deborah shaw
University of Portsmouth, School of Media and Performing Arts, Faculty Member
- Professor Deborah Shaw is Professor in Screen Studies at the University of Portsmouth. Her research interests includ... moreProfessor Deborah Shaw is Professor in Screen Studies at the University of Portsmouth. Her research interests include transnational film theory, Latin American cinema, and film and migration, and she has published widely in these areas. She is the founding co-editor of the Routledge journal Transnational Cinemas. Deborah has written articles that have been published in The Conversation The Independent, The New Zealand Herald, Newsweek, SBS, Pink News, Tranzgendr, and The Huffington Post.Deborah has spoken at many international conferences, and delivered keynote lectures in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany and Colombia. She has been an invited speaker at Universities in the UK, Spain, Brazil and the United States.edit
Research Interests:
This chapter considers the constraints and possibilities of teaching ‘world and transnational cinema.’ We take as a case study our own unit, “World and Transnational Cinema” that we co-developed and team-taught between 2007 and 2014, and... more
This chapter considers the constraints and possibilities of teaching ‘world and transnational cinema.’ We take as a case study our own unit, “World and Transnational Cinema” that we co-developed and team-taught between 2007 and 2014, and reflect on choices of film texts and themes. Within the chapter we discuss and interrogate our own choices and knowledge base, our use of the terms ‘world’ and ‘transnational cinema’, and the debates we have had in devising the course. Ideologically, we consider our theoretical choices in the decisions made and our attempts to engage in what Shohat and Stam (2003) have termed ‘the multiculturalist project’, that is to ensure that curriculum (school/university) reflects diversity and does not work to promote the interests of privileged (colonial) dominant classes. We also reflect on our desire to be part of a project to ‘de-Westernise’ Film Studies (Ba, Higbee, 2012), while inhabiting our subject positions as British academics teaching predominantly (white) British students. From a pedagogical position, the political nature of this unit is discussed in relation to ideas of the Hidden Curriculum (Jackson, 1968); the underlying aim being to politicize the student body.
Research Interests:
In this article I write on the rift between trans inclusive and gender critical feminists in the UK. I consider this division within university culture through a focus on the case of Kathleen Stock. I discuss the coverage of her... more
In this article I write on the rift between trans inclusive and gender critical feminists in the UK. I consider this division within university culture through a focus on the case of Kathleen Stock. I discuss the coverage of her resignation from the University of Sussex through a focus on The Daily Telegraph. From a trans inclusive feminist viewpoint, I discuss the way her case has been used to spread misinformation around universities, and trans people. I examine the key ideas of gender critical and trans inclusive feminists and present an analysis of concepts of free speech and debate that challenges gender critical beliefs. I end with a call for a way forward to strengthen feminism.
Research Interests:
Children of Men Reviews Metacritic April 21st, 2019 Summary Children of Men envisages a world one generation from now that has fallen into anarchy on the heels of an infertility defect in the population The world s youngest citizen has... more
Children of Men Reviews Metacritic April 21st, 2019 Summary Children of Men envisages a world one generation from now that has fallen into anarchy on the heels of an infertility defect in the population The world s youngest citizen has just died at 18 and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction Set against the backdrop of London torn apart by violence and nationalistic sects the Children of Men envisages a world one
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Humanities and Art
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter and novelist Guillermo Arriaga worked together on three, highly successful films – Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Yet, theirs was a troubled partnership and... more
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter and novelist Guillermo Arriaga worked together on three, highly successful films – Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Yet, theirs was a troubled partnership and ended in a public feud. Arriaga stressed his creative primacy in the projects they worked on and downplayed the input of the director, while Iñárritu underplayed Arriaga’s contribution after Amores perros. Finally, during the making of Babel, these tensions came to a head and their collaboration came to an acrimonious end over irreconcilably different notions of what we might term ‘creative credit’. This well-known collaboration, feud and separation tell a story of creative partnerships, film industry working practices, power plays and media manipulations. This article examines the public statements of the two men and explores their story. It also asks a series of questions that relate to their specific relationship, but also to broader power dynamics...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Through a focus on La nina santa/The Holy Girl by Lucrecia Martel (2004) and XXY by Lucia Puenzo (2007), this chapter examines the relationship between texts, sex and money. It considers theoretical approaches to European funding... more
Through a focus on La nina santa/The Holy Girl by Lucrecia Martel (2004) and XXY by Lucia Puenzo (2007), this chapter examines the relationship between texts, sex and money. It considers theoretical approaches to European funding programmes and world cinema, and argues that a number of European production companies have created spaces for queer cinema that has proven beneficial to a range of Latin American films and has coincided with a boom in films directed by women. The article focuses on two new powerful protagonists, Amalia, Martel’s holy girl, and Puenzo’s Alex, an intersex teenager, who both bring new gazes and new forms of representation to global screens. The study is concerned with the ways in which certain film languages can be used to address an implied international art cinema spectator to make queerness part of our filmic conversation with texts, and the ways in which these languages engage with new modernities emerging through the reconfigurations of new queer families.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Latin American women’s filmmaking has an unprecedented international profile thanks to the films of the Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, and the Argentine directors Lucía Puenzo and Lucrecia Martel. What is frequently unacknowledged when... more
Latin American women’s filmmaking has an unprecedented international profile thanks to the films of the Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, and the Argentine directors Lucía Puenzo and Lucrecia Martel. What is frequently unacknowledged when discussing the work of these award-winning filmmakers is the fact that all of their films are co-productions with Europe, and that programmes such as Cinéfondation, a programme aligned with the Cannes film festival, the Hubert Bals Fund, the World Cinema Fund and Ibermedia have been instrumental in their production. This article will tell this story through a discussion of the work of Claudia Llosa with an introduction to the issues raised by her award winning festival film Madeinusa (2006), and a focus on La teta asustada/The Milk of Sorrow (2009 ). It will consider the arguments of theorists who critique what they see as neo-colonial European interventions in ‘world cinema’, and those who celebrate the enabling work of the funding bodies. The chap...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Diogenes
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that the film attempts to refashion both an "authentic" and an accessible Frida Kahlo for international consumption, and it will analyse the role of original compositions and... more
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that the film attempts to refashion both an "authentic" and an accessible Frida Kahlo for international consumption, and it will analyse the role of original compositions and pre-existing songs (with a focus on the latter) in this endeavour. It will consider the way that forms of representation in Frida have important implications for the on-going reconfiguration of U.S. identity, with a particular focus on the sizeable Latino population of the United States. This chapter will also explore the film's use of well known "Mexican" singers Chavela Vargas and Lila Downs, and analyse their specific function within the narrative. In addition, it will develop the idea of "altered listening", derived from Michael Chion's notion of "reduced listening" (1994: 24-30) in order to shed light on the ways that the film uses traditional Mexican songs and inserts them into specific fictional and, in many cases, misleading representations of Kahlo. The chapter will argue that music plays a key role in transforming a biographical Kahlo into Hayek's Frida, a character construct which downplays her political militancy, enhances her sexual allure, and parades while simultaneously erasing her lesbian identity.
Research Interests:
La insolita historia de la Santa de Cabora is a complex and rich novel. This paper shows the way in which the text incorporates history, philosophy, metaphysics and ecology, without ever separating them from processes of fiction. It is a... more
La insolita historia de la Santa de Cabora is a complex and rich novel. This paper shows the way in which the text incorporates history, philosophy, metaphysics and ecology, without ever separating them from processes of fiction. It is a novel that demonstrates that there are not off limit areas for women's writing. Brianda Domecq shows herself so comfortable in politics, history and intellectual debate worlds. By using an approach that avoids dichotomic notions of male I female, then paper presents the way in which the text continually breaks down the binary systems used to organized patriarchal structures.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Professor Deborah Shaw and Nicola Young give their top movies to watch while in lockdown
Research Interests:
... 10 Viewing skills 79 Van Norris 11 How to watch and study foreign language films 89 Réka Buckley and Deborah Shaw 12 ... Oxford University Press, 2007), with Vincent Porter, and The New Film History, co-edited with James Chapman and... more
... 10 Viewing skills 79 Van Norris 11 How to watch and study foreign language films 89 Réka Buckley and Deborah Shaw 12 ... Oxford University Press, 2007), with Vincent Porter, and The New Film History, co-edited with James Chapman and Mark Glancy (Palgrave MacMillan ...
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter and novelist Guillermo Arriaga worked together on three, highly successful films-Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Yet, theirs was a troubled partnership and... more
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter and novelist Guillermo Arriaga worked together on three, highly successful films-Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Yet, theirs was a troubled partnership and ended in a public feud. Arriaga stressed his creative primacy in the projects they worked on and downplayed the input of the director, while Iñárritu underplayed Arriaga's contribution after Amores perros. Finally, during the making of Babel, these tensions came to a head and their collaboration came to an acrimonious end over irreconcilably different notions of what we might term 'creative credit'. This well-known collaboration, feud and separation tell a story of creative partnerships, film industry working practices, power plays and media manipulations. This article examines the public statements of the two men and explores their story. It also asks a series of questions that relate to their specific relationship, but also to broader power dynamics between directors and the screenwriters with whom they work when both have auteurist ambitions: what does the Iñárritu/Arriaga dispute reveal about discourses of auteurism and its construction? What is the role of the screenwriter and his/her access to an auteurist status in the film industry?
Research Interests:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/blar.13215 (link to pen access article) This article (co-authored with Deborah Martin (UCL) analyses the performance Un violador en tu camino created by Chilean feminist theatre collective... more
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/blar.13215 (link to pen access article)
This article (co-authored with Deborah Martin (UCL) analyses the performance Un violador en tu camino created by Chilean feminist theatre collective LasTesis, shared by millions and re‐staged across the globe. It explores the relationship between the original piece and theorist Rita Segato's insights on rape culture, and how it counters aspects of this culture. It examines how the transnational spread of ‘Un violador’ counters tendencies of MeToo, and examines four cases of the performance's re‐staging in Latin America and beyond, showing how they make manifest the pervasiveness of rape culture as well as how groups have adapted them to speak to local issues.
This article (co-authored with Deborah Martin (UCL) analyses the performance Un violador en tu camino created by Chilean feminist theatre collective LasTesis, shared by millions and re‐staged across the globe. It explores the relationship between the original piece and theorist Rita Segato's insights on rape culture, and how it counters aspects of this culture. It examines how the transnational spread of ‘Un violador’ counters tendencies of MeToo, and examines four cases of the performance's re‐staging in Latin America and beyond, showing how they make manifest the pervasiveness of rape culture as well as how groups have adapted them to speak to local issues.
Research Interests:
https://theconversation.com/anglo-centric-film-culture-and-the-continuing-resistance-to-subtitles-130245 On accepting the award for best motion picture – foreign language for his movie Parasite at the 2020 Golden Globe awards, the South... more
https://theconversation.com/anglo-centric-film-culture-and-the-continuing-resistance-to-subtitles-130245
On accepting the award for best motion picture – foreign language for his movie Parasite at the 2020 Golden Globe awards, the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho challenged Anglophone audiences with his acceptance speech in Korean.
Translated by young filmmaker and Bong’s interpreter, Sharon Choi, he said: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
Joon-ho’s win and comment points to two contradictory phenomena. While film audiences across the world are consuming more international non-English language films due to streaming, there remains a persistent resistance to subtitles in Anglophone countries.
On accepting the award for best motion picture – foreign language for his movie Parasite at the 2020 Golden Globe awards, the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho challenged Anglophone audiences with his acceptance speech in Korean.
Translated by young filmmaker and Bong’s interpreter, Sharon Choi, he said: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
Joon-ho’s win and comment points to two contradictory phenomena. While film audiences across the world are consuming more international non-English language films due to streaming, there remains a persistent resistance to subtitles in Anglophone countries.
Research Interests:
https://theconversation.com/metoo-in-mexico-women-finding-their-voice-as-campaign-gathers-force-114927 The recent ‘MeToo’ hashtags are creating a huge impact in Mexico as high profile men are publically accused of sexual harassment and... more
https://theconversation.com/metoo-in-mexico-women-finding-their-voice-as-campaign-gathers-force-114927
The recent ‘MeToo’ hashtags are creating a huge impact in Mexico as high profile men are publically accused of sexual harassment and sexual violence. This article traces the activities and impact of the wide ranging MeToo Mexican movements, and attempts of a social media campaign to make the workplace a safe place for women.
The recent ‘MeToo’ hashtags are creating a huge impact in Mexico as high profile men are publically accused of sexual harassment and sexual violence. This article traces the activities and impact of the wide ranging MeToo Mexican movements, and attempts of a social media campaign to make the workplace a safe place for women.
Research Interests:
https://theconversation.com/alfonso-cuarons-venice-golden-lion-triumph-for-roma-highlights-innovative-new-netflix-approach-102948 This is an article published in The Conversation and available on the link above. In it I write about Roma... more
https://theconversation.com/alfonso-cuarons-venice-golden-lion-triumph-for-roma-highlights-innovative-new-netflix-approach-102948
This is an article published in The Conversation and available on the link above. In it I write about Roma and the significance of Netflix selecting a Mexican Spanish language black and white art film for its new distribution model (festival premiere, theatrical release and global streaming) and the way Netflix is disrupting traditional production, exhibition and distribution models.
Roma, following its recent premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, has been critically acclaimed and is tipped to take the prize for the Golden Lion, and is a likely contender for multiple categories at the 2019 Academy Awards (Oscars).
I also consider the case of Cuarón and the profile he had to develop to be able to make a film set in Mexico City with such extensive support from Netflix. I argue that this is to be celebrated in the case of Roma, but that much Spanish and non English language art cinema remains neglected.
This is an article published in The Conversation and available on the link above. In it I write about Roma and the significance of Netflix selecting a Mexican Spanish language black and white art film for its new distribution model (festival premiere, theatrical release and global streaming) and the way Netflix is disrupting traditional production, exhibition and distribution models.
Roma, following its recent premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, has been critically acclaimed and is tipped to take the prize for the Golden Lion, and is a likely contender for multiple categories at the 2019 Academy Awards (Oscars).
I also consider the case of Cuarón and the profile he had to develop to be able to make a film set in Mexico City with such extensive support from Netflix. I argue that this is to be celebrated in the case of Roma, but that much Spanish and non English language art cinema remains neglected.
Research Interests:
Note: a shorter version of this paper has been published in Screen – abstract and link here https://academic.oup.com/screen/article-abstract/59/2/258/5036231 This version will be translated in Spanish and is forthcoming-Al servicio del... more
Note: a shorter version of this paper has been published in Screen – abstract and link here https://academic.oup.com/screen/article-abstract/59/2/258/5036231 This version will be translated in Spanish and is forthcoming-Al servicio del texto maestro: repensando los paratextos digitales en la película de clave social Who is Abstract: We are in an age of multiple digital platforms where our entertainment, news, work, social life and social activism are conducted through our smart phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers, or most probably a range of these simultaneously. This has significant consequences for our understanding of the primacy of certain texts over others, and leads to a dismantling of hierarchies relating to films and their paratexts. In this paper I focus on a specific social issue – migration from Central America and Mexico to the United States – and the texts that engage with this issue. The main case study is the activist project behind the film Who is Dayani Cristal? (Marc Silver, 2013), and I argue that the film and project are part of an emerging new paradigm for the human rights documentary, and correspond to the open space documentary as conceptualised by Helen de Michiel and Patricia R. Zimmermann (2017, 2018). We are in an age of multiple digital platforms where our entertainment, news, work, social life and social activism are conducted through our smart phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers, or most probably a range of these simultaneously. This has significant consequences for our understanding of the primacy of certain texts over others, and leads to a dismantling of hierarchies relating to films and their paratexts. In this article I focus on a specific social issue – migration from Central America and Mexico to the United States. The main case study is the activist project
Research Interests:
This story focuses on the Hollywood women organising themselves and fighting for less privileged women. It considers the way in which high profile women in the entertainment industry are using their privilege to highlight sexual... more
This story focuses on the Hollywood women organising themselves and fighting for less privileged women. It considers the way in which high profile women in the entertainment industry are using their privilege to highlight sexual discrimination against other female workers and the practical steps the Time’s Up movement are taking.
2018 is the year of women fighting back, getting organised and working together. Feminism and Hollywood have been accused of a liberal middle class bias and white elitism, but the Time’s Up movement is a serious attempt to counter these accusations through their solidarity with working women and members of the LGBTQ community. The open letter that publically launched Time’s Up is in part a response to an earlier open letter representing 700,000 Latina female farm workers sent in solidarity with the Hollywood actresses following the Weinstein revelations. This is a new and highly significant power shift.
My focus here is on the stated solidarity of the group with Latina groups in the US, in particular the Alianza Nacional de Campesinos (National Farmworkers Women’s Alliance) and the centrality of this group in the direction of the campaign. The article highlights the intersectional focus of the campaign and the move away from white privilege. This article considers the significance and potential effects of this unusual alliance between women at opposite ends of the social hierarchy.
2018 is the year of women fighting back, getting organised and working together. Feminism and Hollywood have been accused of a liberal middle class bias and white elitism, but the Time’s Up movement is a serious attempt to counter these accusations through their solidarity with working women and members of the LGBTQ community. The open letter that publically launched Time’s Up is in part a response to an earlier open letter representing 700,000 Latina female farm workers sent in solidarity with the Hollywood actresses following the Weinstein revelations. This is a new and highly significant power shift.
My focus here is on the stated solidarity of the group with Latina groups in the US, in particular the Alianza Nacional de Campesinos (National Farmworkers Women’s Alliance) and the centrality of this group in the direction of the campaign. The article highlights the intersectional focus of the campaign and the move away from white privilege. This article considers the significance and potential effects of this unusual alliance between women at opposite ends of the social hierarchy.
Research Interests:
Over the last ten years, a substantial number of Latin American directors have made films that have been supported by European funding bodies; they that have been showcased in festivals around the world, and in some cases distributed... more
Over the last ten years, a substantial number of Latin American directors have made films that have been supported by European funding bodies; they that have been showcased in festivals around the world, and in some cases distributed internationally. These funds have brought women filmmakers from Latin America into the spotlight, and those who have benefitted from support with production (and in many cases post-production) include the Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, the Argentinean directors Lucía Puenzo, Lucrecia Martel and Celina Murga, the Paraguayan Paz Encina, the Chilean Dominga Sotomayor, and the Mexican Yulene Olaizola, among others. This creates the curious scenario whereby Europe is instrumental in co-creating a boom in Latin American women’s filmmaking, a scenario that raises a number of interesting questions and ties in with wider debates around European subsidies for ‘world cinema’. Is this a form of neo-colonial European intervention in the cultural production of less developed nations? Is Europe looking to the world to supply a stream of exotic imagery for its entertainment? Should European funding bodies be celebrated for enabling the production of important films that would either not be made, or would have much lower budgets, and a much less visible trajectory without them? These questions will be addressed through the specific case of one of the most high profile and controversial Latin American directors, Claudia Llosa, whose films have won awards on the international festival circuit while provoking disquiet among Peruvian and Latin Americanist critics for what some see as a Westernising and racist representations of poor Peruvians. I consider the key positions in the European funding of ‘world cinema’ debates, and then position a reading of La teta asustada/The Milk of Sorrow (2009) within these debates. I begin with a brief discussion of Llosa’s first film Madeinusa (2006), as this film initiated the controversies surrounding Llosa’s depiction of indigenous Peruvians. Do Llosa’s films confirm the critical positions by being subject to a process of othering for a European cinephile festival audience? Or, do they challenge neo-colonialist readings of European co-funded projects? What findings can be drawn through the focus on single film texts?
Research Interests:
The Middlebrow and Mexican Film Culture: an Introduction This chapter charts the rise of a new genre in Mexican cinema in the 1990s: the romantic sex comedy, a middlebrow cultural form that was born from changes in a national cinema... more
The Middlebrow and Mexican Film Culture: an Introduction
This chapter charts the rise of a new genre in Mexican cinema in the 1990s: the romantic sex comedy, a middlebrow cultural form that was born from changes in a national cinema culture that saw the development of the multiplex in Mexican cities, and the development of a new professional bourgeoisie working in new mediascapes. This, together with a funding landscape that was moving away from a state sponsored national arts cinema, resulted in more commercial forms of filmmaking that created a new cinema-going middle class. In the light of these social and cultural shifts, this chapter reinterprets Bourdieu’s notion of the middlebrow (culture moyenne) as a ‘second rate imitation of legitimate culture’ (1999: 323). It argues that what constitutes the middlebrow is not fixed, and can and has changed as the nature of the middle classes themselves changes, and the national context to which it is applied shifts.
Mark Jancovich in an article on pornography and the middlebrow has suggested that new configurations of the petite bourgeoisie create new forms of middlebrow culture (Jancovich, 2001), and I argue that this is the case in a series of films released in the 1990s in Mexico. Jancovich writes this in relation to pornography and the middlebrow, yet it is very apposite to the Mexican context in which new middlebrow cinematic identity formations are located in the realm of ‘quality’ romantic sex comedies. The chapter examines the two most commercially successful Mexican films of this period, Sólo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria (Cuarón 1991), and Sexo, pudor y lágrimas/Sex, Shame and Tears (Serrano 1998), and considers the ways in which high and low cultural registers are mixed together to form a new Mexican middlebrow. I examine the representations of gender, class and ethnicity in this new cinema for the middle classes, and argue that these films present this class on screen for the first time. The films both mock and admire the aspirational lifestyles of the male protagonists; create new postfeminist female characters; and erase the social reality of the majority of working-class mestizo Mexicans.
This chapter charts the rise of a new genre in Mexican cinema in the 1990s: the romantic sex comedy, a middlebrow cultural form that was born from changes in a national cinema culture that saw the development of the multiplex in Mexican cities, and the development of a new professional bourgeoisie working in new mediascapes. This, together with a funding landscape that was moving away from a state sponsored national arts cinema, resulted in more commercial forms of filmmaking that created a new cinema-going middle class. In the light of these social and cultural shifts, this chapter reinterprets Bourdieu’s notion of the middlebrow (culture moyenne) as a ‘second rate imitation of legitimate culture’ (1999: 323). It argues that what constitutes the middlebrow is not fixed, and can and has changed as the nature of the middle classes themselves changes, and the national context to which it is applied shifts.
Mark Jancovich in an article on pornography and the middlebrow has suggested that new configurations of the petite bourgeoisie create new forms of middlebrow culture (Jancovich, 2001), and I argue that this is the case in a series of films released in the 1990s in Mexico. Jancovich writes this in relation to pornography and the middlebrow, yet it is very apposite to the Mexican context in which new middlebrow cinematic identity formations are located in the realm of ‘quality’ romantic sex comedies. The chapter examines the two most commercially successful Mexican films of this period, Sólo con tu pareja/Love in the Time of Hysteria (Cuarón 1991), and Sexo, pudor y lágrimas/Sex, Shame and Tears (Serrano 1998), and considers the ways in which high and low cultural registers are mixed together to form a new Mexican middlebrow. I examine the representations of gender, class and ethnicity in this new cinema for the middle classes, and argue that these films present this class on screen for the first time. The films both mock and admire the aspirational lifestyles of the male protagonists; create new postfeminist female characters; and erase the social reality of the majority of working-class mestizo Mexicans.
Research Interests:
Chapter on the Argentinian political scam movie Nine Queens/Nueve Reinas in the book in
Shaw, Deborah (ed), Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global
Market. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, pp. 67-85
Shaw, Deborah (ed), Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global
Market. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, pp. 67-85
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
(article in French ) Over the last ten years, a substantial number of Latin American directors have made films that have been supported by European funding bodies; they that have been showcased in festivals around the world, and in some... more
(article in French ) Over the last ten years, a substantial number of Latin American directors have made films that have been supported by European funding bodies; they that have been showcased in festivals around the world, and in some cases distributed internationally . These funds have brought women filmmakers from Latin America into the spotlight, and those who have benefitted from support with production (and in many cases post-production) include the Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, the Argentinean directors Lucía Puenzo, Lucrecia Martel and Celina Murga, the Paraguayan Paz Encina, the Chilean Dominga Sotomayor, and the Mexican Yulene Olaizola, among others. This creates the curious scenario whereby Europe is instrumental in co-creating a boom in Latin American women’s filmmaking, a scenario that raises a number of interesting questions and ties in with wider debates around European subsidies for ‘world cinema’. Is this a form of neo-colonial European intervention in the cultural production of less developed nations? Is Europe looking to the world to supply a stream of exotic imagery for its entertainment? Should European funding bodies be celebrated for enabling the production of important films that would either not be made, or would have much lower budgets, and a much less visible trajectory without them? These questions will be addressed through the specific case of one of the most high profile and controversial Latin American directors, Claudia Llosa, whose films have won awards on the international festival circuit while provoking disquiet among Peruvian and Latin Americanist critics for what some see as a Westernising and racist representations of poor Peruvians. I consider the key positions in the European funding of ‘world cinema’ debates, and then position a reading of La teta asustada/The Milk of Sorrow (2009) within these debates. I begin with a brief discussion of Llosa’s first film Madeinusa (2006), as this film initiated the controversies surrounding Llosa’s depiction of indigenous Peruvians. Do Llosa’s films confirm the critical positions by being subject to a process of othering for a European cinephile festival audience? Or, do they challenge neo-colonialist readings of European co-funded projects? What findings can be drawn through the focus on single film texts? I warn against generalising conclusions and contrast Llosa’s approach with that of Lucrecia Martel and Lucía Puenzo in particular through their diverse approach to representations of ethnicity and class.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This book focuses on a selection of internationally known Latin American films. The chapters are organized around national categories, grounding the readings not only in the context of social and political conditions, but also in those of... more
This book focuses on a selection of internationally known Latin American films. The chapters are organized around national categories, grounding the readings not only in the context of social and political conditions, but also in those of each national film industry. It is a very useful text for students of the region's cultural output, as well as for students of film studies who wish to learn more about the innovative and often controversial films discussed.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Providing a key resource to new students, Film: The Essential Study Guide introduces students to all the skills they will need to learn tosucceed on a film studies course. This succinct, accessible guide covers key topics such as: Using... more
Providing a key resource to new students, Film: The Essential Study Guide introduces students to all the skills they will need to learn tosucceed on a film studies course. This succinct, accessible guide covers key topics such as: Using the library Online research ...
Research Interests:
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (19711995) was a Mexican American singer who had a huge following among the Latino communities in the United States and in Mexico. She was poised for cross-over success when she was shot in March 1995 by the... more
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (19711995) was a Mexican American singer who had a huge following among the Latino communities in the United States and in Mexico. She was poised for cross-over success when she was shot in March 1995 by the president of her fan club, ...
Research Interests:
This talk given at the University of Houston in April 2017 focuses on El laberinto del fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), and how we might read it in 2017. It remains the most critically acclaimed film by Guillermo del Toro and is still... more
This talk given at the University of Houston in April 2017 focuses on El laberinto del fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), and how we might read it in 2017. It remains the most critically acclaimed film by Guillermo del Toro and is still considered to be ground-breaking. This paper considers what was new about this film, why it was so significant and discusses its legacy. How might we reconsider its value in an age of neo-fascism
Research Interests:
In this talk I aim to present an overview of the historical shifts of the transnational in film studies, and consider the ways in which the discipline has responded to developments in the social sciences. In the talk I outline the key... more
In this talk I aim to present an overview of the historical shifts of the transnational in film studies, and consider the ways in which the discipline has responded to developments in the social sciences. In the talk I outline the key areas of focus in what I refer to as the first phase of transnational cinema studies. These are: migration and cinema and exilic and diasporic filmmaking; transnationalizing readings of national and regional cinema; historical readings of transnational cinema; and film festival studies. Following this, I discuss some of the strengths and limitations in attempting to categorize and assess scales of transnationality in film production. The final section of the talk presents an overview of the second phase of transnational film studies, and considers the expanded reach of the transnational to the many fields that make up the discipline.
Research Interests:
Paper given for 9th Annual Directors Symposium on Alejandro González Iñárritu - organised by Dolores Tierney and podcast created by Catherine Grant (pun from title stolen from Aníbal Santiago article in Chilango) – The famous... more
Paper given for 9th Annual Directors Symposium on Alejandro González Iñárritu - organised by Dolores Tierney and podcast created by Catherine Grant
(pun from title stolen from Aníbal Santiago article in Chilango) –
The famous collaboration, feud and ultimate split between Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter with whom he worked for his first 3 films, tells a story of creative partnerships, competing egos, working practices in the film industry, power plays and media manipulations. This paper explores these dynamics through an exploration of public statements made by both men and use them and the evolution of the relationship to ask: What we can draw from this beyond gossipy titillation? What can it tell us about public discourses of auteurism and its construction? What is the role of the screenwriter and his/her chances of achieving an auteurist status?
(pun from title stolen from Aníbal Santiago article in Chilango) –
The famous collaboration, feud and ultimate split between Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter with whom he worked for his first 3 films, tells a story of creative partnerships, competing egos, working practices in the film industry, power plays and media manipulations. This paper explores these dynamics through an exploration of public statements made by both men and use them and the evolution of the relationship to ask: What we can draw from this beyond gossipy titillation? What can it tell us about public discourses of auteurism and its construction? What is the role of the screenwriter and his/her chances of achieving an auteurist status?
Research Interests:
Latin American Cinema, Beyond the Festival Film: Funding, Aesthetics and Debates Deborah Shaw Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) Estudios hispánicos en el contexto... more
Latin American Cinema, Beyond the Festival Film: Funding, Aesthetics and Debates
Deborah Shaw
Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) Estudios hispánicos en el contexto global“ Peter Lang, Matthias Hausmann and Jörg Türschmann (Eds.)
English language version
Abstract
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding bodies aligned with film festivals, have been instrumental through their support in developing the careers of some of the most high profile auteurist contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Latin American directors have been favoured by the Dutch Hubert Bals Fund, the German World Cinema Fund, and Cinéfondation a programme linked to the Cannes film festival.
This chapter will outline key debates relating to the political and social implications of this new funding landscape. It will examine the arguments of those who are critical and those who are supportive of these developments and drawing on examples of films from the above-mentioned directors will ask whether relationships between funding bodies and filmmakers create new forms of dependence or new partnerships. In addition, the chapter identifies categories of films that are funded (slow or poetic cinema, popular art cinema and social realist/ cinema), and examines the cinematic languages of these categories.
Deborah Shaw
Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) Estudios hispánicos en el contexto global“ Peter Lang, Matthias Hausmann and Jörg Türschmann (Eds.)
English language version
Abstract
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding bodies aligned with film festivals, have been instrumental through their support in developing the careers of some of the most high profile auteurist contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Latin American directors have been favoured by the Dutch Hubert Bals Fund, the German World Cinema Fund, and Cinéfondation a programme linked to the Cannes film festival.
This chapter will outline key debates relating to the political and social implications of this new funding landscape. It will examine the arguments of those who are critical and those who are supportive of these developments and drawing on examples of films from the above-mentioned directors will ask whether relationships between funding bodies and filmmakers create new forms of dependence or new partnerships. In addition, the chapter identifies categories of films that are funded (slow or poetic cinema, popular art cinema and social realist/ cinema), and examines the cinematic languages of these categories.
Research Interests:
Latin American Cinema, Beyond the Festival Film: Funding, Aesthetics and Debates Deborah Shaw Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) , Peter Lang, Matthias Hausmann... more
Latin American Cinema, Beyond the Festival Film: Funding, Aesthetics and Debates
Deborah Shaw
Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) , Peter Lang, Matthias Hausmann and Jörg Türschmann (Eds.)
English language version
Abstract
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding bodies aligned with film festivals, have been instrumental through their support in developing the careers of some of the most high profile auteurist contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Latin American directors have been favoured by the Dutch Hubert Bals Fund, the German World Cinema Fund, and Cinéfondation a programme linked to the Cannes film festival.
Deborah Shaw
Forthcoming 2019 Latin American Cinema: Film Funding, Film Festivals, Debates and Aesthetics (in Spanish ) , Peter Lang, Matthias Hausmann and Jörg Türschmann (Eds.)
English language version
Abstract
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding bodies aligned with film festivals, have been instrumental through their support in developing the careers of some of the most high profile auteurist contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Latin American directors have been favoured by the Dutch Hubert Bals Fund, the German World Cinema Fund, and Cinéfondation a programme linked to the Cannes film festival.
Research Interests:
There have been a number of Latin American feature films that have travelled through the transnational circuits of film exhibition and distribution with the relationship between mistresses, masters and servants at their centre. This focus... more
There have been a number of Latin American feature films that have travelled through the transnational circuits of film exhibition and distribution with the relationship between mistresses, masters and servants at their centre. This focus allows cinephiles around the world a voyeuristic insight into the private spaces and fictional homes of far away protagonists (if viewed from foreign metropolises as the films often are). Both male and female Latin American directors are making films that comment on the power relations between the ruling and servant classes, and use this relationship to share their observations on wider social/national class paradigms. Nonetheless, this subject matter has been of particular interest to female directors, and it is significant that this has coincided with the rise in women filmmakers on the global stage, the focus of this collection. This relationship is central to Latin American social and class relations, and Shireen Ally draws attention to the discomforting presence of the maid for many feminists (2015: 40), as the liberation of one social group is often conditional on the subjugation of another. This is particularly pertinent in a region (Latin America and the Caribbean) 'with the largest proportion of domestic workers' in the world (Higman 2015: 33). Patricia White also draws attention to the rise in transnational
Research Interests:
This chapter aims to present an overview of the history of the transnational in film studies, and consider the ways in which the discipline has responded to developments in the social sciences following a transnational momentum in film... more
This chapter aims to present an overview of the history of the transnational in film studies, and consider the ways in which the discipline has responded to developments in the social sciences following a transnational momentum in film studies from 2005, with the following years seeing a number of conceptual and theoretical essays and edited volumes and the founding of a journal, Transnational Cinemas in 2010. It outlines the key areas of focus in the first phase of transnational cinema studies: migration and cinema and exilic and diasporic filmmaking; transnationalising readings of national and regional cinema; historical readings of transnational cinema; and film festival studies. Following this, the chapter discusses approaches to transnational film theory through an analysis of a selection of definitional essays on the subject. The final section of the chapter presents an overview of the second phase of transnational film studies, and considers the expanded reach of the transnational to the many fields that make up the discipline.
Research Interests:
https://theconversation.com/flee-animation-is-a-powerful-medium-for-documentaries-about-conflict-and-refugees-177004 This short article analyses the role of animation in narrating the experience of refugees and asylum seekers from the... more
https://theconversation.com/flee-animation-is-a-powerful-medium-for-documentaries-about-conflict-and-refugees-177004
This short article analyses the role of animation in narrating the experience of refugees and asylum seekers from the POV of an integrated Afghan-Danish gay man. It also considers the soft power of film and highlights how the Danish government in 2022 has an anti-asylum policy in contrast to its approach in the 1990s.
This short article analyses the role of animation in narrating the experience of refugees and asylum seekers from the POV of an integrated Afghan-Danish gay man. It also considers the soft power of film and highlights how the Danish government in 2022 has an anti-asylum policy in contrast to its approach in the 1990s.
Research Interests:
With the popularity of long-play TV series booming, are films “too short” now to allow the kind of plot and character development that we have become used to? In our changing world of media, does the distinction between “TV series” and... more
With the popularity of long-play TV series booming, are films “too short” now to allow the kind of plot and character development that we have become used to? In our changing world of media, does the distinction between “TV series” and “film” even make sense?
In a recent class, when I asked my film studies students who had watched the set film for the week only a few hands went up – and my heart sank. Searching for an explanation, I asked who had watched the latest episode of the popular Netflix show Stranger Things. Nearly every hand went up.
Can cinema survive in a golden age of serial tv?
Deborah Shaw article in The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/can-cinema-survive-in-a-golden-age-of-serial-tv-122234
What does this anecdote reveal about changing viewing habits? Does the fact that even film students prefer the latest streaming series to the classic films set as coursework serve to illustrate the point that cinema is dying?
There is no doubt of the enormous appeal of the many long-form series .....
In a recent class, when I asked my film studies students who had watched the set film for the week only a few hands went up – and my heart sank. Searching for an explanation, I asked who had watched the latest episode of the popular Netflix show Stranger Things. Nearly every hand went up.
Can cinema survive in a golden age of serial tv?
Deborah Shaw article in The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/can-cinema-survive-in-a-golden-age-of-serial-tv-122234
What does this anecdote reveal about changing viewing habits? Does the fact that even film students prefer the latest streaming series to the classic films set as coursework serve to illustrate the point that cinema is dying?
There is no doubt of the enormous appeal of the many long-form series .....
Research Interests:
Mexican elections (2018) and political campaigning has been marred by extreme violence with over a hundred politicians killed. Mexican cultural figures and intellectuals, led by Diego Luna, are fighting back with non-violence in a... more
Mexican elections (2018) and political campaigning has been marred by extreme violence with over a hundred politicians killed. Mexican cultural figures and intellectuals, led by Diego Luna, are fighting back with non-violence in a campaign called El día después (The Day After)
https://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-mexican-politicians-have-died-in-the-run-up-to-the-election-but-cultural-leaders-are-fighting-back-98739
https://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-mexican-politicians-have-died-in-the-run-up-to-the-election-but-cultural-leaders-are-fighting-back-98739
Research Interests:
Theresa May's party leader speech at the Conservative conference on October 4 was noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. As Kenzie Bryant noted in Vanity Fair, it became a speech about " a cough, a merry prankster, a bracelet ". The fact... more
Theresa May's party leader speech at the Conservative conference on October 4 was noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. As Kenzie Bryant noted in Vanity Fair, it became a speech about " a cough, a merry prankster, a bracelet ". The fact that May was wearing a bracelet made up of miniature portraits of Frida Kahlo has become one of the major talking points of the speech. Many Kahlo fans will be delighted that this important Mexican artist has gained more exposure from the storm generated by May's fashion statement. Nonetheless, it raises some interesting issues about the transformation and co-opting of radical leftist artists who achieve a certain degree of success.
Research Interests:
Like all minority communities LGBT communities are personally invested in media images and the question of who controls these images. The first mainstream US (but internationally distributed) lesbian television series The L Word... more
Like all minority communities LGBT communities are personally invested in media images and the question of who controls these images. The first mainstream US (but internationally distributed) lesbian television series The L Word (2004-2009) thus experienced a burden of representation which it carried with style and success. Nonetheless, there are those in the lesbian community who criticise the series for being too glamorous and for its representations of class, ethnicity and trans identities.
The article will ask why the show mattered then and why it matters now. I will consider the cultural and social impact of the series, and the ways in which it presented a series of firsts that other television series have built on. It was the first mainstream series to feature lesbians, and attractive lesbians with aspirational lifestyles; it was the first to feature a biracial lesbian couple who conceive a child through insemination; it was the first to attempt a sympathetic portrayal of transgender experience in a sustained way. I will consider the way that positive and negative responses to the series reboot speaks to the ways that cultural artefacts impact on our lives and help shape our identities.
The article will ask why the show mattered then and why it matters now. I will consider the cultural and social impact of the series, and the ways in which it presented a series of firsts that other television series have built on. It was the first mainstream series to feature lesbians, and attractive lesbians with aspirational lifestyles; it was the first to feature a biracial lesbian couple who conceive a child through insemination; it was the first to attempt a sympathetic portrayal of transgender experience in a sustained way. I will consider the way that positive and negative responses to the series reboot speaks to the ways that cultural artefacts impact on our lives and help shape our identities.
Research Interests:
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-central-america-movies-immigration-553004 Anti-migrant rhetoric is not new in the United States; it has long been a staple of the Republican right and more recently the alt-right. It was a... more
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-central-america-movies-immigration-553004
Anti-migrant rhetoric is not new in the United States; it has long been a staple of the Republican right and more recently the alt-right. It was a controversial focal point in the Donald Trump campaign of 2016, with Trump calling Mexicans drug dealers, criminals and rapists, and encouraging supporters to cheer his promise to build a wall – something that he has now signed an executive order on.
This migrant-baiting is increasing despite the fact that there has been a decline in migration from Mexico due to improvements in the Mexican economy, family reunifications, and the dangers of the migration journey.
What anti-migrant rhetoric also ignores is the fact that many who are still making the perilous journey from Central America and Mexico to the United States are driven by desperation at extremely high levels of violence and poverty, and have been categorised as refugees by organisations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR).
Filmmakers from the region and those sympathetic to the plight of Mexican and Central American migrants are using their films to counter the misinformation, scapegoating and xenophobia that migrants have been subject to. The surge in anti-migrant rhetoric in recent years has been accompanied by a surge in films on the subject, to the extent that we can talk of a new sub-genre of migration films from the region.
These films can serve a useful role in countering negative representations of migrant-refugees. Film has a particular ability to assign worth. This is an even more urgent endeavour when we consider that the experiences of actual migrant-refugees are so often absent in political and media discourses.
Anti-migrant rhetoric is not new in the United States; it has long been a staple of the Republican right and more recently the alt-right. It was a controversial focal point in the Donald Trump campaign of 2016, with Trump calling Mexicans drug dealers, criminals and rapists, and encouraging supporters to cheer his promise to build a wall – something that he has now signed an executive order on.
This migrant-baiting is increasing despite the fact that there has been a decline in migration from Mexico due to improvements in the Mexican economy, family reunifications, and the dangers of the migration journey.
What anti-migrant rhetoric also ignores is the fact that many who are still making the perilous journey from Central America and Mexico to the United States are driven by desperation at extremely high levels of violence and poverty, and have been categorised as refugees by organisations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR).
Filmmakers from the region and those sympathetic to the plight of Mexican and Central American migrants are using their films to counter the misinformation, scapegoating and xenophobia that migrants have been subject to. The surge in anti-migrant rhetoric in recent years has been accompanied by a surge in films on the subject, to the extent that we can talk of a new sub-genre of migration films from the region.
These films can serve a useful role in countering negative representations of migrant-refugees. Film has a particular ability to assign worth. This is an even more urgent endeavour when we consider that the experiences of actual migrant-refugees are so often absent in political and media discourses.
Research Interests:
https://theconversation.com/sense8-and-sensibility-how-a-tv-series-is-transcending-geographical-and-gender-borders-77377?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1495717668 Season 2 of Sense8 was released on... more
https://theconversation.com/sense8-and-sensibility-how-a-tv-series-is-transcending-geographical-and-gender-borders-77377?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1495717668
Season 2 of Sense8 was released on Netflix in May 2017. It has a massive global fan base, and responds to a deep need to find transnational connection and community in times of national isolationism, sexual conservatism, rising homophobia and transphobia. Fans become like the Sense8 characters and connect across space through streaming and social media platforms, forging a virtual community that stands against narrow populist nationalism and for a new globalism built on solidarity. All of this progressive social content is contained within a genre-filled thriller full of action packed narratives and sexually explicit scenes designed to appeal to a mass audience.
Season 2 of Sense8 was released on Netflix in May 2017. It has a massive global fan base, and responds to a deep need to find transnational connection and community in times of national isolationism, sexual conservatism, rising homophobia and transphobia. Fans become like the Sense8 characters and connect across space through streaming and social media platforms, forging a virtual community that stands against narrow populist nationalism and for a new globalism built on solidarity. All of this progressive social content is contained within a genre-filled thriller full of action packed narratives and sexually explicit scenes designed to appeal to a mass audience.
Research Interests:
The new season of Netflix hit Orange is the New Black has a lot to live up to. The exhilarating mix of comedy and drama set in a women’s prison was the first of Netflix’s original series to exhalt diversity in its cast and storylines,... more
The new season of Netflix hit Orange is the New Black has a lot to live up to. The exhilarating mix of comedy and drama set in a women’s prison was the first of Netflix’s original series to exhalt diversity in its cast and storylines, and has proven to be one of the streaming service’s most successful shows.
Now in its fifth series, OiTNB, as it is often referred to, offers a very different vision of US society to what has previously appeared on our screens. The cast features Latina, Asian, and black women, as well as white supremacists, and liberal white women, all of whom have fallen on hard times. The show demonstrates that a focus on marginalised communities can have broad appeal, and offers a vision of US society at odds with Hollywood whitewashing.
Since it first appeared in 2013, OiTNB has highlighted key social issues, including transgender rights, inter-ethnic conflicts, queer identities, mental illness and drug addiction. Each has been treated in such a way that the episodes are never didactic or dull. The show is compelling and tragicomic, exploring extraordinary depths of character, transcending the ethnic, sexual and class divides that separate incarcerated women from audiences on the outside.
Now in its fifth series, OiTNB, as it is often referred to, offers a very different vision of US society to what has previously appeared on our screens. The cast features Latina, Asian, and black women, as well as white supremacists, and liberal white women, all of whom have fallen on hard times. The show demonstrates that a focus on marginalised communities can have broad appeal, and offers a vision of US society at odds with Hollywood whitewashing.
Since it first appeared in 2013, OiTNB has highlighted key social issues, including transgender rights, inter-ethnic conflicts, queer identities, mental illness and drug addiction. Each has been treated in such a way that the episodes are never didactic or dull. The show is compelling and tragicomic, exploring extraordinary depths of character, transcending the ethnic, sexual and class divides that separate incarcerated women from audiences on the outside.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Interviews by Austin Fisher and Iain Robert Smith 'For this roundtable we approached a number of leading scholars who have published on the topic and invited them to answer five questions that speak to the current discourses on cinematic... more
Interviews by Austin Fisher and Iain Robert Smith
'For this roundtable we approached a number of leading scholars who have published on the topic and invited them to answer five questions that speak to the current discourses on cinematic transnationalism. We hope that this intervention might help us move beyond the theoretical impasse that Hjort identified above, and, ultimately, help produce more rigorous and nuanced scholarship on transnational cinemas, as well as generating a valuable resource for teaching in the field'.
'For this roundtable we approached a number of leading scholars who have published on the topic and invited them to answer five questions that speak to the current discourses on cinematic transnationalism. We hope that this intervention might help us move beyond the theoretical impasse that Hjort identified above, and, ultimately, help produce more rigorous and nuanced scholarship on transnational cinemas, as well as generating a valuable resource for teaching in the field'.
Research Interests:
Deborah Martin and Deborah Shaw Interview with Julia Solomonoff on her film The Last Summer of La Boyita
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2016/07/21/embrace-of-the-serpent/ a blog on the film Embrace of the Serpent/El abrazo de la serpiente for the media and film studies blog site Mediático, for Latin American, Latino/a and Iberian... more
http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2016/07/21/embrace-of-the-serpent/
a blog on the film Embrace of the Serpent/El abrazo de la serpiente for the media and film studies blog site Mediático, for Latin American, Latino/a and Iberian media cultures
a blog on the film Embrace of the Serpent/El abrazo de la serpiente for the media and film studies blog site Mediático, for Latin American, Latino/a and Iberian media cultures
Research Interests:
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding... more
This chapter will consider the new funding landscapes for Latin American filmmakers with a focus on European funding bodies and will ask whether these have created new forms of dependence or new partnerships. European social funding bodies aligned with film festivals, have been instrumental through their support in developing the careers of some of the most high profile auteurist contemporary Latin American filmmakers. Latin American directors have been favoured by the Dutch Hubert Bals Fund, the German World Cinema Fund, and Cinéfondation a programme linked to the Cannes film festival. This chapter will outline key debates relating to the political and social implications of this new funding landscape. It will examine the arguments of those who are critical and those who are supportive of these developments and drawing on examples of films from the above-mentioned directors will ask whether relationships between funding bodies and filmmakers create new forms of dependence or new partnerships. In addition, the chapter identifies categories of films that are funded (slow or poetic cinema, popular art cinema and social realist/ cinema), and examines the cinematic languages of these categories. _____________________________________________________________________ Any attentive Latin America film aficionada/o watching the latest breakthrough 'festival film' in his/her local art cinema, whether that be in Buenos Aires, New York, Sydney, Paris or Portsmouth, will spot a recurrent pattern when reading the opening credits. They will see that the celebrated Argentine, Mexican, Brazilian, Chilean, Colombian, or Peruvian film that has done the near impossible by securing a cinema release in selected theatres in the nearest urban center, features an array of transnational public and private production funds. These co-produced films are likely to have received support from a range of funding bodies in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and perhaps Norway, or a combination of these, with some state funds from the filmmaker's own country. 1 Nonetheless, many in the audience will remain happily untouched by this production landscape and will be satisfied with having seen an interesting Latin American film convinced by its specific national 'authenticity'. Likewise, many students dutifully watching films on their world cinema or Latin American cinema modules may take the key texts selected by their tutors as national cultural artifacts, without engaging with the transnational production and distribution mechanisms (depending, of course, on how this is framed in the module). And, why would this be any different? The opening and closing credits are not the most interesting part of a film; in fact, most people start to pay attention once they finish, and leave when they signal that the main narrative has just ended. Nonetheless, there is another largely untold story hiding in the credits, and the inextricable relationship between film text and production context does, in fact, raise many interesting questions, some of which this chapter seeks to explore.