New Argentine and Brazilian Cinema. Reality Effects

ÁLVARO FERNÁNDEZ BRAVO, JENS ANDERMANN

Palgrave

Lugar: Nueva York; Año: 2013 p. 228

978-1-137-30482-7

In what ways can the resurgence of national cinemas in Latin America, from the mid-1990s onward, be related to the ‘returns of the real’ which, all over the world, have been among the most interesting effects of the digitalization of the filmic image that overshadowed the centenary of cinema? As well as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina have been at the forefront of a Latin American film revival that has since spread to formerly ‘minor’ national cinemas such as Chile, Peru, Colombia and even Uruguay and Paraguay. As Lúcia Nagib points out, a common denominator of many of these revivals or retomadas (literally, beginnings-anew) –as the most recent wave of national productions has become known in Brazil— has been the re-introduction of federal subsidies by democratic governments following the end of the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s and the ensuing, continent-wide austerity policies applied under the framework of the so-called Washington Consensus.