- Latin American Studies, Latin America, Brazil, Brazilian Studies, Film Studies, Film and Media Studies, and 10 moreFilm Theory and Practice, 'Third Cinema' Theory and Third World Radical Films, Indigenous Film, Indigenous Film and Media, Experimental Film, Vídeo nas Aldeias, Political Film, Documentary Film, Documentary (Film Studies), and Transnational Cinemaedit
The contested terrain of both the terms “archive” and “diaspora” requires deeper consideration since this exhibition asks what is the meaning behind making these two terms form a dialogue with one another. "Diaspora Dialogues: Archiving... more
The contested terrain of both the terms “archive” and “diaspora” requires deeper consideration since this exhibition asks what is the meaning behind making these two terms form a dialogue with one another. "Diaspora Dialogues: Archiving the Familiar" features contemporary artworks by Cecilia Araneda, Rosalina Libertad Cerritos, Amanda Gutiérrez, Soledad Fátima Muñoz, and Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda. All from the Latin American diaspora, these artists apply a variety of critical and aesthetic approaches to archiving. In addition, the exhibition is in dialogue with a virtual screening of video art by women artists from the 70s and 80s hosted on VIVO Media Arts Centre website entitled "Political Praxes of Memory." This dialogue that has been established between Latin American video artist pioneers from Brazil and Chile foregrounds the diaspora’s relationship with “original” culture, “copy”, and“archive”.
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Women’s bodies, spirits and struggles all intermingle, as underscored in a comparative, and intersectional analysis of a Brazilian and Canadian film. I put into dialogue the film Teko Haxy, Being Imperfect (2018) with the film The Body... more
Women’s bodies, spirits and struggles all intermingle, as underscored in a comparative, and intersectional analysis of a Brazilian and Canadian film. I put into dialogue the film Teko Haxy, Being Imperfect (2018) with the film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019). I investigate what these films communicate about their worlds; what alternative lifeways they propose; how these diverse women’s struggles interlink across ethnicities, cultures, and hemispheres. My focus is on the encounters, confrontations, and convergences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women; between two Indigenous women from distinct class backgrounds and between intersecting Indigenous women’s struggles. Both films are representative of distinct subject positions, geo-politics, colonial processes, and cinematically divergent languages, genres, and production budgets. Nonetheless, I discuss how both films creatively make use of documentary strategies to underscore the sovereignty of Indigenous an...
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Women's bodies, spirits and struggles all intermingle, as underscored in a comparative, and intersectional analysis of a Brazilian and Canadian film. I put into dialogue the film Teko Haxy, Being Imperfect (2018) with the film The Body... more
Women's bodies, spirits and struggles all intermingle, as underscored in a comparative, and intersectional analysis of a Brazilian and Canadian film. I put into dialogue the film Teko Haxy, Being Imperfect (2018) with the film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019). I investigate what these films communicate about their worlds; what alternative lifeways they propose; how these diverse women's struggles interlink across ethnicities, cultures, and hemispheres. My focus is on the encounters, confrontations, and convergences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women; between two Indigenous women from distinct class backgrounds and between intersecting Indigenous women's struggles. Both films are representative of distinct subject positions, geo-politics, colonial processes, and cinematically divergent languages, genres, and production budgets. Nonetheless, I discuss how both films creatively make use of documentary strategies to underscore the sovereignty of Indigenous and women's bodies as sites of power and resistance to heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism.
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This paper examines the pedagogical and decolonial possibilities of teaching genre cinema through non-Western perspectives. As a sessional instructor teaching across multiple institutions in Vancouver, Canada, I elaborate on how I have... more
This paper examines the pedagogical and decolonial possibilities of teaching genre cinema through non-Western perspectives. As a sessional instructor teaching across multiple institutions in Vancouver, Canada, I elaborate on how I have taught genre cinema as a decolonial and pedagogical project. Through course design that recognises the way that the evolution of film theory in general, and genre theory in particular, has been encoded in Euro-Western-centrism and analysis, my teaching practice brings into conversation other knowledges and approaches to film-making and film studies that have often been excluded from film studies pedagogy. My pedagogical project is to decolonise film studies, including genre theory, as exemplified in such courses as: Re-Visioning Genre Theory, a fourth-year course at Emily Carr University of Art and Design; Genre Cinema: From Classical Hollywood to Global Contemporary, a third-year course at the University of British Columbia; and Refiguring Futurisms,...
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This paper examines the pedagogical and decolonial possibilities of teaching genre cinema through non-Western perspectives. As a sessional instructor teaching across multiple institutions in Vancouver, Canada, I elaborate on how I have... more
This paper examines the pedagogical and decolonial possibilities of teaching genre cinema through non-Western perspectives. As a sessional instructor teaching across multiple institutions in Vancouver, Canada, I elaborate on how I have taught genre cinema as a decolonial and pedagogical project. Through course design that recognises the way that the evolution of film theory in general, and genre theory in particular, has been encoded in Euro-Western-centrism and analysis, my teaching practice brings into conversation other knowledges and approaches to film-making and film studies that have often been excluded from film studies pedagogy. My pedagogical project is to decolonise film studies, including genre theory, as exemplified in such courses as: Re-Visioning Genre Theory, a fourth-year course at Emily Carr University of Art and Design; Genre Cinema: From Classical Hollywood to Global Contemporary, a third-year course at the University of British Columbia; and Refiguring Futurisms, a fourth-year film seminar at the University of British Columbia. Some of the questions explored in my research and teaching practice consider how genre cinema is adopted and subverted in contemporary non-Western films. In this paper, I use Latin American decolonial theory to focus on Brazilian cinema as an exemplar of non-Western and decolonial approaches to genre theory.
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The theme of daily life is a common one in the Brazilian Video in the Villages (Vídeo nas aldeias) filmic archive. I analyze the diversity of cinematic treatments of and approaches to the theme of daily life in an Indigenous village by... more
The theme of daily life is a common one in the Brazilian Video in the Villages (Vídeo nas aldeias) filmic archive. I analyze the diversity of cinematic treatments of and approaches to the theme of daily life in an Indigenous village by comparing, contrasting, and examining how two films construct, embody, and experience communal life through culturally specific methods of inquiry. In particular, I explore concepts of time, the senses, creativity, and the relations between the individual and the collectivity as all of the above are cinematically rendered in the intimacy, the performance, and the ritual of daily life. Specifically, I look at how these two VNA productions, Shomõtsi (2001) and Kiarãsã Tõ Sâty, The Agouti’s Peanut (2005), repoliticize the everyday through sovereign practices. I discuss these cinematic works as they relate to imperfect media (Salazar & Cordova, 2008), decolonial pedagogies, and the “cosmological embeddedness of the everyday” (Overing & Passes, 2000, p. 29...
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The term mestizaje has been broadly used to denote the hybrid nature of Latin American cultures. Two of the most notable engagements with hybridity came from the Mexican José Vasconcelos’ La Raza Cósmica (1925) and the Brazilian Oswald de... more
The term mestizaje has been broadly used to denote the hybrid nature of Latin American cultures. Two of the most notable engagements with hybridity came from the Mexican José Vasconcelos’ La Raza Cósmica (1925) and the Brazilian Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago” (1928). Both of these modernist intellectuals developed a strategy to resist western colonial domination and to embrace a unique culture that blended multiple histories, ethnicities, cosmologies, and practices. This paper addresses how, in the 1970s, Brazilian video artist Sonia Andrade (b. 1935) and Mexican video artist Pola Weiss (b. 1947-1990) cannibalized and embodied Andrade and Vasconcelos’ manifestos from a feminized perspective.
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Exhibition review of the art show "Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always – Gallery as Big House" at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery with accompanying video: https://vimeo.com/328759754
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The theme of daily life is a common one in the Brazilian Video in the Villages (Vídeo nas aldeias) filmic archive. I analyze the diversity of cinematic treatments of and approaches to the theme of daily life in an Indigenous village by... more
The theme of daily life is a common one in the Brazilian Video in the Villages (Vídeo nas aldeias) filmic archive. I analyze the diversity of cinematic treatments of and approaches to the theme of daily life in an Indigenous village by comparing, contrasting, and examining how two films construct, embody, and experience communal life through culturally specific methods of inquiry. In particular, I explore concepts of time, the senses, creativity, and the relations between the individual and the collectivity as all of the above are cinematically rendered in the intimacy, the performance, and the ritual of daily life. Specifically, I look at how these two VNA productions, Shomõtsi (2001) and Kiarãsâ Yõ Sâty, The Agouti’s Peanut (2005), re-politicize the everyday through sovereign practices. I discuss these cinematic works as they relate to imperfect media (Salazar & Cordova, 2008), decolonial pedagogies, and the “cosmological embeddedness of the everyday” (Overing & Passes, 2000, p. 298).
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" Our fight today is to demarcate our space on the screen, when we can no longer demarcate our lands. " I cite Ailton Krenak, one of Brazil's most influential Indigenous leaders, at his keynote address at the opening of the Cine Kurumin... more
" Our fight today is to demarcate our space on the screen, when we can no longer demarcate our lands. " I cite Ailton Krenak, one of Brazil's most influential Indigenous leaders, at his keynote address at the opening of the Cine Kurumin film festival in Salvador, Brazil, to engage with cinematic languages on the margins of dominant media. I experience the festival as an active immersion into imaginaries that forward the process of " decoloniality " (Mignolo). As Sueli Maxakali articulated during a roundtable of Indigenous women filmmakers, the Shaman must dream in order to choose the name of the films made in her community. The production processes of these films were conceived outside the structures of any capitalist market economy; rather, the festival offered an alternate space to take a deliberate leap into expressive audio and oral visual experiences, cultures, languages, politics, and imaginaries resisting ongoing violence entrenched in capital and coloniality. Through a discussion of the festival curation, roundtable discussion, and through a film analysis, I elaborate how the sacred, spiritual, and social are constituent elements of cosmopolitical visions. I argue that film and video as cosmopolitical technologies are unsettling established conceptions of nature and culture, of politics and representation both on and off-screen. Witnessing the Cine Kurumin festival – the totality of the experience becomes an immersive and transformative space for decolonizing the imaginary while disturbing hegemonic political, conceptual, and representational agendas.
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Shamash’s chapter studies Indigenous film productions in Brazil, particularly a documentary that portrays an all-women festival of the Kuikuro tribe, raising issues of cultural and environmental preservation. Shamash meditates on the... more
Shamash’s chapter studies Indigenous film productions in Brazil, particularly a documentary that portrays an all-women festival of the Kuikuro tribe, raising issues of cultural and environmental preservation. Shamash meditates on the utopian potential of the film medium as a performance of self-determination while tracing a genealogy of the decolonization of film history from Latin American Third Cinema to an international Indigenous Fourth Cinema. During this process, the author alludes to Kuikuro mythologies as they are represented through sound and image, along the notion of cannibalism as a subversive trope that empowers women as agents capable of leading the way in their communities.
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BLACK CINEMA AUTEURS: LINEAGES AND DIASPORAS Auteur theory or la politique des auteurs was originally developed by French film critics who wrote for the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in the 50s and 60s. The theory developed to... more
BLACK CINEMA AUTEURS: LINEAGES AND DIASPORAS
Auteur theory or la politique des auteurs was originally developed by French film critics who wrote for the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in the 50s and 60s. The theory developed to highlight white American and European men who film critics deemed to have a mastery over their craft and who demonstrated a “core of basic motifs which remain consistent” (Wollen, 1969). This course addresses how film theory in general, and auteur theory in particular, has excluded the significant contributions of Black cinema auteurs. Despite creating work in a racist, sexist and homophobic society and industry, we will examine the works of luminary Black artists and how they continue to influence filmmakers globally. Some of the questions we will examine are: How have and how are Black cinema auteurs changing the racial politics of screen representations? How can a theory that glorified the work of mostly white Euro-American men be adapted to Black filmmakers who haven’t had the same privilege of studio backing, industry breaks, and access to film funding? What are the lineages and diasporas of Black cinema auteurs? Through lectures, screenings, readings, and discussions we will work to unpack these questions and the contributions of Black cinema auteurs to film history and culture.
Auteur theory or la politique des auteurs was originally developed by French film critics who wrote for the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in the 50s and 60s. The theory developed to highlight white American and European men who film critics deemed to have a mastery over their craft and who demonstrated a “core of basic motifs which remain consistent” (Wollen, 1969). This course addresses how film theory in general, and auteur theory in particular, has excluded the significant contributions of Black cinema auteurs. Despite creating work in a racist, sexist and homophobic society and industry, we will examine the works of luminary Black artists and how they continue to influence filmmakers globally. Some of the questions we will examine are: How have and how are Black cinema auteurs changing the racial politics of screen representations? How can a theory that glorified the work of mostly white Euro-American men be adapted to Black filmmakers who haven’t had the same privilege of studio backing, industry breaks, and access to film funding? What are the lineages and diasporas of Black cinema auteurs? Through lectures, screenings, readings, and discussions we will work to unpack these questions and the contributions of Black cinema auteurs to film history and culture.
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The concept of the border occupies a central place in representational practices and in shaping our collective understanding of border politics, crossings, and identities. The global border regime has produced a migrant population of 272... more
The concept of the border occupies a central place in representational practices and in shaping our collective understanding of border politics, crossings, and identities. The global border regime has produced a migrant population of 272 million reported in 2020 and counting. This course will focus on Latinx, Chicanx, and Latin American diaspora cultural production while extending and connecting our conversations to other representations of border aesthetics in contemporary art. Through artworks, lectures, fieldtrips, guest speakers, screenings, readings, and group discussions, we will engage critical texts, film, media, and visual art practices that take up the concept of “the border/ la fronteira” through diverse representational strategies. How is the border and borderlands both representative of a geopolitical and metaphorical site of periphery, liminality, and colonial histories? How does the border become a site of knowledge production that implicates race, class, sex, gender, language, and immigration status? Using critical border thinking frameworks (Anzaldúa, Chacón, Walia) and drawing from Mestiza consciousness (Anzaldúa, Moraga, Hurtado, Portillo), we will examine how colonization, cultural displacement, transnational identities, homeland politics, and remix culture inform an inquiry into the ethics, and aesthetics of representing border subjects.
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From dystopias to utopias to uchronias, we will time travel “Black to the Future”, “South to the Future” and look at alternative futuring in Native Science Fiction through fluid temporalities that assert pasts, presents, and futures for a... more
From dystopias to utopias to uchronias, we will time travel “Black to the Future”, “South to the Future” and look at alternative futuring in Native Science Fiction through fluid temporalities that assert pasts, presents, and futures for a diversity of peoples. With a focus on Afro, Indigenous, and Latin American futurism, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to exploring alternative futurisms. We will do so by examining the intersections of oral histories, technologies, imaginations, and race from and for a diversity of voices in film history. Drawing from multidisciplinary scholarship, screenings, lectures, presentations, discussions and assignments, we will immerse ourselves in current thinking around intersectional, Black, feminist, Afro, Latin American, and Indigenous futurisms as we imagine a decolonized future that expands the cinematic lexicon. We will explore how perceptions of her/histories and futurities are (in)formed through cinema and how filmmaking praxes from diverse subject positions intervene in hegemonic discourses by broadening theories and histories of film studies.
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We will trace a women centric social, geo-political, cultural, historical, cinematic map where we will examine the praxis of key women filmmakers across the Americas. From Alanis Obomsawin, to Arlene Bowman, to Ann Marie Fleming, to... more
We will trace a women centric social, geo-political, cultural, historical, cinematic map where we will examine the praxis of key women filmmakers across the Americas. From Alanis Obomsawin, to Arlene Bowman, to Ann Marie Fleming, to Amanda Strong in Canada to Chicana filmmakers in the US (i.e. Lourdes Portillo, Sylvia Morales), to Latin American filmmakers (Marta Rodriguez [Colombia]), Patricia Ferreira Yxapy [Brazil], Lucrecia Martel [Argentina]), we will examine the intersectional politics evidenced in their films. This examination will feature discussions grounded in critical approaches to, and analyses of, the historical, theoretical, political, social, economic, and cultural framework of these filmmakers. We will also be revisiting concepts from film theory, such as cult theory and auteur theory, which are traditionally centred around the Euro-Western white male imaginary, in order to subvert, transgress, and redefine film theory from a women and women of colour perspective.
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“An underdeveloped country isn’t obliged to have an underdeveloped art.” (Glauber Rocha) By tracing a Latin American centric social, geo-political, cultural, historical, cinematic map, we will be looking at the praxis of key visionary... more
“An underdeveloped country isn’t obliged to have an underdeveloped art.” (Glauber Rocha) By tracing a Latin American centric social, geo-political, cultural, historical, cinematic map, we will be looking at the praxis of key visionary filmmakers and cinematic movements. We will examine how these filmmakers, their films, their texts, and their legacies engage local and global contexts. Cinema from the global south is not an addendum to ‘First World Cinema’; the majority of world cinema is actually produced in the “Third World”. By mapping the vibrant, often neglected, legacy of Latin American cinema, we will revisit films from New Latin American Cinema to more contemporary films from the continent in order to delve into the poetry and politics of a subjective repertoire of films. By grounding our critical approach and analyses in the historical, theoretical, political, social, economic, and cultural framework that these films were created in, “Poetry and Politics in Latin American Cinema” aims to deconstruct some of the dominant, oppressive discourses and colonial systems that provoked the counter-narratives and resistance manifest in these cinematic works.