LASA 2016 Congress: LASA at 50

New York, May 27-30, 2016.

Panel: Emerging Forms of Latin American Documentaries
When looking at the history Latin American cinema, the documentary genre occupies a particularly prominent space
since the 1940s. The purpose of this panel is to direct our critical gaze at that space with a series of focused
questions that may in turn tap onto corollary concerns: How do LA documentaries inform and interrogate our
continuing thoughts about the fraught relations between modernity and LA? How do documentaries open critical
gateways to conceptualize a new temporality, spatiality, realism, and the ever elusive notion of the real? How do
documentaries today continue the tradition of intra- and trans-continental dialogues for which themes of social and
political struggles are framed in global terms? Is that still possible after the 20th C.? How do the technological
advancements affect the genre's cinematic language? Have Latin American documentaries in the 21st C. changed
from the politically engaged films that generated theories on new forms of cinema, e.g., third and imperfect cinema
among others? In what ways do documentaries today contribute to the tradition of theorizing new ideas and practices
of filmmaking that in turn enrich the already growing cartography of world cinemas? Can the documentary form and
documentalism avoid the usual political and aesthetic perils of auteur cinema, or is the former the prime example of
the latter? Part of the panels goal is to instantiate the conversation of whether documentaries, be they LA or not, can
divest themselves of interconnected realism and modernism to generate instead a cinematic language that is other to
the indexical, evidentiary or referential.
Panel Organizers
Chair
Discussant
Presenters

Eunha Choi (California State University at Long Beach) and

Arturo Serrano (Universidad Catlica Andrs Bello)
Arturo Serrano
Eunha Choi
Carmelo Esterrich, Rafaela Fiore and Sarah Barrow

Live-Action Queens, Animated: The Gender Politics of Beauty Pageants in "Reinas"

Carmelo Esterrich
Associate Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies
Columbia College Chicago
cesterrich@colum.edu
This paper delves into the intriguing dialogue between animation and live-action filmmaking in the 2013
Panamanian documentary Reinas, directed by Ana Endara Mislov.The film is an intervention into the gender politics
of popular culture in Panama, by focusing on one of this nation's favorite obsessions: beauty pageants.While this is
something Panama shares with other Latin American countries, here the competitions occur in a compulsive plethora
of spaces:Reinas follows pageants to crown queens for a private social club,apublic elementary school, a nursing
home, even a chain of supermarkets! Structurally, Reinas begins with a fascinating prologue: an animation
sequence--made to look like cut outs from magazines--that provides a smart and hilariousoverview of Panama, its
history, its contradictions, its singularities, including the fact that thousands of "reinas" are crowned each year. But
after this three-minute sequence, animation as a style disappears from the film to yield to a more traditional form of
documentary, albeit one that beautifully balances a dismantling critique of femininity and nation with a fair portrayal
of the social and psychological importance of these competitions. At first, the animation feels like an odd add-on to
the film, but I would like to argue that the 'cut-outs' sequence, in fact, skillfully frames the rest of the documentary to
critically locate the cultural practice of pageants in the larger scope of Panama's economic, cultural, and social
paradoxes. This paper aims to look at the unique ways Reinasactually reconfigures the cinematic language of
documentary.
Coming Out of the Closet: Politics of Fear and State Violence Against the Gay Community in the
Documentary 108 Cuchillo de palo.
Rafaela Fiore
rafaelafu@yahoo.com

This research addresses the discourses that were created by the Paraguayan military dictatorship of Alfredo
Stroessner from the 1950s through the 1980s regarding male gays and their treatment in society. Primarily the aim
of this essay is to analyze the particular case presented by Renate Costas 2010 documentary 108 Cuchillo de palo,
showing the deep connections between the last dictatorship in Paraguay and the treatment of homosexual men
during that time as well as the destructive effects in todays gay community. This research also addresses key
historical elements of prejudice against homosexuals such as the cases of the murders of Bernardo Aranda and Mario
Luis Palmieri and the work that is being done by organizations such as SomosGay and Paragay to further the rights
of the gay community. Through a comprehensive analysis of the film which demonstrates the deep connections
between the political history of Paraguay with its current homophobia, the historical background, theoretical support
from authors like Brian OConnor, Judith Butler and Susannah Radstone, the essay reveals the stigma that male gays
face in Paraguay, not only during the dictatorship but even to this day.
Performing identity and diversity in documentary cinema of Peru
Dr Sarah Barrow
School of Film &Media
University of Lincoln, UK
sbarrow@lincoln.ac.uk rafaelafu@yahoo.com cesterrich@colum.edu
This paper explores the approaches taken to the themes of cultural diversity in the contemporary documentary
cinema of Peru. It focuses on the frequent recourse to performance as a device through which to engage with stories
of cultural reconnection and authenticity. In order to pin down these issues, the paper offers an analysis
of SigoSiendo (Jorge Corcuera, 2014) as a film that draws on the emotive and affective power of rhythm, music and
colour to drive home its message about the value of respecting diversity. By way of context, the
presentation considers the influence and legacy of the critically acclaimed Cuzco School, with its commitment to the
development of still and moving documentary images to celebrate the culture of the Peruvian Andes in the 1950s
and 1960s, and of the GrupoChaski, whose documentary and docu-drama films of the 1980s and 1990s were set in
and drew attention to the dynamism of the marginal migrant communities of Lima. There are, this paper contends,
many ways to connect the works of these film-makers with contemporary efforts, and the importance of
performance as a structuring and affective device is considered here as one of those.