Manifesting La Historia : Systems of 'Development' and the New Latin American Cinema Manifesto

Abstract

The article examines the function of formative New Latin American Cinema manifestoes and argues that in their reassessment of the tropes of development, the manifestoes critique dominant conceptualizations of the global region and individual countries of Latin America. The terms of these manifestoes, Aesthetics of Hunger, Underdevelopment, Revolution, Imperfect Cinema, and Third Cinema, are historically situated in nationalist contexts, and yet they are capable of accounting for the heterogeneity of aesthetic and ideological aspects of the New Latin American Cinema movement. Re-reading with hindsight these relatively well-known manifestoes, written by Glauber Rocha, Fernando Birri, Jorge Sanjinés, Julio García Espinosa, and Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino between 1965 and 1976, in dialogue with contemporary political contexts and prevailing social theories reveals the theoretical and aesthetic aims of New Latin American Cinema and its relationship to the culture, socio-politics, and economy of a liberal, democratically-informed Latin America. Considering the formative New Latin American Cinema manifestoes and their critique of modern conceptions of Latin America relates aspects of the global region's history that have been left untold and provides insight to the operative methods of revolution and development in Latin America.