In the two decades after World War II, a vibrant cultural infrastructure of cineclubs, archives, festivals, and film schools took shape in Latin America through the labor of film enthusiasts who often worked in concert with French and France-based organizations. In promoting the emerging concept and practice of art cinema, these film-related institutions advanced geopolitical and class interests simultaneously in a polarized Cold War climate. Seeking to sharpen viewers' critical faculties as a safeguard against ideological extremes, institutions of film culture lent prestige to Latin America's growing middle classes and capitalized on official and unofficial efforts to boost the circulation of French cinema, enhancing the nation's soft power in the wake of military defeat and occupation. As the first book-length, transnational analysis of postwar Latin American film culture, Transatlantic Cinephilia deepens our understanding of how institutional networks have nurtured alternative and nontheatrical cinemas.
Rielle Navitski is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia and author of Public Spectacles of Violence: Sensational Cinema and Journalism in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico and Brazil.
"A monumental study of art cinema, postwar cultural politics, and Latin American cinephilia. Tracing the influence of French cultural diplomacy on Latin American film culture, Transatlantic Cinephilia uncovers a fascinating ecosystem of institutions and viewing practices. Rielle Navitski's compelling analysis of how films, ideas, and practices circulated through cineclubs, film festivals, film archives, and film schools produces a rich tapestry of new information about film aesthetics and spectatorship in both Latin America and France."—Kelley Conway, author of Agnès Varda
"This groundbreaking book offers a revelatory new perspective on Latin American cinema at midcentury. Meticulously tracing the histories of film clubs, festivals, archives, and schools, Navitski tells an engrossing story that crosses continents and oceans and helps us understand how the love of cinema has significance that extends far beyond the silver screen."—Alice Lovejoy, author of Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military
"An elegant, compelling account. Rarely does a scholar engage so deftly with such a diverse array of cultural institutions and scholarly communities, and Navitski navigates this massive undertaking masterfully. Transatlantic Cinephilia will be an essential work for an understudied area."—Cristina Venegas, author of Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual, and Digital Media in Cuba
336 pp.6 x 9Illus: 22 b/w figures, 2 maps, 1 table
9780520391437$29.95|£25.00Paper
Nov 2023