentales—photodocumentaries or photo essays—as a first step for those learning to make films. We reconsider this practice of using photography and social surveys as borrowing from the possibilities of the amateur. The act of taking a pic ture or asking a question made the filmmaking effort accessible to enrollees with little or no background in production, and it was an adequate first step given the limited initial resources of the IC. Most important, fotodocumentales helped focused students’ attention on the capturing of local realities and on the social possibilities of the cinema. As such, although clearly part of a certain (socially and politically conscious) professionalization project, these practices belong to the broader field of amateur cinematic cultures for providing an alternative vision of cinema’s social function and an alternative means of institutionalizing nonindustrial cinematic practices. In Part III, we focus on the well-known documentary Tire-dié (1958–1960). We look at the project’s evolution from a student-made fotodocumental to the IC’s first documentary film, finished in 1958. We pay special attention to the film’s deliberately noncommercial character, both in terms of how it was produced and how it was used socially, across informal networks of exhibition, through community screenings and postscreening audience surveys. Finally, in Part IV, in order to show their impact in later professional film production at school, we return to those unpublished surveys. We note that Birri and his team utilized commentaries from nonfilmgoing audiences to assess their successes in film and to develop the next set of films—a series that, as with the others, featured almost exclusively amateur actors. Birri himself was no “amateur,” and his film school quickly became a point of cinematic reference the Latin America, but the initiative, at least in its origins, stemmed from a bottom-up approach, one that drew inspiration, where not direct investment, from local, amateur practices and bases of knowledge. In many ways, it was the IC’s incorporation of amateur participants, from its students and its film subjects to the neighborhood audiences with whom it shared its films, as well as their association with alternative film cultures, such as local “foto” or “cine-clubs,” that proved an ideal means for training future professionals, thus demonstrating the fluid and productive boundaries between the amateur and the professional. In so doing, the IC’s particular approach charted a new path for the institutionalization of innovative cinematic practices.
In: In: Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla (eds.), Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures. Indiana University Press, 2021; 149-168.
Viña del Mar (Chile) - Mérida (Venezuela), 1967-1969; Pesaro (Italia) - Cannes (Francia), 1968-19... more Viña del Mar (Chile) - Mérida (Venezuela), 1967-1969; Pesaro (Italia) - Cannes (Francia), 1968-1969; Roma 1971 - Pesaro 1973 (Italia). Publicado en Kilómetro 111. Ensayos sobre cine. Buenos Aires, número 2, 2001; ps. 7-30.
El texto que a continuación se reproduce fue publicado poco antes de la última visita de Santiago... more El texto que a continuación se reproduce fue publicado poco antes de la última visita de Santiago Álvarez a la Argentina, ocurrida en 1997. El año anterior desarrollé una investigación sobre el llamado Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano en los archivos de la Filmoteca de la UNAM (Méjico) y la Cinemateca de Cuba (ICAIC, La Habana). Entre otras cosas, allí encontré un material que había sido recién recuperado de los archivos cubanos, del cual sólo teníamos alguna referencia pero desconocíamos su terminación porque ni siquiera figuraba en las filmografías del cineasta cubano y, por razones políticas, casi no había circulado en su momento. Se trata de un documental realizado por Santiago Alvarez entre 1973 y 1974 con secuencias rodadas en Buenos Aires, Córdoba y Mendoza cuando (siendo del director del Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano) acompañó al presidente cubano Osvaldo Dorticós a la asunción del presidente argentino Héctor Cámpora, el 25 de mayo de 1973. Hasta dónde sé, unos minutos del material habían sido incluidos en el Noticiero cubano número 610, del 6 de junio de 1973 (edición a cargo de Miguel Torres). Como solía ocurrir en esos años con varios noticieros, luego devino en este documental de Santiago. A fines de 1996, a mi regreso de esa investigación en el ICAIC, editores de la ya desaparecida revista Film (Fernando Martín Peña, Sergio Wolf, Paula Félix Didier) se interesaron por difundir la existencia del documental. Al mismo tiempo, la copia en vhs que me habían facilitado el realizador, Lázara Herrera y el ICAIC comenzó a circular en Buenos Aires. Pocos meses después, un grupo de jóvenes estudiantes tuvo la audaz iniciativa de promover la visita de Santiago a la Argentina, que pudo concretarse en gran medida porque Humberto Ríos la tomó en sus manos y la impulsó en las instituciones que podían hacerse cargo (el Instituto, fundamentalmente, si mal no recuerdo). También compañeros de cine del interior del país (como Jorge Jager de Rosario o Rolando López de Santa Fe) se interesaron por el viaje y así Santiago viajó allí. Todo con las dificultades propias de su deteriorado estado físico y gracias a que mantenía su lucidez así como al invalorable apoyo permanente de su compañera Lázara. Este fue el último viaje de Santiago a Argentina. El viaje anterior lo había realizado en esos agitados días de mayo de 1973, acompañando a Dorticós y la delegación diplomática cubana encabezada por el canciller Raúl Roa. A ese viaje se refiere esta nota que se reproduce tal como fue originalmente publicada, con el objetivo fundamentalmente divulgativo del material encontrado en los archivos cubanos. Luego de un breve recorrido sobre la actividad del realizador (hoy ya muy conocida) y sobre el documental mismo (hoy accesible on line), se incluye una parte de la entrevista que realicé a Santiago y a dos de sus más cercanos colaboradores que dan cuenta de su vivencia junto al director del Noticiero ICAIC en ese u otros viajes (como a Chile y Vietnam) así como de su modo de trabajo. Santiago no sólo recuerda de modo vívido anécdotas de su visita, también rememora algunas discusiones importantes del cine político argentino, cubano y latinoamericano; historias que años más tarde recuperé en más de un ensayo.
El artículo aborda la historia del Instituto de Cinematografiá de la UNL hacia 1973/1974. Se trat... more El artículo aborda la historia del Instituto de Cinematografiá de la UNL hacia 1973/1974. Se trata de la Escuela Documental de Santa Fe, creada por Fernando Birri en 1956, cuya dirección éste dejó al partir al exilio hacia 1963. En particular se abordan tres cuestiones que –junto a la identidad peronista de la nueva gestión de 1973- singularizan el proyecto de la nueva etapa: la recuperación del programa inicial del Instituto durante el período de Birri; los vínculos con imaginarios y experiencias nacionales e internacionales, de América Latina y del Tercer Mundo; los proyectos de intervención con el cine para interpelar a un espectador popular y el uso social del cine con fines didácticos y políticos. Asimismo se anexan Documentos inéditos.
En: Mónica Villarroel, coord., Cine chileno y latinoamericano. Antología de un encuentro. Lom-Cineteca Nacional de Chile, 2019
El presente texto analiza dos casos emblemáticos de alteración de
documentos originales del cine ... more El presente texto analiza dos casos emblemáticos de alteración de documentos originales del cine político de América Latina, que involucran a reconocidas figuras de la cinematografía regional, como el brasileño Glauber Rocha, el cubano Alfredo Guevara, los argentinos Raymundo Gleyzer y Fernando Solanas, entre otros. Estos dos casos, de inicios de la década de 1970, permiten problematizar varios aspectos del trabajo con las fuentes en la historiografía del llamado Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano. De este modo, el artículo por un lado sugiere hipótesis respecto de las razones que llevaron a las modificaciones de los documentos y, por otro, intenta complejizar las posibles precauciones a adoptar frente a este tipo de alteraciones.
. “Mineros y campesinos entre la cultura andina y la insurrección.”. En: VVAA, Jorge Sanjinés y ... more . “Mineros y campesinos entre la cultura andina y la insurrección.”. En: VVAA, Jorge Sanjinés y el cine boliviano, Ed. Tierra del Sur, Buenos Aires, 2010; ps. 21-49.
Giovacchini, Saverio and Sklar, Robert, Global Neorealism 1930-1970. The Transnational History of a Film Style. University Press of Mississippi, 2011; pp. 163-177, 2011
Ver las imágenes del artículo en la versión en inglés: The last Sacred Image of the Latin America... more Ver las imágenes del artículo en la versión en inglés: The last Sacred Image of the Latin American Revolution (2010) Versión en español publicada en: Revista Ojos Crueles. Temas de fotografía y sociedad, núm. 3, Buenos Aires, octubre 2006.
Cuadernos LIRICO. Revista de la red interuniversitaria de estudios sobre las literaturas rioplatenses contemporáneas en Francia: Un año. Literatura argentina 1969, 2016
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El artículo analiza la experiencia de Rodolfo Walsh en torno al Sema... more Español / French / English: El artículo analiza la experiencia de Rodolfo Walsh en torno al Semanario CGT (1968-1969) –que dirigió para la CGT de los Argentinos entre mayo de 1968 y febrero de 1969, durante los años de enfrentamiento al régimen militar del general Juan Carlos Onganía–, así como la repercusión que tuvo en su camino literario y creativo. En el marco de una confluencia más amplia de profesionales, intelectuales y trabajadores de la cultura con esta nueva central obrera, el texto focaliza en cómo Walsh y el grupo de periodistas problematizaron los alcances y límites del periódico en su comunicación con estos sectores de la clase trabajadora argentina. A partir de esta y otras experiencias en torno a la CGT de los Argentinos (estudiadas por el autor en otros trabajos), se propone pensar un escenario en torno a 1968/1969, configurado como un precario y fugaz laboratorio donde se cruzan sectores medios con sectores obreros en sus búsquedas políticas, culturales e intelectuales. ///
L’article analyse l’expérience de Rodolfo Walsh dans l’hebdomadaire Semanario CGT (1968-1969) qu’il a dirigé pour la Confédération General du Travail des Argentins entre mai 1968 et février 1969, pendant les années d’affrontement au régime militaire du général Juan Carlos Onganía. Il étudie également la répercussion de cette expérience dans le parcours littéraire et créateur de Walsh. Dans le contexte de la plus ample confluence de professionnels, d’intellectuels et de travailleurs de la culture avec cette nouvelle centrale ouvrière, le texte focalise son attention sur les limites qui a trouvé l´hebdomadaire dans sa communication avec la classe ouvrière argentine. À partir de cela et d’autres expériences – que l’auteur a étudiées ailleurs – il se propose de penser la CGT des Argentins comme un « laboratoire » fugace et précaire, où des secteurs de la classe moyenne se croisent avec des secteurs ouvriers dans leurs recherches politiques, culturelles et intellectuelles. ///
The article analyzes the experience of Rodolfo Walsh as the editor of CGT (1968-1969), the weekly newspaper of the Confederación General del Trabajo de los Argentinos, one of Argentina’s largest trade unions federations of that period. Walsh’s editorship coincided with the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía and the essay focuses on the repercussions this experience had on Walsh’s literary work and political activism. Walsh and the group of journalists entrusted with putting out the weekly strived to effectively engage the working class, as did other professionals, artists, and intellectuals who coalesced around the trade union federation around this period. This essay proposes thinking about the federation during this particular year (1968-1969) as a precarious experiment where middle-class sectors fleetingly coincided with the working class in their political, cultural, and intellectual quests.
Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Madrid, 1998
Nagisa Oshima, el cineasta más significativo de la nueva ola japonesa de los años sesenta, fue re... more Nagisa Oshima, el cineasta más significativo de la nueva ola japonesa de los años sesenta, fue reconocido en Occidente con la llegada de los años setenta. Sin embargo, su primer film se remonta a 1959 y poco después incia un camino de producción independiente. Este trabajo indaga en los aspectos principales del proyecto político-cultural del cineasta. Focaliza en torno al año 1960, los primeros films, así como las rupturas que produce y las reflexiones que las acompañan. Desde allí se pregunta por la relación entre ese primer momento y su producción independiente posterior, sus búsquedas políticas y estéticas, así como el caracter vanguardista de su proyecto. Publicado en: Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Madrid, núm. 9, octubre de 1998; ps.27-44.
Working For the Future Past - Seul Museum of Art, 2017
(See the article in Korean and English)
“Tucumán Arde”, the best-known collective action of the A... more (See the article in Korean and English) “Tucumán Arde”, the best-known collective action of the Argentine avant-garde movement during the ‘60s, is usually regarded as an isolated milestone, an exceptional event. However, this essay considers it instead as the corollary of the hectic process of aesthetic and political radicalization of the experimental artistic groups of the cities Buenos Aires and Rosario, and intends to contextualize that production within this historical period. In the mid-‘60s, in reaction to events such as the Santo Domingo US invasion, the Vietnam War and the Che Guevara murder in Bolivia, politics irrupted into wider sectors of society, further radicalizing the avant-garde developments. A number of artists then envisaged their productions as a legitimate arena for assuming a political stance as a way of contributing to the transformation of reality within the context of the revolutionary expectations that marked the age. Consequently, in 1968, a series of collective statements and actions signaled avant-garde’s rupture with the art institutions, especially the Instituto Di Tella, which had until then preponderantly sheltered their manifestations. The most politicized of these artists then shifted closer to the labour movement opposite to the military dictatorship that ruled the country and proposed a “new aesthetic”, inscribed in the revolutionary process they regarded as imminent and inevitable, which conceived violence and experimental action as legitimate forces capable of reshaping the conditions of life. It is at the point of this particular crossroads that “Tucumán Arde” was carried out and whose abrupt closing under strong pressure by the government was followed by the disbanding of the groups and their abandonment of art altogether to end up in many cases adopting the political militancy.
Listen, Here, Now. Argentine art in the Sixties, Writings of the Avant-Garde, 2004
In: Katzenstein, I. (ed.), Listen, Here, Now. Argentine art in the Sixties, Writings of the Avant... more In: Katzenstein, I. (ed.), Listen, Here, Now. Argentine art in the Sixties, Writings of the Avant-Garde. New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 2004; 156-172.
In the mid 1960’s, in the midst of a climate of technological excitement, the impact of mass media and mass culture was processed artistically in a number of ways: not just as a reference to or quote (apologetic or critical) of the imaginaria of television, film and advertising, the icons of mass culture, but also as a medium, a technique and as a materiality. During the early stages of the still unnamed conceptualism some Argentine avantgarde artists began to experiment with mass media and information technology. In this sense, they hearkened back to some of the experiences carried out at the Di Tella Institute, especially the happenings and environments of Marta Minujín. There were other artists, other works. Recently a nucleus of artists and theorists garnered growing attention for the creation in 1966 of a “new genre” they called “Arte de los Medios de comunicación de masas” (Mass Communication Media Art). Although this was a confined effort, crystallized in only a few works and a smattering of texts and manifestos, it implied sharp reflection on the part of its twenty-something promoters (Roberto Jacoby, Eduardo Costa and Raúl Escari and the also young intellectuals involved in the process, Eliseo Verón and especially Oscar Masotta). The latter was an advanced figure in the cultural world for the breadth of his activity (literary criticism in the 1950’s, experimental artistic practice and theory and the diffusion of the comic strip in the 1960’s and the introduction of Lacanian psychoanalysis in Spanish in the 1970’s). Sporadically associated with the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, Masotta was involved with Contorno (1953-59), remembered as an early milestone of a new kind of literary criticism and intellectual activity. Its members, influenced by Sartrian existentialism mixed with a markedly Hegelian Marxism, stood apart from the “official” left as well as from the ”traditional liberals who still held a hegemony over the cultural domain”. During the decade we are dealing with, Masotta introduced and was the main propagator of new ideas (derived from structuralism, semiology and other paradigms of contemporary thought) in the arts, and he did not fail to point out the historical correlation between the growth of mass information media and contemporary art. The emphasis on information circuits and theories of the sign was one of the approaches adopted by the “conceptualist turn” and the Utopia of an enlarged life based on expanding the boundaries of artistic experience. In their most radical propositions, these artists did not extrapolate media technology devices to convert them into aesthetic objects. They went beyond that. They actually created their works inside circuits of mass communication. It was there that they saw art being reconnected with culture of the masses, its unprecedented expansion towards a mass audience receptor, the possibility of inciting a critical consciousness in the viewer and even a potential political tool.
In the late 1960s, the political cinema of Latin America gave relevance and a prominent place to ... more In the late 1960s, the political cinema of Latin America gave relevance and a prominent place to the voices of the people. In the case of Argentina, the worker's voice increased its presence in the films during a period of militant cinema that began in 1968 with the legendary La hora de los hornos [The Hour of the Furnaces]. Later films also incorporated the voice of the workers who played a central part in the largest popular uprising of the period, the Cordobazo (1969) and those of the militants in the so-called Peronist Resistance (1955 onwards). Amid criticisms of ‘the limits of direct cinema’ and the proposal of ‘giving voice to the people’ or of directly ‘seizing the right to speak,’ the worker's voice began to share the textual authority of films, an authority hitherto given almost exclusively to an omnipresent voice-over, typical of one important documentary tradition. If in many cases the voices of the people were connected, if not subordinated, to the theses of the filmmakers, they were nevertheless elaborated in all their complexity, with their place negotiated into the ensemble of the film's textual authority. This article analyses various ways of configuring working class voices/testimonies (those of the workers, the farm workers, and the Resistance), and considers the dialogues and negotiations between these voices and the revolutionary theses and imaginaries that were widespread in this period, as put forward in films concerning social protest and class identity in Argentina.
El artículo estudia el vínculo entre el cine político argentino y el italiano a fines de la décad... more El artículo estudia el vínculo entre el cine político argentino y el italiano a fines de la década de 1960, focalizando en la repercusión del film La hora de los hornos en la Mostra Internationale del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, en junio de 1968, el Festival europeo que más vinculos estableció con el cine político latinoamericano y africano en ese período. Desde allí, a partir de documentación de archivos italianos y de entrevistas con protagonistas del evento, se reconstruye la historia del vínculo de los cineastas italianos y argentinos en Buenos Aires, los sucesos de Pesaro y la posterior repercusión de la película argentina en el circuito de difusión alternativa del cine en el pos 68 italiano.Fil: Mestman, Mariano Ernesto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin
montreal, June 2-8, 1974: Over 200 representatives of political cinema from 25 countries gathered... more montreal, June 2-8, 1974: Over 200 representatives of political cinema from 25 countries gathered at the Rencontres Internationales pour un nouveau cinéma. Among the participants were militant filmmakers, members of 1968 film groups, producers, distributors, film critics, and historians, as well as film institute delegates from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and North America. Even though this was one of the most important worldwide events in the field of political cinema at the time, it has been largely overlooked by film historians. Between 2012 and 2013, Argentinian researcher mariano mestman located and digitalised numerous video recordings of the presentations and debates that took place at the Rencontres, which until now had remained largely unknown. In this article, the author analyses the video record of one of the conference's key political and theoretical debates, which concerned the relationship between audio-visual technology and social change. Given the markedly transitional character of the social use of media technologies during that period-from political film to militant video-and the diverse backgrounds of the participants, the discussion of experiences of activist media moved in multiple directions. Among these, the article highlights the debates around the crucial case of Canada's National Film Board's Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle documentary film and video project. The article's analysis of the discussions demonstrates that in spite of the diversity of their experiences and backgrounds, Canadian, European, and Third World participants were all looking for an alternative international political cinema greatly influenced by the ideas contained in Third Cinema.
Journal of Italian cinema & media studies, Jun 1, 2021
The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a p... more The Italian film I dannati della terra (The Damned of the Earth) (Orsini and Filippi 1968) is a prominent example of the connection between the European cinema of intervention and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. Set as a 'film within a film', the movie tells the story of a leftist filmmaker, Fausto Morelli, who faces the challenge of finishing a film about the liberation struggles of sub-Saharan Africa by building on the documentary footage that was bequeathed to him by his student and friend, the young Abramo Malonga, an African (Bantu). This article recovers overlooked and little-known documents about the film to show that it is the expression of an active cinematic Third Worldism forged in previous years between the legacy of the Resistenza Partigiana (Italian Resistance) and the Third World struggles of the 1960s. At the same time, the article analyses the ways in which the film 'dialogues' with experimental trends of the contemporary avantgarde artistic scene in order to challenge the viewer to debate the 'open ideological hypothesis' of the film and take an active part in the political struggles of the time.
Das muitas fotografias que foram difundidas após a morte de Ernesto Che Guevara, Mariano Mestman ... more Das muitas fotografias que foram difundidas após a morte de Ernesto Che Guevara, Mariano Mestman fixa sua atenção nas que, segundo ele, tiveram maior difusão por diversas razões e objetivos políticos: a fotografia do rosto de Che com a boina e a estrela de cinco pontas, de Alberto Korda, e a fotografia do seu cadáver rodeado por militares e soldados bolivianos, um agente norte-americano e um jornalista, de Freddy Alborta. O autor discorre, em sintonia com Martine Joly, Umberto Eco, Susan Sontang e John Berger, sobre o tratamento da última imagem da revolução latino-americana e suas significações, tanto no cinema quanto nas artes argentinas.
In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) a... more In the last fifty years an extensive bibliography has discussed The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) and the inseparable proposal of Third Cinema (1969). In this chapter I will focus on a less explored aspect: the film’s journey in non-commercial, alternative or militant circuits linked to the student and workers movement in the first world throughout 1968 and the immediate following years. The Hour of the Furnaces and the manifesto Towards a Third Cinema can be inscribed, as it is well known, within a wider period, the so-called long 60s. After the pioneer essay by Fredric Jameson (1984) on this period – that according to him could be tracked back to sometime in the second half of the 1950s and could be extended until 1972-1974 – many other authors used the same concept and proposed different periodizations. As far as I am aware, the ‘widest’ locates the origins of the long 60s at the beginning of the Algeria War (1954) or the Bandung Conference (1955) and its ending in the Sandinist Revolution (1979). Of course, it is a periodization that takes into account also the idea of the global 1960s inasmuch as the 1960s account for the expansion of a common sensibility at an international level that tries to cover a wide range of processes of rebellion, revolt, insurrection and revolution in a number of countries around the world. That temporal extension (long 60s.) and geographical (global 60s.) is quite apt to think about The Hour of the Furnaces in its national and international context. Although its world premiere took place amidst the revolts of 1968, at the same time, it is possible to find the conditions that made the film possible as far back as the middle of the 1950s. And this not only because its third worldism dialogues with Algeria and Bandung, but also because 1955 is the year of the civic-military coup against the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and the beginning of the so-called “Peronist resistance” against successive governments. The whole of the second part of the film, sometimes disregarded by academic accounts, concerns itself precisely with Peronism and “the Resistance”. At the same time, we can extend its ‘sixties’ influence until the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we can take also as a significant fact the almost forgotten dossier organised in 1979 by Guy Hennebelle and the group CinémAction for the magazine Tiers Monde (1979) about the influence of the film and the manifesto in several countries around the world. As it is well known, in the 1980s, and even in later periods, the film and the document were revisited in new manifestos, events and proposals in different places. Although, from my perspective, the historical period of The Hour of the Furnaces (and of Third Cinema) had already concluded even in those years, its ideas (cinematic, political) could still dialogue without a doubt with oppositional and confrontational to power initiatives in many countries. In an important essay on the “changing geography” of Third Cinema, Michael Chanan (1997) reconstructed, among other questions, the history of the film and of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto; some misinterpretations and modifications of the original definitions of the three types of cinema; the connections of the film with parallel movements in different countries; and the “transnational function” of Third Cinema. The author also addressed the subsequent recuperation of the thesis put forward by the film and the manifesto and their dialogue with other perspectives more or less similar in the 1980s. In particular, he wrote of the pioneer recuperation by the scholar Teshome Gabriel in his works at the beginning of the decade. He also focused on the well-known Third Cinema Conference held in Edinburgh in 1986, organised by Jim Pines and Paul Willemen that focused on the relevance of the concept of Third Cinema for the oppositional practices in film and video in the 1980s in the metropolitan centres of First World countries. In what follows, I will return over some of the testimonies and ideas included in those two moments of the debate around Third Cinema. (the CinémAction dossier of 1979 and the meeting in Edinburgh of 1986 ) and I will survey other less well known sources and documents such as catalogues from parallel distributors, letters, testimonies or press notes from those days. From there, I aim to look at the place that The Hour of the Furnaces occupied in the circuit of political and militant cinema in the first world, the debates it sparked, the polemics in which it took part . Of course, it will probably be an incomplete journey but I do not think it is a question of summarising that history but of continuing to explore it. (...) Published in the book A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.), Intellect, 2018; pp.135-158.
En este artículo se analizan dos casos emblemáticos de alteración de documentos originales del ci... more En este artículo se analizan dos casos emblemáticos de alteración de documentos originales del cine político de América Latina de inicios de la década de 1970, ya sea en su primera publicación como en reediciones posteriores. Estos casos permiten problematizar y discutir varios aspectos del trabajo con las fuentes en la historiografía del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano. Por un lado, se sugieren hipótesis respecto de las razones que llevaron a las modificaciones de que se trata; por otro, se intenta complejizar las posibles precauciones a asumir frente a este tipo de alteraciones.Fil: Mestman, Mariano Ernesto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin
El encuentro de cineastas de Argel (Argelia) en diciembre de 1973 es bien conocido en los estudio... more El encuentro de cineastas de Argel (Argelia) en diciembre de 1973 es bien conocido en los estudios sobre el cine del Tercer Mundo. En cuanto oportunidad de intercambio y discusion, este encuentro permitio la organizacion del trabajo de los cineastas y focalizo el debate en tres ejes principales: la contribucion del cine a los procesos de liberacion nacional, la descolonizacion de las pantallas del Tercer Mundo y la lucha contra la «alienacion cultural». El resultado mas importante fue la creacion del Comite de Cine del Tercer Mundo. Solo seis meses mas tarde, un nuevo encuentro tuvo lugar en Buenos Aires (Argentina). Por un lado, el presente ensayo muestra como un proyecto politico-cinematografico (el «tercermundismo») fue tomando forma gradualmente durante esos anos y destaca el rol de ambas reuniones en la promocion de esta nueva identidad politico-cultural. Por otro, este trabajo tambien propone la necesidad de incorporar a esta historia otro evento decisivo: los Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinema, realizados en Montreal en 1974. Poco considerado incluso por la bibliografia especializada, este encuentro puede considerarse el mas importante del cine poli- tico mundial de los anos sesenta y setenta. Dada la cantidad y diversidad de los participantes de Europa, Estados Unidos, Africa y America Latina, la conferencia de Montreal fue crucial en la constitucion del dialogo entre los cineastas politicos del Primer Mundo y la tendencia tercermundista construida entre Argel y Buenos Aires. Palabras clave: Tercer Mundo, tercermundismo, Tercer Cine, Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, Federacion Panafricana de Cineastas Abstract: The filmmakers meeting held in Algiers (Algeria) in December 1973 is a wellknown event among Third World Cinema´s studies. As an opportunity to exchange and discussion, this gathering organised the work of Third World filmmakers and focused the debate on three main issues: the contribution of cinema to national liberation processes, the decolonisation of Third World screens, and the fight against ‘cultural alienation’. The most important result of this meeting was the creation of the Third World Cinema Committee. Only six months after the Algiers encounter, a new gathering was held in Buenos Aires (Argentina). On the one hand, this essay shows how a cinematic-political project (a cinematic «thirdworldism») was gradually shaped during those years and highlights the role of both meetings in prompting this new cultural-political identity.On the other hand, this work also states that this account needs to incorporate another decisive encounter: the 1974 Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinema of Montreal (Canada). Disregarded by the bibliography on the subject, this meeting could be considered the most important event in world political cinema of sixties and seventies. Given the quantity and diverse backgrounds of the participants from Europe, US, Africa and Latin America, the Montreal conference was crucial to build up the dialogue between first world political filmmakers and the thirdworldist trend constructed between Algiers and Buenos Aires meetings. Keywords: Third World, Thirdworldism, Third Cinema, New Latin American Cinema, Panafrican Federation of Filmmakers.
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, Apr 1, 2002
The cinema made in the Third World shows a great diversity depending on the region or country in ... more The cinema made in the Third World shows a great diversity depending on the region or country in question. But towards the late 1960s, there was a gradual consolidation of a cinematic-political project whose main principles were very similar to the 'Third Cinema' proposed by Solanas and Getino, or to García Espinosa's 'imperfect cinema', but also included claims in other Asian or African manifestos. Particularly bold and ambitious was the creation of a Third World Cinema Committee intending to gather film-makers from the three continents. Two successive meetings, in Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974), gave rise to this organisational structure and established its goals. But whereas the Algiers meeting is a reference point in historiography on Third World Cinema, the Buenos Aires gathering remains almost unknown. This article reconstructs both events, the links that made them possible, and views the thirdworldism of that period as a gap-bridging imaginary to the consolidation of Third World Cinema in the geopolitics of international cinema.
The Documentary School oF Santa Fe and its founder, Fernando Birri, are inescapable references in... more The Documentary School oF Santa Fe and its founder, Fernando Birri, are inescapable references in the story of the New Latin American Cinema. The school grew out of a brief course offered by Birri in 1956. The young Argentine had recently returned from studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and he was asked to help organize a course on film with the Instituto Social at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL) in Santa Fe, Argentina. The course was deemed a great success and, soon thereafter, Birri and the UNL institutionalized their efforts by establishing the Instituto de Cinematografía, which began offering classes in April 1957. In the years that followed, the IC would further consolidate itself, becoming known across Argentina and throughout Latin American for its focus on social issues of the time. This chapter returns to 1956 and the beginnings of that experience. There, the local converged with the transnational, and an internationally renowned film program was born out of a faith in amateurs—their knowl- edge, their perspective, and their capacity for self-expression. In Part I, we show how Birri’s initial effort—an introductory course on documentary,offered at the university’s margins (as part of its extension program, out of the social sciences division), and counting among its enrollees painters, schoolteachers, lawyers, even social workers—drew inspiration in equal parts from professional and amateur realms. In Part II, we analyze a key aspect to the filmmaker’s early approach: the use of fotodocumentales—photodocumentaries or photo essays—as a first step for those learning to make films. We reconsider this practice of using photography and social surveys as borrowing from the possibilities of the amateur. The act of taking a pic ture or asking a question made the filmmaking effort accessible to enrollees with little or no background in production, and it was an adequate first step given the limited initial resources of the IC. Most important, fotodocumentales helped focused students’ attention on the capturing of local realities and on the social possibilities of the cinema. As such, although clearly part of a certain (socially and politically conscious) professionalization project, these practices belong to the broader field of amateur cinematic cultures for providing an alternative vision of cinema’s social function and an alternative means of institutionalizing nonindustrial cinematic practices. In Part III, we focus on the well-known documentary Tire-dié (1958–1960). We look at the project’s evolution from a student-made fotodocumental to the IC’s first documentary film, finished in 1958. We pay special attention to the film’s deliberately noncommercial character, both in terms of how it was produced and how it was used socially, across informal networks of exhibition, through community screenings and postscreening audience surveys. Finally, in Part IV, in order to show their impact in later professional film production at school, we return to those unpublished surveys. We note that Birri and his team utilized commentaries from nonfilmgoing audiences to assess their successes in film and to develop the next set of films—a series that, as with the others, featured almost exclusively amateur actors. Birri himself was no “amateur,” and his film school quickly became a point of cinematic reference the Latin America, but the initiative, at least in its origins, stemmed from a bottom-up approach, one that drew inspiration, where not direct investment, from local, amateur practices and bases of knowledge. In many ways, it was the IC’s incorporation of amateur participants, from its students and its film subjects to the neighborhood audiences with whom it shared its films, as well as their association with alternative film cultures, such as local “foto” or “cine-clubs,” that proved an ideal means for training future professionals, thus demonstrating the fluid and productive boundaries between the amateur and the professional. In so doing, the IC’s particular approach charted a new path for the institutionalization of innovative cinematic practices. In: In: Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla (eds.), Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures. Indiana University Press, 2021; 149-168.
Artículos / Eje 2. El cine argentino y español: épocas, aportes y debates Desde allí se propone u... more Artículos / Eje 2. El cine argentino y español: épocas, aportes y debates Desde allí se propone una lectura del proyecto de 1973 en relación con esos y otros sucesos de los años previos y con la historia más larga del Instituto. Se anexan tres documentos internos de la gestión del IC de 1973-1974, hasta ahora inéditos.
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Third Cinema / Tercer Cine by Mariano Mestman
Questo saggio è una traduzione di parti dello Studio Preliminare di M. Mestman (pp. 7-177) del libro in spagnolo Los condenados de la tierra: un film tra Europa e il Terzo Mondo (Alberto Filippi e M. Mestman, Akal, Buenos Aires 2022).
dell’epoca. Voglio mostrare come i concetti, le idee o le riflessioni che il film porta avanti siano stati elaborati in dialogo con prospettive e discorsi
politici storicamente situati e forgiati nei processi di resistenza, liberazione o indipendenza (italiani, europei, del Terzo Mondo) e, più precisamente, in attività ed eventi ai quali gli autori del film parteciparono. Sebbene questi scambi risalgano ad anni precedenti, mi concentrerò qui sulla partecipazione di Orsini e Filippi al Congresso Culturale dell’Avana (gennaio 1968), nonché sulla relazione di quell’esperienza con le prime riprese realizzate l’anno precedente in Guinea Bissau (marzo-aprile 1967).
(all’epoca colonia portoghese) nell’ambito delle case
di produzione della sinistra italiana (l’Ager Film e
l’Unitelefilm), il tutto alla vigilia della contestazione
del ’68, quando I dannati fu completato ed esibito.
Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968), intitulé L’heure des brasiers, réalisé par Santiago Álvarez. L´ essai se concentre sur les appropriations et les citations de diverses expressions de la culture visuelle cubaine florissante de l'époque, en particulier les images de l’exposition Du Tiers-Monde. L'article analyse cette manifestation culturelle collective et le film d'actualités comme des expressions de la confluence de l'internationalisme et de l'expérimentation d'avant-garde autour du Congrès.-
Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/iberical/943
ISSN : 2260-2534 - Éditeur: Sorbonne Université - Laboratoire CRIMIC
This essay studies the film-newsreel about the Havana Cultural Congress (1968), entitled The Hour of the Furnaces, directed by Santiago Álvarez. It focuses on the appropriations and quotations from various expressions of the thriving Cuban visual culture of the time, in particular, images from the exhibition From the Third World. The article analyses this collective cultural manifestation and the newsreel as expressions of the confluence of internationalism and avant-garde experimentation around the Congress.
Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Martina Kopf.
El Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano es el único noticiario producido por el ICAIC y lleva el sello de este lugar de realización tan cercano al poder. Creado 83 días después del derrocamiento del dictador Fulgencio Batista, como primera institución cultural de la Revolución, el ICAIC se inscribió en una dinámica de relevo ideológico del régimen. Durante una treintena de años, entre junio de 1960 y julio de 1990, el Noticiero informó sobre la actualidad nacional e internacional a un público cubano especialmente aficionado a sus ediciones casi semanales. Difundido en las salas de cine y en los cine-móviles que recorrían la isla, el Noticiero compitió con éxito con los informativos de televisión e informó de una manera diferente, más diversificada, sintética, militante y artística. Aún hoy, los cubanos recuerdan con cierta nostalgia la época en la que acudían al cine cada semana para informarse y discutir colectivamente la actualidad nacional e internacional en función de la última edición del NIL. Las 1493 ediciones de noticiarios cinematográficos cubanos constituyen un acervo formidable, cuyos negativos originales fueron incluidos en el registro “Memoria del Mundo” de la Unesco en 2009.
Esta obra es la edición española de un conjunto de textos que se presentó en el Coloquio «El Noticiero ICAIC: una fuente sobre/de/para la historia» celebrado en París en octubre de 2021. El propósito del evento fue conformar con ese conjunto de textos un libro de referencia que publicó inicialmente en francés el Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual de Francia. Su autoría corresponde a historiadores y estudiosos procedentes de Francia, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos, Brasil, Chile y Cuba, quienes desde distintos ángulos y temáticas analizan ese extraordinario medio informativo.
Instituciones participantes
Cinemateca de Cuba, Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Centro de Investigación Interdisciplinar sobre Mundos Ibéricos Contemporáneos (CRIMIC) de la Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Laboratorio de investigación sobre los espacios criollos y francófonos (LCF) de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual (INA) de Francia. Asociación Cultural Hurón Azul para la promoción de la cultura cubana, España.
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italovenezolano Alberto Filippi realizaron el film I dannati della terra/Los condenados de la tierra, inspirado en el libro homónimo del revolucionario afrocaribeño Frantz Fanon. Este ensayo cinematográfico de intervención sobre la necesidad ética y política de hacer la revolución, una revolución que abarque tanto al Tercer Mundo como a Europa, recorre la historia de la intensa amistad entre el cineasta de la izquierda italiana Fausto Morelli y el joven militante fanoniano Abramo Malonga, así como sus diálogos sobre las luchas de liberación africanas (...).
Medio siglo después, M. Mestman y A. Filippi han recuperado este film, mucho tiempo olvidado, y han reconstruido y documentado el contexto cultural y político en el cual fue concebido, así como las polémicas que suscitó(...)".
(Se Incluye la tapa, el Indice General y el Estudio Preliminar a cargo de M.Mestman)
(1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé dans l’essor du Mouvement des pays
non-alignés et sont devenus des points de référence en Amérique latine
et en Afrique pour la radicalisation politique de ce que l’on appelle le
Tiers-Monde pendant la « longue décennie des années 1960 » ou les
longs 60s. Dans le même temps, ces deux révolutions ont exercé une
influence notable sur les gauches du Premier Monde et ont remis en question – du moins pendant un temps – les stratégies du soi-disant «socialisme réel» et de la « coexistence pacifique ». Il s’agit bien sûr d’une histoire complexe aux multiples variantes.
Les relations entre ces deux processus ont été nouées avant l’indépendance de l’Algérie (5 juillet 1962), et le Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano (NIL) a consacré plusieurs reportages à l’Algérie au cours des années 1960 et au début de la décennie suivante.
Ce chapitre les passe en revue et tente de montrer comment s’est configuré une sorte de parallélisme (historique et programmatique) entre les deux pays, qui a mis en évidence une épopée internationaliste et anti-impérialiste commune, tout en faisant allusion aux aléas de la situation politique algérienne, et en reflétant les changements d’orientation dans les relations entre Cuba et l’Algérie, ainsi qu’avec les pays du Tiers-Monde et l’URSS.
Les références à l’Algérie dans le NIL apparaissent essentiellement
entre 1960 et 1974, où trois périodes ont pu être identifiquées par rapport
aux thèmes abordés et à l’histoire politique algérienne : entre 1960
et 1965, nous trouvons les premières références à la lutte de libération
jusqu’au renversement du président Ahmed Ben Bella. Entre 1966
et 1971, on peut parler d’un « silence » du NIL à l’égard de l’Algérie.
Enfin, entre 1972 et 1974, les actualités mettent en avant la figure du
président Houari Boumédiène, associée au projet du Mouvement des
pays non-alignés.
Al final del documento, incluimos también un artículos de Guy Hennebelle donde cuenta la historia del Grupo CinémAction, el surgimiento de la revista y los diversos dossiers publicados en sus primeros años.
https://www.frameworknow.com/news/journal62-1
Special Issue:
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND
LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA
GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
INTRODUCTION
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
ESSAYS
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
“Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971)
“Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema” //
Group CinémAction
“L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979)
“The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World” //
Octavio Getino
“Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979)
“Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’” //
PHOTO-ESSAY
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema” //
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world. -----------------------------------
Abstract:
The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina.
First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents.
As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
https://www.frameworknow.com/news/journal62-1
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND
LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA
GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
INTRODUCTION
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
ESSAYS
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
“Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971)
“Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema”
Group CinémAction
“L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979)
“The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World”
Octavio Getino
“Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979)
“Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’”
PHOTO-ESSAY
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema”
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world.
Abstract:
The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina.
First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents.
As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
This book includes unedited and previously unpublished material that provides insight into world political cinema in the 1960s and 1970s: the conferences, workshops and debates of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The conference was attended by filmmakers, producers and ’68 film groups from France and the first world, along with Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema. The title proposed for this book, Estates Generals of Third Cinema, highlights the revolutionary nature of the projects that characterized these times.
Several fragments of the audiovisual recording of the conference (never before released) are included on the DVD that accompanies this book. These images allow us to reconstruct the debates of this intense political moment, debates among Latin Americans like Miguel Littín, Julio García Espinosa, Fernando Pino Solanas and Walter Achugar; Africans such as Med Hondo, Tahar Cheriaa, Férid Boughedir and Lamine Merbah; European critics like Guido Aristarco, Guy Hennebelle, Lino Micciché and Jean Partick Lebel; Canadians such as Fernand Dansereau, Gilles Groulx, André Paquet and Yvan Patry; as well as independent film distributors and groups like Slon/Iskra, Tricontinental, Mk2, The Other Cinema, and many others.
After this research, André Pâquet prepared a Dossier with lot of another Documents and video recordings of the Conferences of the meeting for the Cinématheque Québécoise:
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/preambule/
There we can see two TV programs about the meeting (with english subtitles) that Mariano Mestman, Andrés Habegger and Fernando M. Peña made in Argentina, following the original research:
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/
During 2015 M. Mestman and Masha Salazkina prepared a Special Topic on the Rencontres… for the Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue Canadienne d´Études Cinématographiques (V.24, N.2), including articles by Vicent Bouchard, Marion Froger, Michael Chanan, Ignacio del Valle, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Irene Rozsa and Viviane Saglier, and an interview with André Pâquet and Carol Faucher by André Habib. (In english and French):
http://www.filmstudies.ca/journal/cjfs/archives/24.2-fall-2015
Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world got together at the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal, June, 1974). The list of participants
included: filmmakers, producers and ‘68 film groups from France and elsewhere; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of a burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians and producers; and members from film institutes and distributors from Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the sheer number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference holds a serious claim to being one of the most important worldwide events in political cinema of the period.
The most ambitious goal of the gathering in Montreal was to forge or strengthen ties among politically committed cinemas in the wake of the ruptures of 1968 in Europe as well as the emergence of Third Worldist filmmaking. The idea of an “Estates-General of Third Cinema”—an expression simultaneously referencing the events of May ’68 in France (Estates General of Cinema / Les États Généraux du Cinéma
Français), combined with the notion of Third Cinema—stemmed from this goal and was incorporated into several projects of the period.
In terms of the New Latin American Cinema, the documents and audiovisual records of the Rencontres… provide insight into this period of organization of filmmakers in the region. In the most common accounts of this historical moment, three key aspects revealed in the Montreal Documents are often ignored or attributed little importance: a) the fact that during the Rencontres, Latin American filmmakers had given shape to an initial group that is the immediate predecessor of the renowned Latin American Filmmakers’ Committee created in September that same year (1974); b) that the political relations among the most well-known Latin American figures (like Fernando Solanas, Edgardo Pallero, Walter Achugar, Miguel Littin, Julio García Espinosa) were wrought with tensions and conflict; c) that within the goal of organizing and forming a group of Latin American filmmakers, the Third Worldist
trends -seen in the gatherings in the Third World Cinema Committee meetings of Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974) and (in some way also) Montreal (June 1974)- were aimed at forming a Latin American Filmmakers Federation (FELACI) that would operate under or follow the example set by FEPACI (the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers). This article focuses on these questions.
Notes on the audiovisual documents: While many of the Montreal meeting’s documents where initially compiled in 1975, the audiovisual recordings of the event remained invisible until a few years ago. In total there were fifty one video recordings, although only forty eight have been preserved. I found these recordings in the Cinemathèque Québécoise archives in 2012. Thanks to the kindness and collaboration of André Pâquet and Jean Gagnon—director of collections at the Cinemathèque—a digital transfer of 32 of the 48 tapes was made, financed with funds from a Research Project of the CONICET, Argentina. They are now available in DVD for public consultation in Montreal and Buenos Aires. In the summer 2013/14, I published a research dedicated to the Montreal meeting, as well as some documents, and a DVD with three hours of audiovisual recordings. (M. Mestman, Estados Generales del Tercer
Cine. Los Documentos de Montreal, 1974; Rehime, Volume 3, Buenos Aires, Summer 2013/2014).
These materials were presented and discussed in April 2014 at a symposium organized by Luca Camianti and Masha Salazkina at Concordia University (Montreal). The idea for the 2015 dossier of the Canadian Journal for Film Studies (edited with Masha Salazkina) was assemble in depth research on the themes and problems debated during the meeting, emerged from that encounter.
En su versión original, el texto intentaba aportar nuevos documentos que mostraban la continuidad del famoso Encuentro de Cineastas del Tercer Mundo de diciembre de 1973 celebrado en Argel en una segunda reunión realizada en Buenos Aires en mayo de 1974. Pero en los años que siguieron a su publicación original, fueron apareciendo otras fuentes sobre el mismo tema o afines, hasta que en 2012 di con los registros audiovisuales de una suerte de continuidad de ese vínculo, ahora ya no en el Sur, sino en Montreal (Canadá). De ahí, el cambio también en el título respecto de la versión original (aquí se agrega Montreal). Este último encuentro del cine político mundial fue realizado en junio de 1974 y allí la tendencia tercermundista forjada entre Argel y Buenos Aires se expresó en toda su plenitud. Si bien publiqué estos materiales de Montreal en 2014 me pareció oportuno reeditar aquí el viejo artículo de la relación entre los dos primeros eventos (Argel-Buenos Aires) pero modificado en aspectos que fui corrigiendo en estos más de quince años y agregándole no sólo lo de Montreal, sino otros datos que fueron apareciendo recientemente en la bibliografía, como la presencia del argentino Raymundo Gleyzer en los vínculos con el cine argelino (que muestran las cartas publicadas hace poco por Juana Sapire y Cynthia Sabat) o la del chileno Sergio Trabucco en el encuentro de Buenos Aires (de su libro de 2014),, entre otras informaciones de otras fuentes que también incorporé.
The Hour of the Furnaces and the manifesto Towards a Third Cinema can be inscribed, as it is well known, within a wider period, the so-called long 60s. After the pioneer essay by Fredric Jameson (1984) on this period – that according to him could be tracked back to sometime in the second half of the 1950s and could be extended until 1972-1974 – many other authors used the same concept and proposed different periodizations. As far as I am aware, the ‘widest’ locates the origins of the long 60s at the beginning of the Algeria War (1954) or the Bandung Conference (1955) and its ending in the Sandinist Revolution (1979). Of course, it is a periodization that takes into account also the idea of the global 1960s inasmuch as the 1960s account for the expansion of a common sensibility at an international level that tries to cover a wide range of processes of rebellion, revolt, insurrection and revolution in a number of countries around the world. That temporal extension (long 60s.) and geographical (global 60s.) is quite apt to think about The Hour of the Furnaces in its national and international context. Although its world premiere took place amidst the revolts of 1968, at the same time, it is possible to find the conditions that made the film possible as far back as the middle of the 1950s. And this not only because its third worldism dialogues with Algeria and Bandung, but also because 1955 is the year of the civic-military coup against the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and the beginning of the so-called “Peronist resistance” against successive governments. The whole of the second part of the film, sometimes disregarded by academic accounts, concerns itself precisely with Peronism and “the Resistance”. At the same time, we can extend its ‘sixties’ influence until the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we can take also as a significant fact the almost forgotten dossier organised in 1979 by Guy Hennebelle and the group CinémAction for the magazine Tiers Monde (1979) about the influence of the film and the manifesto in several countries around the world.
As it is well known, in the 1980s, and even in later periods, the film and the document were revisited in new manifestos, events and proposals in different places. Although, from my perspective, the historical period of The Hour of the Furnaces (and of Third Cinema) had already concluded even in those years, its ideas (cinematic, political) could still dialogue without a doubt with oppositional and confrontational to power initiatives in many countries. In an important essay on the “changing geography” of Third Cinema, Michael Chanan (1997) reconstructed, among other questions, the history of the film and of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto; some misinterpretations and modifications of the original definitions of the three types of cinema; the connections of the film with parallel movements in different countries; and the “transnational function” of Third Cinema. The author also addressed the subsequent recuperation of the thesis put forward by the film and the manifesto and their dialogue with other perspectives more or less similar in the 1980s. In particular, he wrote of the pioneer recuperation by the scholar Teshome Gabriel in his works at the beginning of the decade. He also focused on the well-known Third Cinema Conference held in Edinburgh in 1986, organised by Jim Pines and Paul Willemen that focused on the relevance of the concept of Third Cinema for the oppositional practices in film and video in the 1980s in the metropolitan centres of First World countries.
In what follows, I will return over some of the testimonies and ideas included in those two moments of the debate around Third Cinema. (the CinémAction dossier of 1979 and the meeting in Edinburgh of 1986 ) and I will survey other less well known sources and documents such as catalogues from parallel distributors, letters, testimonies or press notes from those days. From there, I aim to look at the place that The Hour of the Furnaces occupied in the circuit of political and militant cinema in the first world, the debates it sparked, the polemics in which it took part . Of course, it will probably be an incomplete journey but I do not think it is a question of summarising that history but of continuing to explore it.
(...)
Published in the book A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.), Intellect, 2018; pp.135-158.
Given the number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference could be considered the most important event in world political cinema of the period. However, despite its obvious importance to reconstructing the history of the international(ist) film movements of the 1960s and 70s, the meeting has been completely overlooked in scholarship.
This special issue seeks to rectify this omission by bringing together essays analyzing different aspects and geopolitical agendas which shaped this conference, basing its findings on the are audiovisual recordings of the talks, workshops and debates of the conference, which are currently archived at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
1968 by Mariano Mestman
De este modo, primero recorreré algunos aspectos generales del Congreso Cultural en relación con la presencia allí de la dirigencia del cine cubano (I) y comentaré los rasgos principales de la exposición del Tercer Mundo (II). Luego me detendré en el análisis de cómo el noticiero incorpora las imágenes de la exposición así como numeroso y variado footage de archivos propios y ajenos, que intentaré identificar (III). Finalmente, contextualizaré ambas manifestaciones culturales en el momento atravesado por la cultura visual cubana y mencionaré el diálogo de este noticiero y su director con eventos artísticos y culturales inmediatamente previos, para concluir por qué –desde mi punto de vista- La hora de los hornos reconoce particularidades dentro del conjunto de la obra de Santiago Álvarez (IV y V).
La versión definitiva de este ensayo será publicada en 2022, en el libro con las ponencias del Simposio internacional "Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)”, organizado por Katerina Valdivia Bruch en marzo de 2021 desde Berlín.
Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce autores.
Abstract:
1968 constituye un punto de referencia ineludible en la historia del siglo XX. La expresión 68, como indicación de una nueva sensibilidad político-cultural, ha sido estudiada desde diversas disciplinas, también para lo cinematográfico. Pero, ¿hasta dónde se ha indagado su significación en América Latina? Este libro se pregunta por las rupturas que acarreó el cine del 68 en la región. ¿Cómo interpretarlo más allá de la mirada “eurocéntrica” que hasta hace poco dominó los relatos?, ¿qué significados y valores comunes reconoce con fenómenos ocurridos en otras cinematografías, hegemónicas o del Tercer Mundo?, ¿a qué años remite el momento 68 en cada lugar?, ¿cómo superar las visiones generales sobre América Latina como conjunto y en cambio precisar en las singularidades de lo ocurrido en cada país?
Estos y otros interrogantes motivan los ensayos a cargo de destacados especialistas. Aun cuando indagan en un período más amplio, la “larga década del ´60”, muestran que el 68 constituye un momento clave de las rupturas. Sin excluir las perspectivas comparadas o los vínculos transnacionales, los capítulos profundizan en las configuraciones culturales nacionales en que dichas rupturas tuvieron lugar. Y al mismo tiempo focalizan en la coopresencia en cada caso de tres dimensiones características: lo experimental, lo contracultural y lo político.
Autores (por orden de artículos): David Oubiña, Javier Sanjinés, Ismail Xavier, Iván Pinto, Sergio Becerra, Juan Antonio García Borrero, Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón, Cecilia Lacruz, María Luisa Ortega, Mirta Varela, Paula Halperin.
Questo saggio è una traduzione di parti dello Studio Preliminare di M. Mestman (pp. 7-177) del libro in spagnolo Los condenados de la tierra: un film tra Europa e il Terzo Mondo (Alberto Filippi e M. Mestman, Akal, Buenos Aires 2022).
dell’epoca. Voglio mostrare come i concetti, le idee o le riflessioni che il film porta avanti siano stati elaborati in dialogo con prospettive e discorsi
politici storicamente situati e forgiati nei processi di resistenza, liberazione o indipendenza (italiani, europei, del Terzo Mondo) e, più precisamente, in attività ed eventi ai quali gli autori del film parteciparono. Sebbene questi scambi risalgano ad anni precedenti, mi concentrerò qui sulla partecipazione di Orsini e Filippi al Congresso Culturale dell’Avana (gennaio 1968), nonché sulla relazione di quell’esperienza con le prime riprese realizzate l’anno precedente in Guinea Bissau (marzo-aprile 1967).
(all’epoca colonia portoghese) nell’ambito delle case
di produzione della sinistra italiana (l’Ager Film e
l’Unitelefilm), il tutto alla vigilia della contestazione
del ’68, quando I dannati fu completato ed esibito.
Cet essai étudie le film d´actualités sur le Congrès culturel de La Havane (1968), intitulé L’heure des brasiers, réalisé par Santiago Álvarez. L´ essai se concentre sur les appropriations et les citations de diverses expressions de la culture visuelle cubaine florissante de l'époque, en particulier les images de l’exposition Du Tiers-Monde. L'article analyse cette manifestation culturelle collective et le film d'actualités comme des expressions de la confluence de l'internationalisme et de l'expérimentation d'avant-garde autour du Congrès.-
Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/iberical/943
ISSN : 2260-2534 - Éditeur: Sorbonne Université - Laboratoire CRIMIC
This essay studies the film-newsreel about the Havana Cultural Congress (1968), entitled The Hour of the Furnaces, directed by Santiago Álvarez. It focuses on the appropriations and quotations from various expressions of the thriving Cuban visual culture of the time, in particular, images from the exhibition From the Third World. The article analyses this collective cultural manifestation and the newsreel as expressions of the confluence of internationalism and avant-garde experimentation around the Congress.
Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Martina Kopf.
El Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano es el único noticiario producido por el ICAIC y lleva el sello de este lugar de realización tan cercano al poder. Creado 83 días después del derrocamiento del dictador Fulgencio Batista, como primera institución cultural de la Revolución, el ICAIC se inscribió en una dinámica de relevo ideológico del régimen. Durante una treintena de años, entre junio de 1960 y julio de 1990, el Noticiero informó sobre la actualidad nacional e internacional a un público cubano especialmente aficionado a sus ediciones casi semanales. Difundido en las salas de cine y en los cine-móviles que recorrían la isla, el Noticiero compitió con éxito con los informativos de televisión e informó de una manera diferente, más diversificada, sintética, militante y artística. Aún hoy, los cubanos recuerdan con cierta nostalgia la época en la que acudían al cine cada semana para informarse y discutir colectivamente la actualidad nacional e internacional en función de la última edición del NIL. Las 1493 ediciones de noticiarios cinematográficos cubanos constituyen un acervo formidable, cuyos negativos originales fueron incluidos en el registro “Memoria del Mundo” de la Unesco en 2009.
Esta obra es la edición española de un conjunto de textos que se presentó en el Coloquio «El Noticiero ICAIC: una fuente sobre/de/para la historia» celebrado en París en octubre de 2021. El propósito del evento fue conformar con ese conjunto de textos un libro de referencia que publicó inicialmente en francés el Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual de Francia. Su autoría corresponde a historiadores y estudiosos procedentes de Francia, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos, Brasil, Chile y Cuba, quienes desde distintos ángulos y temáticas analizan ese extraordinario medio informativo.
Instituciones participantes
Cinemateca de Cuba, Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Centro de Investigación Interdisciplinar sobre Mundos Ibéricos Contemporáneos (CRIMIC) de la Universidad de La Sorbona de París, Francia; Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Laboratorio de investigación sobre los espacios criollos y francófonos (LCF) de la Universidad de La Reunión, Francia; Instituto Nacional del Audiovisual (INA) de Francia. Asociación Cultural Hurón Azul para la promoción de la cultura cubana, España.
"Entre 1966 y 1968 el cineasta italiano Valentino Orsini y el filósofo italovenezolano Alberto Filippi realizaron el film I dannati della terra/Los condenados de la tierra, inspirado en el libro homónimo del revolucionario afrocaribeño Frantz Fanon. Este ensayo cinematográfico de intervención sobre la necesidad ética y política de hacer la revolución, una revolución que abarque tanto al Tercer Mundo como a Europa, recorre la historia de la intensa amistad entre el cineasta de la izquierda italiana Fausto Morelli y el joven militante fanoniano Abramo Malonga, así como sus diálogos sobre las luchas de liberación africanas (...).
Medio siglo después, M. Mestman y A. Filippi han recuperado este film, mucho tiempo olvidado, y han reconstruido y documentado el contexto cultural y político en el cual fue concebido, así como las polémicas que suscitó(...)".
(Se Incluye la tapa, el Indice General y el Estudio Preliminar a cargo de M.Mestman)
(1954-1962) ont joué un rôle clé dans l’essor du Mouvement des pays
non-alignés et sont devenus des points de référence en Amérique latine
et en Afrique pour la radicalisation politique de ce que l’on appelle le
Tiers-Monde pendant la « longue décennie des années 1960 » ou les
longs 60s. Dans le même temps, ces deux révolutions ont exercé une
influence notable sur les gauches du Premier Monde et ont remis en question – du moins pendant un temps – les stratégies du soi-disant «socialisme réel» et de la « coexistence pacifique ». Il s’agit bien sûr d’une histoire complexe aux multiples variantes.
Les relations entre ces deux processus ont été nouées avant l’indépendance de l’Algérie (5 juillet 1962), et le Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano (NIL) a consacré plusieurs reportages à l’Algérie au cours des années 1960 et au début de la décennie suivante.
Ce chapitre les passe en revue et tente de montrer comment s’est configuré une sorte de parallélisme (historique et programmatique) entre les deux pays, qui a mis en évidence une épopée internationaliste et anti-impérialiste commune, tout en faisant allusion aux aléas de la situation politique algérienne, et en reflétant les changements d’orientation dans les relations entre Cuba et l’Algérie, ainsi qu’avec les pays du Tiers-Monde et l’URSS.
Les références à l’Algérie dans le NIL apparaissent essentiellement
entre 1960 et 1974, où trois périodes ont pu être identifiquées par rapport
aux thèmes abordés et à l’histoire politique algérienne : entre 1960
et 1965, nous trouvons les premières références à la lutte de libération
jusqu’au renversement du président Ahmed Ben Bella. Entre 1966
et 1971, on peut parler d’un « silence » du NIL à l’égard de l’Algérie.
Enfin, entre 1972 et 1974, les actualités mettent en avant la figure du
président Houari Boumédiène, associée au projet du Mouvement des
pays non-alignés.
Al final del documento, incluimos también un artículos de Guy Hennebelle donde cuenta la historia del Grupo CinémAction, el surgimiento de la revista y los diversos dossiers publicados en sus primeros años.
https://www.frameworknow.com/news/journal62-1
Special Issue:
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND
LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA
GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
INTRODUCTION
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman //
ESSAYS
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
“Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971)
“Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema” //
Group CinémAction
“L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979)
“The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World” //
Octavio Getino
“Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979)
“Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’” //
PHOTO-ESSAY
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema” //
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world. -----------------------------------
Abstract:
The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina.
First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents.
As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
https://www.frameworknow.com/news/journal62-1
DOCUMENTING THIRD CINEMA (1968–1979): OVERLOOKED AND
LITTLE-KNOWN DOCUMENTS AROUND THIRD CINEMA
GUEST EDITORS: Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
INTRODUCTION
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
ESSAYS
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
“Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine” (1971)
“Militant Cinema: An Internal Category of Third Cinema”
Group CinémAction
“L’impact du ‘troisième cinéma’ dans le monde” (1979)
“The Impact of ‘Third Cinema’ in the World”
Octavio Getino
“Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine’”(1979)
“Some Observations on the Concept of ‘Third Cinema’”
PHOTO-ESSAY
Jonathan Buchsbaum and Mariano Mestman
Images of the Itinerary of the Group Cine Liberación and “Third Cinema”
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Octavio Getino (1935–2012), Fernando Pino Solanas (1936–2020) and Guy Hennebelle (1941–2003), artisans of Third Cinema and militant cinema across the world.
Abstract:
The proposal of Third Cinema from the group Cine Liberación has had a broad impact on world political cinema since the end of the 1960s. The articles translated in this issue are three little-known but seminal documents that demonstrate how their thinking about radical filmmaking changed during the tumultuous years from the production of the film The hour of the furnaces (1968), beginning in 1966, through the years of clandestine distribution of the film and the escalation of the repression, to the violent coup d’état in 1976 installing the military dictatorship that forced Solanas, Getino, and so many others into exile. Anglophone readers have known the film and the manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969) since their completion through subtitled prints and translations of the manifesto. The documents translated in this Special Issue show that Solanas and Getino in fact were constantly revising their earlier ideas, especially in response to a rapidly changing political ferment in Argentina.
First chronologically, the lengthy article by Getino and Solanas, “Cine militante: una categoría interna del Tercer Cine,” was completed in March 1971. This article shows the evolution of their thinking about political cinema that led them to this formulation of militant cinema, “the most advanced category” of Third Cinema. In 1979, Getino wrote the essay “Algunas observaciones sobre el concepto del ‘Tercer Cine,’” a meticulous retrospective analysis that explains the dialectic between the writings published by the group Cine Liberación and the process of clandestine distribution of the film in Argentina until the period following Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973. Also in 1979, a French collective devoted to political cinema, the newly founded French CinémAction group—created by Guy Hennebelle and Monique Martineau in 1978 in Paris— compiled a dossier of eleven responses to survey questions about the impact of the film and the manifesto in different countries during the decade since the explosive response to the first European screening of The Hour of the Furnaces at the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy) in 1968. That CinémAction dossier offers perhaps the most articulate and concentrated assessment of the significance of Third Cinema among committed film activists from all three continents.
As we have written previously about these documents, we propose here a brief presentation highlighting several questions that remain pertinent to understanding better the history of Third Cinema. At the same time, in our Photo-Essay, the many images include more specific references to the history of the film and the manifesto since they first appeared in 1968/1969 to 1979.
This book includes unedited and previously unpublished material that provides insight into world political cinema in the 1960s and 1970s: the conferences, workshops and debates of the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma, a conference held in Montreal, Canada from June 2-8, 1974. The conference was attended by filmmakers, producers and ’68 film groups from France and the first world, along with Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of burgeoning African cinema. The title proposed for this book, Estates Generals of Third Cinema, highlights the revolutionary nature of the projects that characterized these times.
Several fragments of the audiovisual recording of the conference (never before released) are included on the DVD that accompanies this book. These images allow us to reconstruct the debates of this intense political moment, debates among Latin Americans like Miguel Littín, Julio García Espinosa, Fernando Pino Solanas and Walter Achugar; Africans such as Med Hondo, Tahar Cheriaa, Férid Boughedir and Lamine Merbah; European critics like Guido Aristarco, Guy Hennebelle, Lino Micciché and Jean Partick Lebel; Canadians such as Fernand Dansereau, Gilles Groulx, André Paquet and Yvan Patry; as well as independent film distributors and groups like Slon/Iskra, Tricontinental, Mk2, The Other Cinema, and many others.
After this research, André Pâquet prepared a Dossier with lot of another Documents and video recordings of the Conferences of the meeting for the Cinématheque Québécoise:
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/preambule/
There we can see two TV programs about the meeting (with english subtitles) that Mariano Mestman, Andrés Habegger and Fernando M. Peña made in Argentina, following the original research:
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/
During 2015 M. Mestman and Masha Salazkina prepared a Special Topic on the Rencontres… for the Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue Canadienne d´Études Cinématographiques (V.24, N.2), including articles by Vicent Bouchard, Marion Froger, Michael Chanan, Ignacio del Valle, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Irene Rozsa and Viviane Saglier, and an interview with André Pâquet and Carol Faucher by André Habib. (In english and French):
http://www.filmstudies.ca/journal/cjfs/archives/24.2-fall-2015
Some of the most important representatives of political cinema from around the world got together at the Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal, June, 1974). The list of participants
included: filmmakers, producers and ‘68 film groups from France and elsewhere; Latin American political filmmakers and representatives of a burgeoning African cinema; film critics, historians and producers; and members from film institutes and distributors from Europe and North America, including, of course, the Canadian organizers of the conference, André Pâquet and the Comité d'Action Cinématographique (CAC). Given the sheer number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference holds a serious claim to being one of the most important worldwide events in political cinema of the period.
The most ambitious goal of the gathering in Montreal was to forge or strengthen ties among politically committed cinemas in the wake of the ruptures of 1968 in Europe as well as the emergence of Third Worldist filmmaking. The idea of an “Estates-General of Third Cinema”—an expression simultaneously referencing the events of May ’68 in France (Estates General of Cinema / Les États Généraux du Cinéma
Français), combined with the notion of Third Cinema—stemmed from this goal and was incorporated into several projects of the period.
In terms of the New Latin American Cinema, the documents and audiovisual records of the Rencontres… provide insight into this period of organization of filmmakers in the region. In the most common accounts of this historical moment, three key aspects revealed in the Montreal Documents are often ignored or attributed little importance: a) the fact that during the Rencontres, Latin American filmmakers had given shape to an initial group that is the immediate predecessor of the renowned Latin American Filmmakers’ Committee created in September that same year (1974); b) that the political relations among the most well-known Latin American figures (like Fernando Solanas, Edgardo Pallero, Walter Achugar, Miguel Littin, Julio García Espinosa) were wrought with tensions and conflict; c) that within the goal of organizing and forming a group of Latin American filmmakers, the Third Worldist
trends -seen in the gatherings in the Third World Cinema Committee meetings of Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974) and (in some way also) Montreal (June 1974)- were aimed at forming a Latin American Filmmakers Federation (FELACI) that would operate under or follow the example set by FEPACI (the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers). This article focuses on these questions.
Notes on the audiovisual documents: While many of the Montreal meeting’s documents where initially compiled in 1975, the audiovisual recordings of the event remained invisible until a few years ago. In total there were fifty one video recordings, although only forty eight have been preserved. I found these recordings in the Cinemathèque Québécoise archives in 2012. Thanks to the kindness and collaboration of André Pâquet and Jean Gagnon—director of collections at the Cinemathèque—a digital transfer of 32 of the 48 tapes was made, financed with funds from a Research Project of the CONICET, Argentina. They are now available in DVD for public consultation in Montreal and Buenos Aires. In the summer 2013/14, I published a research dedicated to the Montreal meeting, as well as some documents, and a DVD with three hours of audiovisual recordings. (M. Mestman, Estados Generales del Tercer
Cine. Los Documentos de Montreal, 1974; Rehime, Volume 3, Buenos Aires, Summer 2013/2014).
These materials were presented and discussed in April 2014 at a symposium organized by Luca Camianti and Masha Salazkina at Concordia University (Montreal). The idea for the 2015 dossier of the Canadian Journal for Film Studies (edited with Masha Salazkina) was assemble in depth research on the themes and problems debated during the meeting, emerged from that encounter.
En su versión original, el texto intentaba aportar nuevos documentos que mostraban la continuidad del famoso Encuentro de Cineastas del Tercer Mundo de diciembre de 1973 celebrado en Argel en una segunda reunión realizada en Buenos Aires en mayo de 1974. Pero en los años que siguieron a su publicación original, fueron apareciendo otras fuentes sobre el mismo tema o afines, hasta que en 2012 di con los registros audiovisuales de una suerte de continuidad de ese vínculo, ahora ya no en el Sur, sino en Montreal (Canadá). De ahí, el cambio también en el título respecto de la versión original (aquí se agrega Montreal). Este último encuentro del cine político mundial fue realizado en junio de 1974 y allí la tendencia tercermundista forjada entre Argel y Buenos Aires se expresó en toda su plenitud. Si bien publiqué estos materiales de Montreal en 2014 me pareció oportuno reeditar aquí el viejo artículo de la relación entre los dos primeros eventos (Argel-Buenos Aires) pero modificado en aspectos que fui corrigiendo en estos más de quince años y agregándole no sólo lo de Montreal, sino otros datos que fueron apareciendo recientemente en la bibliografía, como la presencia del argentino Raymundo Gleyzer en los vínculos con el cine argelino (que muestran las cartas publicadas hace poco por Juana Sapire y Cynthia Sabat) o la del chileno Sergio Trabucco en el encuentro de Buenos Aires (de su libro de 2014),, entre otras informaciones de otras fuentes que también incorporé.
The Hour of the Furnaces and the manifesto Towards a Third Cinema can be inscribed, as it is well known, within a wider period, the so-called long 60s. After the pioneer essay by Fredric Jameson (1984) on this period – that according to him could be tracked back to sometime in the second half of the 1950s and could be extended until 1972-1974 – many other authors used the same concept and proposed different periodizations. As far as I am aware, the ‘widest’ locates the origins of the long 60s at the beginning of the Algeria War (1954) or the Bandung Conference (1955) and its ending in the Sandinist Revolution (1979). Of course, it is a periodization that takes into account also the idea of the global 1960s inasmuch as the 1960s account for the expansion of a common sensibility at an international level that tries to cover a wide range of processes of rebellion, revolt, insurrection and revolution in a number of countries around the world. That temporal extension (long 60s.) and geographical (global 60s.) is quite apt to think about The Hour of the Furnaces in its national and international context. Although its world premiere took place amidst the revolts of 1968, at the same time, it is possible to find the conditions that made the film possible as far back as the middle of the 1950s. And this not only because its third worldism dialogues with Algeria and Bandung, but also because 1955 is the year of the civic-military coup against the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and the beginning of the so-called “Peronist resistance” against successive governments. The whole of the second part of the film, sometimes disregarded by academic accounts, concerns itself precisely with Peronism and “the Resistance”. At the same time, we can extend its ‘sixties’ influence until the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we can take also as a significant fact the almost forgotten dossier organised in 1979 by Guy Hennebelle and the group CinémAction for the magazine Tiers Monde (1979) about the influence of the film and the manifesto in several countries around the world.
As it is well known, in the 1980s, and even in later periods, the film and the document were revisited in new manifestos, events and proposals in different places. Although, from my perspective, the historical period of The Hour of the Furnaces (and of Third Cinema) had already concluded even in those years, its ideas (cinematic, political) could still dialogue without a doubt with oppositional and confrontational to power initiatives in many countries. In an important essay on the “changing geography” of Third Cinema, Michael Chanan (1997) reconstructed, among other questions, the history of the film and of Solanas and Getino’s manifesto; some misinterpretations and modifications of the original definitions of the three types of cinema; the connections of the film with parallel movements in different countries; and the “transnational function” of Third Cinema. The author also addressed the subsequent recuperation of the thesis put forward by the film and the manifesto and their dialogue with other perspectives more or less similar in the 1980s. In particular, he wrote of the pioneer recuperation by the scholar Teshome Gabriel in his works at the beginning of the decade. He also focused on the well-known Third Cinema Conference held in Edinburgh in 1986, organised by Jim Pines and Paul Willemen that focused on the relevance of the concept of Third Cinema for the oppositional practices in film and video in the 1980s in the metropolitan centres of First World countries.
In what follows, I will return over some of the testimonies and ideas included in those two moments of the debate around Third Cinema. (the CinémAction dossier of 1979 and the meeting in Edinburgh of 1986 ) and I will survey other less well known sources and documents such as catalogues from parallel distributors, letters, testimonies or press notes from those days. From there, I aim to look at the place that The Hour of the Furnaces occupied in the circuit of political and militant cinema in the first world, the debates it sparked, the polemics in which it took part . Of course, it will probably be an incomplete journey but I do not think it is a question of summarising that history but of continuing to explore it.
(...)
Published in the book A trail of fire for political cinema (Javier Campo and Humberto Pérez-Blanco, eds.), Intellect, 2018; pp.135-158.
Given the number and diverse backgrounds of the participants, the Montreal conference could be considered the most important event in world political cinema of the period. However, despite its obvious importance to reconstructing the history of the international(ist) film movements of the 1960s and 70s, the meeting has been completely overlooked in scholarship.
This special issue seeks to rectify this omission by bringing together essays analyzing different aspects and geopolitical agendas which shaped this conference, basing its findings on the are audiovisual recordings of the talks, workshops and debates of the conference, which are currently archived at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
De este modo, primero recorreré algunos aspectos generales del Congreso Cultural en relación con la presencia allí de la dirigencia del cine cubano (I) y comentaré los rasgos principales de la exposición del Tercer Mundo (II). Luego me detendré en el análisis de cómo el noticiero incorpora las imágenes de la exposición así como numeroso y variado footage de archivos propios y ajenos, que intentaré identificar (III). Finalmente, contextualizaré ambas manifestaciones culturales en el momento atravesado por la cultura visual cubana y mencionaré el diálogo de este noticiero y su director con eventos artísticos y culturales inmediatamente previos, para concluir por qué –desde mi punto de vista- La hora de los hornos reconoce particularidades dentro del conjunto de la obra de Santiago Álvarez (IV y V).
La versión definitiva de este ensayo será publicada en 2022, en el libro con las ponencias del Simposio internacional "Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)”, organizado por Katerina Valdivia Bruch en marzo de 2021 desde Berlín.
Indice completo, Introducción (ps.7-61), datos de los doce autores.
Abstract:
1968 constituye un punto de referencia ineludible en la historia del siglo XX. La expresión 68, como indicación de una nueva sensibilidad político-cultural, ha sido estudiada desde diversas disciplinas, también para lo cinematográfico. Pero, ¿hasta dónde se ha indagado su significación en América Latina? Este libro se pregunta por las rupturas que acarreó el cine del 68 en la región. ¿Cómo interpretarlo más allá de la mirada “eurocéntrica” que hasta hace poco dominó los relatos?, ¿qué significados y valores comunes reconoce con fenómenos ocurridos en otras cinematografías, hegemónicas o del Tercer Mundo?, ¿a qué años remite el momento 68 en cada lugar?, ¿cómo superar las visiones generales sobre América Latina como conjunto y en cambio precisar en las singularidades de lo ocurrido en cada país?
Estos y otros interrogantes motivan los ensayos a cargo de destacados especialistas. Aun cuando indagan en un período más amplio, la “larga década del ´60”, muestran que el 68 constituye un momento clave de las rupturas. Sin excluir las perspectivas comparadas o los vínculos transnacionales, los capítulos profundizan en las configuraciones culturales nacionales en que dichas rupturas tuvieron lugar. Y al mismo tiempo focalizan en la coopresencia en cada caso de tres dimensiones características: lo experimental, lo contracultural y lo político.
Autores (por orden de artículos): David Oubiña, Javier Sanjinés, Ismail Xavier, Iván Pinto, Sergio Becerra, Juan Antonio García Borrero, Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón, Cecilia Lacruz, María Luisa Ortega, Mirta Varela, Paula Halperin.
1a. edición: Editorial El Cielo por Asalto, 2000.
2a. edición: Editorial Eudeba, 2008.
Premio “Jorge Barón Biza” al aporte de investigación del año 2000, Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte.
En 1968, un grupo de artistas de vanguardia porteños y rosarinos protagonizó una serie de radicales acciones que pusieron en escena su ruptura con las instituciones artísticas modernizadoras y las formas establecidas de concebir y practicar el arte. Al postular que sus realizaciones experimentales eran efectivas contribuciones al proceso revolucionario (cuya resolución vislumbraban inminente) estos artistas redefinieron también los modos consabidos de articular arte y política.
Cuando este libro se publicó por primera vez, en 2000, apostaba a intervenir en un incipiente espacio de luchas por definir el sentido y el impacto de aquella experiencia radical, apuntando al rescate de su condición de desafío sobre su tiempo y el nuestro. Ante la insistente (casi redundante) recuperación de estas experiencias -en particular Tucumán Arde- que viene teniendo lugar en la última década, resulta indiscutible hablar de su definitivo ingreso al canon. La tarea hoy ya no es reconstruir Tucumán Arde en tanto episodio olvidado o silenciado, reunir sus escasos restos materiales y devolverles alguna legibilidad, sino terciar en medio del clamor glamoroso por insistir en la condición radicalmente política de su herencia, que se resiste a quedar reducida a formas pacificadas, estilos renovados y clasificaciones tranquilizadoras, y que sigue obligándonos a preguntar –una y otra vez- por lo que aún no entendemos ni resignamos.
Escribió el artista y teórico español Marcelo Expósito: “No hay concesiones en este libro ejemplar. Sus autores hacen lo que muy poca historiografía del arte: asumir las coordenadas autorreflexivas y de crítica de los lenguajes que caracterizan a su caso de estudio, para volverlas hacia la propia trama narrativa. Atacan la manera en que la historia recupera experiencias periféricas como ‘Tucumán Arde’, categorizándolas como arte conceptual y/o político, para restituirle su riqueza, límites y contradicción en un relato no reducido a la unidimensionalidad de lo estético.”
Abstract:
This book presents a reconstruction of the actions and definitions of a significant group of avant-garde artists in Argentina who were involved in experimental visual arts. Throughout 1968, they decided to break with the institutions of art to which they were related (particularly Instituto Di Tella) in order to take their production elsewhere, away from the art milieu.
We have called this process “the itinerary of ‘68”, for it is composed of a series of productions and public interventions carried out between April and December 1968. This was the path chosen by several groups of experimental artists to show that –in Raymond Williams’ words- they were forsaking an alternative stance to become engaged in one of opposition. Their intention was to confront not only with the institutions of art but also with the military regime then in power, and even with capitalism.
We understand the itinerary of ’68 as an ephemeral yet paradigmatic expression of the tensions that strained the Argentine intellectual field at a time when a spiralling succession of events shook our country. Coincidentally, the two key trends of the decade became apparent. For the sake of brevity, let us say that modernising movements and revolutionary thinkers either struggled or reached some sort of agreement in the form of discourse, institutions, and cultural production.
- " L´ora dei forni e il cinema politico italiano prima e dopo il `68".
Imago, rivista di cinema e media, numero 15. Roma, Bulzoni editore, 2017.
Dossier a cura di Ivelise Perniola e Luca Caminati.
- " A hora dos fornos e o cinema político italiano por volta de 1968".
Significação, São Paulo, v. 45, n. 50, p. 297-317, jul-dez. 2018.
DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2018.145159
Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria, ISSN 2362-2075, Nº 1, marzo 2014, pp. 52-67
En 1968, los estudiantes mexicanos del Centro Universitario
de Estudios Cinematográficos (CUEC-UNAM) acompañaron
con sus cámaras las protestas del Movimiento Estudiantil
entre los primeros incidentes de julio y la masacre
de Tlatelolco del 2 de octubre. Esos registros fueron guardados
durante algunos meses ante la persecución desatada
por el gobierno de Gustavo Díaz Orda y entre 1969 y 1970
terminaron de editarse en el largometraje documental El
grito (Leobardo López Arretche).
El presente artículo estudia la singular configuración del testimonio
en aquel documental y su articulación con la representación
de las protestas masivas. Asimismo, se compara
con otros casos de la “literatura testimonial” de esos años
también llevados al cine, a partir de una clásica distinción
de John Beverley entre dos momentos clave de la producción
testimonial latinoamericana: la coyuntura de radicalización
en que emerge el “género” en los años 60 y aquella
posterior (y distinta) cuando se articuló en la denuncia de
las violaciones de derechos humanos y las represiones más
cruentas desde la década de 1970.
Introduction
A history of the audiences of the film movement known as Third Cinema requires extensive research into the countries where it took place, given the diverse filmmakers who aimed to produce a cinema of “cultural decolonization” in Africa, Asia and Latin America (and even in the First World, until the Third-Worldist influence) in the 1960s and 1970s. This essay focuses on the screening experience of The Hour of the Furnaces (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Cine Liberación Group, 1968), one of the most important films of the movement. In other works, I have discussed how The Hour... circulated at political film festivals and among militant groups post-’68 in Europe and North America, showing the great number of countries where the movie was included in the catalogues of alternative film groups. On the pages that follow, in contrast, I will be focusing on the film’s outreach among militant audiences in Argentina from 1968-1972.
I consider this film and its spectators a singular case of militant film for three principal reasons: first, because it introduces the theory of Third Cinema (1969). Secondly, unlike the international films produced under governments put into power by revolutionary processes during “the long 60s”—in Algeria post-independence, or in Cuba after 1959, to mention only two emblematic cases—The Hour... is a film made to oppose the military government in power in Argentina (1966-1973). Under an Argentine dictatorship, the screenings—a clear act of resistance to the regimes—were subject to varying levels of clandestinity (depending on specific circumstances), and it is only after Peronism’s return to power in 1973 that the film obtains a theatrical release. A third compelling aspect of this film is that, due to its length (more than four hours, divided into three parts), its sections were screened separately and combined in different ways depending on the audience. What is more, in some cases, certain sequences were cut or others selected especially for their political use in specific situations, in both Argentina and other countries.
In this context, the notes that follow reveal how the Cine Liberación Group conceived of the militant outreach of The Hour... between 1968 and 1972. I will then examine the actual screening experience. In order to provide further insight into these practices, an internal group document by one of the “Mobile Film Units” responsible for screening the film is appended here. I believe this document is unique because of its detailed description of militant screening events (at homes, high schools, universities, neighborhood centers and union offices, or during factory conflicts); of film debates held in conjunction with the screenings, and of the different audiences of workers, students or the middle classes (professionals and intellectuals).It provides insight into the type of audiences that came to see The Hour... during the military regime in Argentina, and reveals certain aspects of the experience of both those who screened the film as well as those who came to watch it.
The document provides a type of information on that experience that is absent (or only hinted at) in the texts that the Cine Liberación Group itself released. In fact, the group’s most widely disseminated and reprinted document, “Towards a Third Cinema,” though fundamental in its history, was published very early on, in October 1969. Due to the fact that it covers only the earliest period of the militant screenings, its overview of the workings of alternative screening venues and the spectators who dared to attend is limited to some degree. As I will show, later public documents released by Cine Liberación describe some of these aspects but do not cover the hands-on tasks associated with exhibitions as described by the groups that actually screened the film. This information was only detailed in testimonials or internal documents like the one reprinted in its entirety at the end of this essay.
A modo de homenaje a Pino (1936-2020)
“Nosotros hemos hablado aquí de la experiencia del Tercer Cine. Lo cual no quiere decir que hayamos querido marginar el tema político. Antes que todo somos militantes políticos. Y para eso tengo cuerda para rato para hablar”
(Pino Solanas, Montreal, junio 1974)
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/
Presentación del material:
Dentro de la extensa obra de Pino Solanas, uno de los períodos más significativos se refiere a su película La hora de los hornos (1968) y el Manifiesto “Hacia un Tercer Cine” (1969), realizados ambos junto a Octavio Getino (1935-2012) y que tuvieron una enorme repercusión internacional. En ese marco, en junio de 1974, en Montreal, Solanas participó de los “Rencontres Internationales pour un Nouveau Cinéma”, tal vez el encuentro más grande e importante del cine político mundial de las décadas de 1960-1970, donde confluyeron más de 200 grupos y cineastas del cine comprometido y militante de todo el mundo. Allí Solanas dio una de las conferencias principales que fue seguida de un durísimo debate sobre el grupo Cine Liberación y la situación del Peronismo en la Argentina. De esa discusión participaron algunas de las figuras clave del cine político latinoamericano e internacional, tanto en contra como a favor de la posición del cineasta argentino.
En 2012 recuperamos 36 registros audiovisuales de esas y otras discusiones del evento en los archivos de la Cinemateca de Quebec (en Montreal) y en 2014 publicamos un volumen con un estudio preliminar y numerosos documentos, junto a un dvd con parte de ese material (“Estados Generales del Tercer Cine. Los documentos de Montreal”, accesible on line en la página de Academia). Al año siguiente, gracias al interés de María Laura Cali, realizamos dos programas de televisión para el CEPIA-Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación, producidos por ella, dirigidos por Andrés Habegger y conducidos por Fernando Martín Peña. Aquí repito el link, donde el EPISODIO 2 contiene estas imágenes de Pino que no tienen desperdicio por su valor testimonial.
http://collections.cinematheque.qc.ca/dossiers/rencontres-internationales-pour-un-nouveau-cinema/documentaires-tv/
Aclaración sobre el material y cómo consultarlo:
En este link pueden consultarse los dos capítulos del Programa de televisión "ESTADOS GENERALES DEL TERCER CINE. LOS DOCUMENTOS DE MONTREAL (2015)". El debate protagonizado por Solanas se encuentra en el EPISODIO 2.
Al ingresar al link pueden encontrarse ambos Episodios (con subtítulos en español e inglés). En este segundo episodio, luego de un testimonio de André Paquet (quien fuera el organizador del encuentro en 1974), el material se organiza en cuatro bloques sucesivos. Cada uno es introducido por una breve conversación (3 minutos) entre Fernando M. Peña y M. Mestman, que contextualiza la situación y da lugar a las imágenes (9 minutos de cada bloque). En la polémica participan Pino (acompañado por los argentinos Cacho Pallero y Humberto Ríos), Lino Micciché (entonces Director del Festival de Pesaro, Italia), Walter Achugar (Uruguay), Miguel Littín (Chile) y Julio García Espinosa (Cuba), entre otros.
Ficha técnica:
Dirección: Andres HABEGGER
Conducción: Fernando Martín PEÑA
Investigación y Guión: Mariano MESTMAN
Ambientación: Julieta ASCAR
Dirección de Fotografía: Mariana RUSSO
Cámara: Fernando ANTONIETTA
Edición: Franco CRUZ
Post producción de imagen: Santiago RICAR
Post producción de sonido: Pablo POLIDORO
Diseño gráfico: Enrique CHOMCZYK/Carola LANCI
Jefe Técnico: Ariel CARREIRA
Asistente técnico: Marco PAVÄN
Asistente producción: Federico ALTMARK
Producción General: Maria Laura CALI
PRODUCIDO POR CEPIA
MINISTERIO DE CULTURA DE LA NACION - 2015
Publicado en: Sociedad, número 27, Publicación de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales / UBA y Ed. Prometeo, Buenos Aires, 2008; ps. 27-79.
- Estudio preliminar: “Raros e inéditos del Grupo Cine Liberación”
por M. Mestman
-Documentos:
Anexo I: “Informe de la Unidad Móvil Rosario presentado al II Plenario de Grupos Cine Liberación”. Diciembre 1970
Anexo II: “A los integrantes de Realizadores de Mayo”. Carta de Grupos de Cine Liberación, Bs.As., 15/11/1970.
Anexo III: “Carta de Juan Domingo Perón a Octavio Getino” (Madrid, 10/03/1971)
Anexo IV: “Destapar o no destapar. Esa es la cuestión” (Marta Traba, Marcha, 7/11/1969)
Publicado originalmente en 2005.
Operai dietro il reticolato perimetrale delle fabbriche, arrampicati sui tetti, con cartelli e bandiere, che occupano gli impianti; lavoratori mobilitati, in manifestazioni massicce, che organizzano barricate nelle vie, scontrandosi con la polizia. Si tratta, come sappiamo, di immagini tipiche del conflitto sindacale nel XX secolo, che incontriamo in quasi tutte le pellicole girate sulla protesta operaia e popolare, sia come registrazione diretta, sia inglobate come archivio, sia ricostruite in un documentario od un film di fiction.
Nel caso dell'Argentina, le immagini del Cordobazo (1969) furono emblematizzate dal cinema militante quali simbolo delle lotte di tutto un periodo. Ma il senso che è stato loro attribuito non è univoco e ci sono altre immagini dell'azione del movimento operaio argentino che sono disputate uno spazio nella memoria sociale della "lunga" decade degli anni sessanta.
Madrid, segundo semestre 2005, ps. 27-47.
Español: El artículo analiza Los traidores (1973), el principal film político del cineasta argentino desaparecido Raymundo Gleyzer y el grupo Cine de la Base, sobre un sindicalista peronista corrompido en su camino hacia el poder. En primer lugar, se estudia las estrategias narrativas del film en relación con las reflexiones de Raymond Williams sobre cine y socialismo y con la noción estructura de sentimiento. En segundo lugar, se recorre los modos en que el film representa el mundo del trabajo y las manifestaciones obreras (ocupaciones fabriles, lucha de calles) en relación con algunos tópicos y motivos visuales del cine y la televisión. Finalmente, se propone una nueva interpretación respecto del discurso político sobre la alternativa obrera propuesta por el film.
English: The paper analyze the film The traitors (1973), the most important political film of the argentinian filmaker Raymundo Gleyzer and the Cine de la Base group, about a peronist trade unionist corrupted by his rise to power. In the first place, we study the narrative strategies of the film in relationship to the Raymond Williams reflections on cinema and socialism, and his notion of structure of feeling. In the second place, our analysis deals with the ways The traitors represent the world of labor and the workers' actions and demonstrations (factory occupations and street fighting) in relationship to some visual topics from cinema and tv. Finally, the paper propose a new interpretation about the political discourse about the working class alternative proposed by the film.
M.Mestman, “Pescadores sicilianos en las redes del Conde Rojo milanés”. Publicado en el libro: Máximo Eseverri (coord.), Raab/Visconti. La tierra tiembla. Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 2011; ps. 180-207.
En el mes de mayo de 1958 se inauguraba en Montevideo (Uruguay) la III Edición del Festival Internacional de Cine Documental y Experimental del S.O.D.R.E. (Servicio Oficial de Radio Difusión Eléctrica), el primer festival en América Latina especializado en cine documental. Esa edición es considerada por la historiografía como un punto de inflexión inexcusable en el desarrollo cinematográfico de la región. Dos elementos –frecuentemente citados- dan cuenta de la relevancia del evento: la presencia de John Grierson, invitado ese año a detentar la Presidencia Honoraria del Festival, y la celebración en paralelo del Primer Congreso Latino-Americano de Cineístas [sic] Independientes, momento determinante para la toma de conciencia sobre los problemas comunes y las posibles vías de futuro para un cine que pudiera cumplir en América Latina “la ineludible tarea de velar por su educación, cultura, historia, tradición y elevación espiritual de su población”. Con estas palabras se expresaban, en las resoluciones adoptadas, los delegados en el congreso en representación de Argentina (Simón Feldman, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Rodolfo Kuhn y Fernando Birri, entre otros), Bolivia (Jorge Ruiz), Brasil (Nelson Pereira dos Santos), Chile (Patricio Kaulen), Perú (Manuel Chambi) y Uruguay (Danilo Trelles y Roberto Gardiol, entre otros); quienes además llevarían a cabo la constitución de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Cineístas Inpendientes (ALACI).
En esos años, distintas líneas de fuerza alimentan la educación de la mirada de los cineastas que se orientan hacia lo documental donde se configura una red de gestos miméticos y originales que van a permitir el peculiar encuentro que se produce entre John Grierson y los cineastas latinoamericanos en 1958 en Montevideo.
De hecho, el cine latinoamericano se hallaba en un periodo de búsquedas y de definición para orientar los aires de renovación que comenzaban a hacerse patentes y canalizar las voluntades de acción y creación de los cineastas. Y si bien la influencia del documentalista escocés puede encontrarse en obras previas, esa visita a América Latina se configuró en un punto de referencia. Los cineastas latinoamericanos no encontraron en John Grierson simplemente la gratificación de ver reconocido su trabajo por una figura de prestigio internacional; buscaron la guía y el consejo de un hombre que como ningún otro había demostrado extraordinarias dotes para promover y generar espacios e instituciones con el fin de convertir el cine en instrumento al servicio de la expresión de la identidad nacional, dirigiendo las cámaras y los talentos creadores hacia aquellas realidades sociales y culturales que el cine narrativo comercial no representaba. Porque si algo tenían en común los cineastas que se reunían por primera vez en este Congreso de 1958 habiendo desarrollado sus trayectorias de manera independiente y con pocos contactos entre ellos, era la voluntad de crear un verdadero cine nacional en oposición a los cines imitativos de los modelos de Hollywood, aquel que representara y pensara, por primera vez, la realidad social, histórica y cultural de América Latina. El documental era una de las vías a transitar para lograrlo.
Para el maestro Grierson el viaje a Uruguay posiblemente se programara como uno más entre sus muchos desplazamientos por la geografía planetaria en busca de materiales para su programa This Wonderful World, que había comenzado a emitirse en la televisión escocesa el 11 de octubre de 1957; una apretada agenda de viajes la de aquel tiempo que lo ubicaban en mayo de 1958 en París y Bruselas para el Festival de Cine Experimental y aterrizando el día 25 de ese mes en Montevideo. Pero su encuentro con los forjadores de lo que ya se perfilaba como el Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano no se limitó a los días del SODRE, porque de allí el escocés se trasladó a Argentina, Chile, Bolivia y Perú; visitas estas dos últimas que recordaría como “un gran viaje y, de algún modo, el más hermoso que jamás hubiese hecho”.
Los encuentros y las reflexiones que esta visita a Sudamérica propició permiten explorar un interesante cruce de miradas, hasta ahora no estudiado, que arroja nueva luz sobre un periodo de la cinematografía latinoamericana crucial para comprender la centralidad que el cine documental alcanzaría luego en la activación de nuevas vías estéticas y expresivas ligadas a la transformación social y política (…)
Para acceder al artículo completo:
http://revista.cinedocumental.com.ar/cruces-de-miradas-en-la-transicion-del-cine-documental-john-grierson-en-sudamerica/
This chapter returns to 1956 and the beginnings of that experience. There, the local converged with the transnational, and an internationally renowned film program was born out of a faith in amateurs—their knowl- edge, their perspective, and their capacity for self-expression. In Part I, we show how Birri’s initial effort—an introductory course on documentary,offered at the university’s margins (as part of its extension program, out of the social sciences division), and counting among its enrollees painters, schoolteachers, lawyers, even social workers—drew inspiration in equal parts from professional and amateur realms. In Part II, we analyze a key aspect to the filmmaker’s early approach: the use of fotodocumentales—photodocumentaries or photo essays—as a first step for those learning to make films. We reconsider this practice of using photography and social surveys as borrowing from the possibilities of the amateur. The act of taking a pic ture or asking a question made the filmmaking effort accessible to enrollees with little or no background in production, and it was an adequate first step given the limited initial resources of the IC. Most important, fotodocumentales helped focused students’ attention on the capturing of local realities and on the social possibilities of the cinema. As such, although clearly part of a certain (socially and politically conscious) professionalization project, these practices belong to the broader field of amateur cinematic cultures for providing an alternative vision of cinema’s social function and an alternative means of institutionalizing nonindustrial cinematic practices. In Part III, we focus on the well-known documentary Tire-dié (1958–1960). We look at the project’s evolution from a student-made fotodocumental to the IC’s first documentary film, finished in 1958. We pay special attention to the film’s deliberately noncommercial character, both in terms of how it was produced and how it was used socially, across informal networks of exhibition, through community screenings and postscreening audience surveys. Finally, in Part IV, in order to show their impact in later professional film production at school, we return to those unpublished surveys. We note that Birri and his team utilized commentaries from nonfilmgoing audiences to assess their successes in film and to develop the next set of films—a series that, as with the others, featured almost exclusively amateur actors.
Birri himself was no “amateur,” and his film school quickly became a point of cinematic reference the Latin America, but the initiative, at least in its origins, stemmed from a bottom-up approach, one that drew inspiration, where not direct investment, from local, amateur practices and bases of knowledge. In many ways, it was the IC’s incorporation of amateur participants, from its students and its film subjects to the neighborhood audiences with whom it shared its films, as well as their association with alternative film cultures, such as local “foto” or “cine-clubs,” that proved an ideal means for training future professionals, thus demonstrating the fluid and productive boundaries between the amateur and the professional. In so doing, the IC’s particular approach charted a new path for the institutionalization of innovative cinematic practices.
In: In: Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla (eds.), Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures. Indiana University Press, 2021; 149-168.
Publicado en Kilómetro 111. Ensayos sobre cine. Buenos Aires, número 2, 2001; ps. 7-30.
A fines de 1996, a mi regreso de esa investigación en el ICAIC, editores de la ya desaparecida revista Film (Fernando Martín Peña, Sergio Wolf, Paula Félix Didier) se interesaron por difundir la existencia del documental. Al mismo tiempo, la copia en vhs que me habían facilitado el realizador, Lázara Herrera y el ICAIC comenzó a circular en Buenos Aires. Pocos meses después, un grupo de jóvenes estudiantes tuvo la audaz iniciativa de promover la visita de Santiago a la Argentina, que pudo concretarse en gran medida porque Humberto Ríos la tomó en sus manos y la impulsó en las instituciones que podían hacerse cargo (el Instituto, fundamentalmente, si mal no recuerdo). También compañeros de cine del interior del país (como Jorge Jager de Rosario o Rolando López de Santa Fe) se interesaron por el viaje y así Santiago viajó allí. Todo con las dificultades propias de su deteriorado estado físico y gracias a que mantenía su lucidez así como al invalorable apoyo permanente de su compañera Lázara.
Este fue el último viaje de Santiago a Argentina. El viaje anterior lo había realizado en esos agitados días de mayo de 1973, acompañando a Dorticós y la delegación diplomática cubana encabezada por el canciller Raúl Roa. A ese viaje se refiere esta nota que se reproduce tal como fue originalmente publicada, con el objetivo fundamentalmente divulgativo del material encontrado en los archivos cubanos. Luego de un breve recorrido sobre la actividad del realizador (hoy ya muy conocida) y sobre el documental mismo (hoy accesible on line), se incluye una parte de la entrevista que realicé a Santiago y a dos de sus más cercanos colaboradores que dan cuenta de su vivencia junto al director del Noticiero ICAIC en ese u otros viajes (como a Chile y Vietnam) así como de su modo de trabajo. Santiago no sólo recuerda de modo vívido anécdotas de su visita, también rememora algunas discusiones importantes del cine político argentino, cubano y latinoamericano; historias que años más tarde recuperé en más de un ensayo.
documentos originales del cine político de América Latina, que
involucran a reconocidas figuras de la cinematografía regional,
como el brasileño Glauber Rocha, el cubano Alfredo Guevara, los
argentinos Raymundo Gleyzer y Fernando Solanas, entre otros. Estos
dos casos, de inicios de la década de 1970, permiten problematizar
varios aspectos del trabajo con las fuentes en la historiografía del
llamado Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano. De este modo, el artículo por
un lado sugiere hipótesis respecto de las razones que llevaron a las
modificaciones de los documentos y, por otro, intenta complejizar
las posibles precauciones a adoptar frente a este tipo de alteraciones.
Ver imágenes en versión en inglés: The last sacred image...
Versión en español publicada en: Revista Ojos Crueles. Temas de fotografía y sociedad, núm. 3, Buenos Aires, octubre 2006.
El artículo analiza la experiencia de Rodolfo Walsh en torno al Semanario CGT (1968-1969) –que dirigió para la CGT de los Argentinos entre mayo de 1968 y febrero de 1969, durante los años de enfrentamiento al régimen militar del general Juan Carlos Onganía–, así como la repercusión que tuvo en su camino literario y creativo. En el marco de una confluencia más amplia de profesionales, intelectuales y trabajadores de la cultura con esta nueva central obrera, el texto
focaliza en cómo Walsh y el grupo de periodistas problematizaron los alcances y límites del periódico en su comunicación con estos sectores de la clase trabajadora argentina. A partir de esta y otras experiencias en torno a la CGT de los Argentinos (estudiadas por el autor en otros
trabajos), se propone pensar un escenario en torno a 1968/1969, configurado como un precario y fugaz laboratorio donde se cruzan sectores medios con sectores obreros en sus búsquedas políticas, culturales e intelectuales. ///
L’article analyse l’expérience de Rodolfo Walsh dans l’hebdomadaire Semanario CGT (1968-1969) qu’il a dirigé pour la Confédération General du Travail des Argentins entre mai 1968 et février 1969, pendant les années d’affrontement au régime militaire du général Juan Carlos Onganía. Il étudie également la répercussion de cette expérience dans le parcours littéraire et créateur de Walsh. Dans le contexte de la plus ample confluence de professionnels, d’intellectuels et de travailleurs de la culture avec cette nouvelle centrale ouvrière, le texte focalise son attention sur les limites qui a trouvé l´hebdomadaire dans sa communication avec la classe ouvrière argentine.
À partir de cela et d’autres expériences – que l’auteur a étudiées ailleurs – il se propose de penser la CGT des Argentins comme un « laboratoire » fugace et précaire, où des secteurs de la classe moyenne se croisent avec des secteurs ouvriers dans leurs recherches politiques, culturelles et intellectuelles. ///
The article analyzes the experience of Rodolfo Walsh as the editor of CGT (1968-1969), the weekly newspaper of the Confederación General del Trabajo de los Argentinos, one of Argentina’s largest trade unions federations of that period. Walsh’s editorship coincided with the military
dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía and the essay focuses on the repercussions this experience had on Walsh’s literary work and political activism. Walsh and the group of journalists entrusted with putting out the weekly strived to effectively engage the working class,
as did other professionals, artists, and intellectuals who coalesced around the trade union federation around this period. This essay proposes thinking about the federation during this particular year (1968-1969) as a precarious experiment where middle-class sectors fleetingly coincided with the working class in their political, cultural, and intellectual quests.
del cineasta. Focaliza en torno al año 1960, los primeros films, así como las rupturas que produce y las reflexiones que las acompañan. Desde allí se pregunta por la relación entre ese primer momento y su producción
independiente posterior, sus búsquedas políticas y estéticas, así como el caracter vanguardista de su proyecto.
Publicado en: Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Madrid, núm. 9, octubre de 1998; ps.27-44.
“Tucumán Arde”, the best-known collective action of the Argentine avant-garde movement during the ‘60s, is usually regarded as an isolated milestone, an exceptional event. However, this essay considers it instead as the corollary of the hectic process of aesthetic and political
radicalization of the experimental artistic groups of the cities Buenos Aires and Rosario, and intends to contextualize that production within this historical period.
In the mid-‘60s, in reaction to events such as the Santo Domingo US invasion, the Vietnam War and the Che Guevara murder in Bolivia, politics irrupted into wider sectors of society, further radicalizing the avant-garde developments. A number of artists then envisaged
their productions as a legitimate arena for assuming a political stance as a way of contributing to the transformation of reality within the context of the revolutionary expectations that marked the age. Consequently, in 1968, a series of collective statements and actions signaled avant-garde’s rupture with the art institutions, especially the Instituto Di Tella, which had until then preponderantly sheltered their manifestations. The most politicized of these artists then shifted closer to the labour movement opposite to the military dictatorship that ruled the country and proposed a “new aesthetic”, inscribed in the revolutionary process they regarded as imminent and inevitable, which conceived violence and experimental action as legitimate forces capable of reshaping the conditions of life. It is at the point of this particular crossroads that “Tucumán Arde” was carried out and whose abrupt closing under strong pressure by the government was followed by the disbanding of the groups and their abandonment of art altogether to end up in many cases adopting the political militancy.
In the mid 1960’s, in the midst of a climate of technological excitement, the impact of mass media and mass culture was processed artistically in a number of ways: not just as a reference to or quote (apologetic or critical) of the imaginaria of television, film and advertising, the icons of mass culture, but also as a medium, a technique and as a materiality.
During the early stages of the still unnamed conceptualism some Argentine avantgarde artists began to experiment with mass media and information technology. In this sense, they hearkened back to some of the experiences carried out at the Di Tella Institute, especially the happenings and environments of Marta Minujín. There were other artists, other works. Recently a nucleus of artists and theorists garnered growing attention for the creation in 1966 of a “new genre” they called “Arte de los Medios de comunicación de masas” (Mass Communication Media Art).
Although this was a confined effort, crystallized in only a few works and a smattering of texts and manifestos, it implied sharp reflection on the part of its twenty-something promoters (Roberto Jacoby, Eduardo Costa and Raúl Escari and the also young intellectuals involved in the process, Eliseo Verón and especially Oscar Masotta). The latter was an advanced figure in the cultural world for the breadth of his activity (literary criticism in the 1950’s, experimental artistic practice and theory and the diffusion of the comic strip in the 1960’s and the introduction of Lacanian psychoanalysis in Spanish in the 1970’s). Sporadically associated with the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, Masotta was involved with Contorno (1953-59), remembered as an early milestone of a new kind of literary criticism and intellectual activity. Its members, influenced by Sartrian existentialism mixed with a markedly Hegelian Marxism, stood apart from the “official” left as well as from the ”traditional liberals who still held a hegemony over the cultural domain”.
During the decade we are dealing with, Masotta introduced and was the main propagator of new ideas (derived from structuralism, semiology and other paradigms of contemporary thought) in the arts, and he did not fail to point out the historical correlation between the growth of mass information media and contemporary art.
The emphasis on information circuits and theories of the sign was one of the approaches adopted by the “conceptualist turn” and the Utopia of an enlarged life based on expanding the boundaries of artistic experience. In their most radical propositions, these artists did not extrapolate media technology devices to convert them into
aesthetic objects. They went beyond that. They actually created their works inside circuits of mass communication. It was there that they saw art being reconnected with culture of the masses, its unprecedented expansion towards a mass audience receptor, the possibility of
inciting a critical consciousness in the viewer and even a potential political tool.