Contemporary Latin American Cinema

Resisting Neoliberalism?

Claudia Sandberg, Carolina Rocha, Claudia Sandberg, Carolina Rocha

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319770109
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Contemporary Latin American Cinema investigates the ways in which neoliberal measures of privatization, de-regularization and austerity introduced in Latin America during the 1990s have impacted film production and film narratives. The collection examines the relationship between economic policies and the films that depict recent transformations in many Latin American countries, demonstrating how contemporary Latin American film has not only criticized and resisted, but also benefitted from neoliberal advancements. Based on films produced in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru since 2010, the fourteen case studies illustrate neoliberalism's effects, from big industries to small national cinemas. It also shows the new types of producers that have emerged, and the novel patterns of distribution, exhibition and consumption that shape and influence the Latin American filmscape. Through industry studies, reception analyses and close readings, thisbook establishes an informative and accessible text for scholars and students alike.

© The Author(s) 2018

Claudia Sandberg and Carolina Rocha (eds.)Contemporary Latin American Cinemahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77010-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Contemporary Latin American Cinema and Resistance to Neoliberalism: Mapping the Field

Claudia Sandberg¹

(1)

School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Claudia Sandberg

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Buenos Aires, April 2017: On the opening night of the annual BAFICI film festival, hundreds of people flocked the entry of the Cine Gaumont . Rather than seeking entrance to the opening film, they gathered to protest against proposed cutback measures which threaten the existence of the Argentine state-owned production company, INCAA ( Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales ). Under the center-right government of President Mauricio Macri, a number of employees were dismissed and the budget for cultural activities was cut. Film productions are at risk of being terminated because promised grants are not being paid out or belatedly so (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Demonstration in front of the Cinema Gaumont in April 2017. © Martín Turnes

The deteriorating state of affairs in the Argentine cultural sector mirrors a situation familiar to filmmakers and film personnel in other Latin American countries, where the responsibility of the state yields to the interests of private business and ownership. This essay investigates the impact of neoliberalism on Latin America filmmaking from the 1990s onwards, and serves as a framework for the case studies of the current volume. Contemporary Latin American Cinema : Resisting Neoliberalism ? explores developments in filmmaking as a reflection of neoliberal political and economic measures and the neoliberal zeitgeist of our epoch. Many nations ushered in neoliberal policies during the 1990s, which centered on austerity measures prompting Latin American states to take a less prominent role in the funding of their national cinemas. This reduction in state funding had a profound impact on the Latin American cinematographic landscape. Other national and international funding sources had to pick up from the lack of state funding. New types of producers emerged, and novel patterns of film distribution, exhibition and consumption now shape and influence the Latin American film scape. With approaches to the subject such as film industry studies, reception analyses and close film readings, this book provides an overview of current filmmaking in Latin America with relation to neoliberalism tackling questions such as: Which impact did the privatizing of state-owned companies and dismantling of welfare systems have on funding opportunities, distribution and exhibition arrangements, narratives and aesthetics of Latin American film? In which ways does contemporary Latin American cinema resist, criticize but also benefit from neoliberal advancements? Have older filmmaking practices and traditions reemerged in new forms?

Before drawing attention to the ways in which neoliberal tendencies influenced the Latin American film industry, I provide a brief outline of the political events that have determined the present filmmaking conditions in Latin America. The above mentioned Argentine case is an example of a reemergence of neoliberalism after two decades of alternate political and economic avenues (2001–2015) that resisted the neoliberal paradigm in Latin America. A progressive cycle of governments starting with the election of Hugo Chávez as Venezuelan president in 1998. Left-center governments in Bolivia (Evo Morales), Argentina (Néstor Kirchner) and Brazil (Lula de Silva) had implemented economic strategies in their countries that scholars cautiously identified as post-neoliberal turn (Macdonald and Ruckert 2009, 2). These countries nationalized economic resources and implemented social reforms in order to offer lower social classes access to health, housing and education—effectively empowering poorer populations and bringing them into public visibility, eschewing international capital and reducing foreign investment (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012). The government acted against fiscal deficits and promoted local and regional cooperation, even though it was never clear whether these “policy experiments” (Macdonald and Ruckert 2009, 2) established viable and sustainable alternatives or appealed to their populations (Roberts 2009, 1).

The optimism about such politics and economic strategies as alternatives to a free-market economy has faded in recent years. Center and center to right candidates have been selected in Argentina and Peru. The Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who had fostered nationalization measures, was impeached because of alleged misuse of public funds, and Evo Morales’ government was defeated in the constitutional referendum to allow for the possibility of a fourth term.

Right-of-center governments in Paraguay, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia have been following strict neoliberal courses as political leaders believe that there is no other choice (Belém Lopes 2017). Barry Cannon notes that in these countries “neoliberalism is so deeply embedded in national power networks that alternative policy options are extremely difficult to implement without fierce elite resistance” (2016, 59). Among them, Chile has a specific relevance for the deployment of neoliberalism as governmentality. Chile has become shorthand for a radical free-market project, “to describe any logic of organization in which the market has a significant role, or in which individual economic incentives or an economic rationality prevail” (Venugopal 2015, 172). The concept of neoliberalism has been applied here as a set of economic measures that was hinged on repressive social and political measures of a violent regime. In the transformation from economic model to a worldwide hegemonic ideology, Chile set the parameters for a neoliberal model in Latin America as a contemporary form of neocolonial domination. This made Latin American countries increasingly dependent on powerful financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Venugopal 2015, 175–76). A model that became implemented often in times of crisis, neoliberalism protects the interest of higher classes and promotes an accumulation of wealth, while converting citizens into consumers. In light of the ongoing neoliberal transformation of the Latin American political, economic and social landscape, it is high time to examine how neoliberalism had pervaded its cinemas.

The Latin American Film Industry in the Neoliberal Era

The free-market philosophy has long reached the cultural spheres and has been fully adopted in the global filmmaking sector. Frederic Jameson states that notions of culture and economy as independent spheres collapsed in postmodern times (1991, 4–5). The cultural sphere has become an integral part of commodity production, so much so that Jyotsna Kapur and Keith B. Wagner point out in the introduction to their book Neoliberalism and Global Cinemas that “the production of culture is, after war, the second most important sector of the neoliberal economy” (2011, 1). These shifts guide a policy making that supports, “a production of cinema as an industry and commodity” (Kapur and Wagner 2011, 3). Films have become consumable products, always linked to their capacity to make profits in local and global markets.

Despite the relevance and ubiquity of the matter, surprisingly few scholarly studies have investigated the nexus of contemporary cinema and neoliberalism. Kapur and Wagner’s above-mentioned volume, conceived in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis of 2008 and drawing on Marxist critique of capitalism, was the first extensive English-language study of this subject. Its contributions deal with filmmaking in Hollywood, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe, geographically organized to underline unequal divisions of power and resources which have defined centers and peripheries of global capital. Another recent book-length publication, Ewa Mazierska and Lars Kristensen’s Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology , starts with the idea that “Cinema perfectly fits the idea of a neoliberal industry” (Mazierska 2018, 10). This volume consists of studies of the political economy of film and covers topics such as filmmaking in post-socialist states, neoliberal genres, and matters of money, sex and consumption. While Kapur and Wagner’s and Mazierska and Kristensen’s books provide valuable insights int...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Contemporary Latin American Cinema and Resistance to Neoliberalism: Mapping the Field
• Part I. Uneasy Neoliberal Narratives and Images
• Part II. Neoliberal Film Policies and the Global Market
• Part III. Defiant Actors and Marginal Spaces
• Back Matter