I am currently on a trip to Buenos Aires as part of a project on commemorative practices. My work will focus on Mexico, but Argentina is a locus for much of the critical work around this in Latin America and I wanted to see some of the physical spaces first hand. Whilst here, I got…
Blog
Alejandro G. Iñárritu Day at Sussex
I was invited to participate in a one day symposium on the Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu (as he has now taken to naming himself). Alongside Paul Julian Smith, Geoffrey Kantaris, Deborah Shaw and Dolores Tierney who gave fascinating papers bringing new approaches to this well-studied director, I gave a talk on melodramatic masculinity in…
Journeying into Peru: Ayahuasca, Comedy and Authenticity
I recently published a post in Mediático: “Peru as a New Site of Authenticity in Cooked and Chelsea Does”. Part of me noticing this phenomenon preceded these two TV series. The first time I heard mention of the ayahuasca ceremony was in a podcast that I occasionally listen to, “You Made it Weird” , in which the comedian…
War Narratives: Seeing Through a Different Lens
There are times when I watch something that I know intersects with my interests but do not expect it to move my own work along, because it appears too tangential. Sometimes, these are the very things that inspire fresh thinking and prompt new perspectives. This happened for me on watching a documentary about the photographer…
Latin American Cinemas, European Markets
Looking forward to this event in Manchester at the end of April. For more details on booking and attendance, click here. I’m going to be talking about this project I have been working on.
La mujer de todos [Everybody’s Woman]
Media Type: Film Year: 1946 Who wrote / made it : Julio Bracho Plot summary: Set in 1912 during the brief presidency of Francisco I Madero (1911-1913), the Revolution does not feature in the plot. However, it casts a shadow as it is centred around military men. María Félix gets first billing as María alongside…
Streaming Mexican and Cuban Film
I have just finished writing a chapter on streaming Latin American film in Ireland and the UK. This has involved reading right up to the last minute on how data and algorithms are used to determine what is shown and trying to keep up with controversies, such as the one that blew up in January…
María Félix – on happenstance and segueways in online research
I am writing a chapter on women in world cinema taking Mexico as a case study. No doubt, I will write more on this anon. Here, I want to post a short reflection on a brief segueway in my research. In the chapter I am planning on including an analysis of the actor Diana Bracho…
Re-Framing Mexican Women’s Filmmaking: the case of Marcela Fernández Violante
I have recently completed editing on a chapter entitled, “Re-Framing Mexican Women’s Filmmaking: the case of Marcela Fernández Violante” that will come out in 2016 in Debbie Martin and Deborah Shaw edited collection of essays, Latin American Filmmakers: Production, Politics, Poetics (I.B. Tauris). Whilst researching for a monograph (2013) on political violence in Mexican cinema I encountered…
Magical Realism or, Is TV the new Baroque?
I read two pieces today that resonated with each other. Firstly, this article from The Atlantic, “The Key Things Missing from Narcos” by Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez in which, amongst other issues, he challenges the use of the word ‘Magical Realism’ to describe the Colombia of Pablo Escobar. I agree with his assessment. The second is a chapter…