Post-cinema, Exoticism and Alterity: Non-reconciled Perspectives in Contemporary Argentie Cinema

OUBIÑA, DAVID

Leeds, Gran Bretaña

Workshop; Workshop Theorizing World Cinema II; 2007

Centre for World Cinemas, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Leeds

The network of production, distribution and exhibition is increasingly tending to convalidate what Serge Daney defined as "post-cinema": films that don't know anything of what cinema once knew. Obviously, a reshape of the realm of cinema and of the relationship between films has taken place. The margin left to those films beyond the industry is narrower than it was 40 years ago. Unlike modernism, there is no strategy of questioning or negation or opposition against dominant cinema anymore; precisely because -since hegemonic cinema has expanded its borders and has dismantled any possibility of defiance- mainstream films are now the ones that turn their backs and disregard any other option. Cinema, of course, won't disappear; but its conditions of possibility have changed in a radical way. Curiously enough, this situation has allowed a polycentric relationship between regional cinemas. In the case of Argentina, the result has been highly enriching: confronting with completely globalized movies, an independent movement (low budget, creative, challenging, innovative) is being developed since the beginning of the 90s. In Argentina today, the most interesting films are made on the fringes of the margin. My presentation will try to reflect on the category of World Cinema, focusing on certain challenging aspects of contemporary Argentine films. While mainstream movies promote a spectacular use of technology, this other films make an artisanal employment of technical developments and devices. In a country where there is no true cinematographic industry, alternative ways of filmmaking sometimes implies the very possibility for a national cinema to exist.