MDIA 309 Latin American Cinema: A History
This course offers an advanced introduction to the history of Latin American cinema and film culture. With a comparative approach, we will study cinema's capacity to motivate political reflection, build modern identities, and shape public discourse, in a region rife with social inequality. Travelling across regions and epoques, we will cover six cinematic periods: contemporary cinema, the New Latin American Cinema, Art Cinema, Neorealism, Studio Cinema, and Silent Cinema. We will pay attention to the historical and sociopolitical contexts films spring from and reflect upon. We will also develop the critical tools and learn basic theoretical tenets for the study of moving images. Therefore, we will pay attention to film style (camera movement, mise-en-scene, lighting, editing, sound, genre) and consider the film culture surrounding specific films.