Between the Camera and the Rifle: Film Manifestos and the Formation of Intellectual Sociability Networks in Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (1960-1970)

Abstract

This article analyzes the manifestos The Aesthetics of Hunger, Towards a Third Cinema, and For an Imperfect Cinema as practices of intellectual sociability that consolidated the Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (New Latin American Cinema) in the 1960s. These texts forged a transnational network of filmmakers based on a common diagnosis of hegemonic cinema as a tool of neocolonial domination. The circulation of the manifestos in festivals and political-cultural magazines inserted cinema into the major debates of the era regarding the role of the intellectual in Latin America's transformation processes. Through convergences and controversies, the proposals of Glauber Rocha, Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas, and Julio García Espinosa formed a fruitful debate in the intellectual field, seeking to establish cinema as a tool for cultural decolonization.