Sudaca Cinema. Images for Argentina during the Menem Years

OUBIÑA, DAVID

Ciudad de Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Conferencia en New York University in Buenos Aires; 2018

New York University in Buenos Aires

Originally, sudaca was a pejorative term used in Spain to make reference to South Americans and their underdeveloped societies. However, this definition is now frequently used by South Americans themselves as an affirmative action of cultural resistance. The advent of the so called New Argentine Cinema in the 1990s was in itself an act of cultural resistance: indie films about young people directed by young filmmakers that managed to depict the consequences of savage neoliberal policies. These movies show the emergence of a new ?social class?: the social class of youngsters living in an underdeveloped neoliberal society. They are a portrait this millennial youth culture: its values, its habits, its practices, its language, its remarkable resilience. I want to share different examples from some recent Argentine movies in order to show how film style conveys social and political messages.