ABSTRACT
Combining two concepts such as cinema and revolution in the Latin American scene means going back to the 1960s and revisiting such a problematic term, due to its overstandardization, as “New Latin American Cinema.” This term was coined during that decade precisely, and it was used to encompass artistic expressions by very diverse filmmakers who had in common, on the one hand, their wish to convey unrepresented national realities onto the big screen, and on the other, their interest in exploring the medium’s formal possibilities in order to de-automatize the spectators’ gaze and thus turn cinema into an effective tool for social transformation. These two general principles constituted the basis for establishing a pan-American correlation linking the work of directors such as Fernando Birri, Fernando Solanas, Octavio Getino, (Grupo Liberación) and Raymundo Gleyzer (Grupo Cine de la Base) in Argentina; the work of Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and the Cinema Novo in Brazil; the work of Jorge Sanjinés and his Grupo Ukamau in Bolivia; the “imperfect cinema” of Julio García Espinosa, the work of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and that of Humberto Solás in Cuba; and the work of Miguel Littín, Raúl Ruiz, and Patricio Guzmán in Chile, among others.
