Image: 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. Transatlantic Cinephilia sheds light on the oft-overlooked prehistory of New Latin America Cinema, which affirmed national identities against cultural colonialism and denounced urgent national and region-wide problems like poverty, widespread illiteracy, and government repression. Yet this leftist cinema was nurtured by alternative spaces of film culture (cineclubs, archives, festivals, and film schools) whose spirit could hardly have been more different, given that they were largely apolitical, firmly middle-class (bourgeois, even), and distinctly cosmopolitan. As the book shows, Latin America's postwar institutions of culture were deeply influenced by French models and often supported by the cultural diplomacy of French and France-based organizations, which sought to rebuild a national prestige tarnished by military defeat and occupation. Recovering these histories demonstrates the interconnectedness of film cultures we tend to view as radically different. Rielle Navitski is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia and the author of Public Spectacles of Violence: Sensational Cinema and Journalism in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico and Brazil. Tags: Core Faculty Publications Read More: Transatlantic Cinephilia - Book Website
