Brazil has enjoyed a rich and independent tradition of documentary filmmaking from at least the first decade of the 20th century; over the past fifteen years, the country has witnessed a veritable explosion of documentary production in the national market. In fact, in 2005…
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I’m rarely given to superlatives, especially those of the “all-time favorite” variety. My favorite color? Depends on the weather. My favorite ice cream flavor? Depends on what I had for lunch. My favorite Latin American movie? Depends on what happens to be consuming my…
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In 1959, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. With its haunting bossa nova soundtrack by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá, the film became an international sensation. I saw it for the first time in 1962 while I was an undergraduate at Cambridge….
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Como tantos otros de mi generación, me habría encantado que América Latina desarrollara un cine de gran pegada, que llegara cerca a los sueños de las multitudes. Lamentablemente no ha sido ése el medio cultural de masas más representativo de América Latina. Es otro…
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To judge by the proliferation of Latin American films on the international festival circuit these days—not to mention the colossal box-office success of works by Walter Salles (Motorcyle Diaries), Fernando Meirelles (City of God), and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), among others—Latin American cinema would appear to be very much on the rise at the end of this first decade of the new millennium. Yet, while we celebrate its …
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