National Identity in 21st-Century Cuban Cinema
National Identity in 21st-Century Cuban Cinema

Author: Dunja Fehimović

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-08-10

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 3319931032

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National Identity in 21st-Century Cuban Cinema tours early 21st-century Cuban cinema through four key figures—the monster, the child, the historic icon, and the recluse—in order to offer a new perspective on the relationship between the Revolution, culture, and national identity in contemporary Cuba. Exploring films chosen to convey a recent diversification of subject matters, genres, and approaches, it depicts a changing industrial landscape in which the national film institute (ICAIC) coexists with international co-producers and small, ‘independent’ production companies. By tracing the reappearance, reconfiguration, and recycling of national identity in recent fiction feature films, the book demonstrates that the spectre of the national haunts Cuban cinema in ways that reflect intensified transnational flows of people, capital, and culture. Moreover, it shows that the creative manifestations of this spectre screen—both hiding and revealing—a persistent anxiety around Cubanness even as national identity is transformed by connections to the outside world.

Cuban Cinema
Cuban Cinema

Author: Michael Chanan

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780816634248

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New chapters express ongoing concerns about freedom of expression, the role of the Havana Film Festival in restoring Havana's central position in Latin American cinema, & the changing audience for Cuban films.

The Cinema of Cuba
The Cinema of Cuba

Author: Ann Marie Stock

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2017-12-30

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781784538149

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Contemporary Cuba is opening up to the rest of the world. Its colonial past and the Communist revolution have left a lasting imprint on society, yet there is a tangible sense of rapid change which is reflected in the island's national cinema. New screen technologies and digital distribution media have supported the efficacy and global reach of Cuban filmmakers whose work, somewhat in lieu of adequate distribution and traditional screening facilities in Cuba itself, is often disseminated via flash drives, or USB memory sticks. Channelling an energetic DIY attitude through grassroots movements and ad-hoc resourcefulness, the new filmmakers of Cuba have inspired the editors of this book to embrace their contagious enthusiasm through essays on authentic Cuban cinema. While this book provides a comprehensive overview of the history behind current practices, it also moves beyond this to examine key case studies as well as snapshots of individuals working within the industry today. Chapters celebrate the shared creativity as well as diversity of Cuban cinema, including both productions of the Cuban Film Institute's (ICAIC) as well as those from the industry margins. The films discussed demonstrate a driving cinematic force through social criticism, the emphasis of debate and historical change through film, reassessments of gender relations, the use of new technologies, and much more.

On Becoming Cuban
On Becoming Cuban

Author: Louis A. Pérez Jr.

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2012-09-01

Total Pages: 602

ISBN-13: 1469601419

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With this masterful work, Louis A. Perez Jr. transforms the way we view Cuba and its relationship with the United States. On Becoming Cuban is a sweeping cultural history of the sustained encounter between the peoples of the two countries and of the ways that this encounter helped shape Cubans' identity, nationality, and sense of modernity from the early 1850s until the revolution of 1959. Using an enormous range of Cuban and U.S. sources--from archival records and oral interviews to popular magazines, novels, and motion pictures--Perez reveals a powerful web of everyday, bilateral connections between the United States and Cuba and shows how U.S. cultural forms had a critical influence on the development of Cubans' sense of themselves as a people and as a nation. He also articulates the cultural context for the revolution that erupted in Cuba in 1959. In the middle of the twentieth century, Perez argues, when economic hard times and political crises combined to make Cubans painfully aware that their American-influenced expectations of prosperity and modernity would not be realized, the stage was set for revolution.

Cuban Image
Cuban Image

Author: Michael Chanan

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published:

Total Pages: 559

ISBN-13: 1452906920

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New chapters express ongoing concerns about freedom of expression, the role of the Havana Film Festival in restoring Havana's central position in Latin American cinema, & the changing audience for Cuban films.

Cuban Cinema After the Cold War
Cuban Cinema After the Cold War

Author: Enrique García

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0786499109

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The changes Cuba experienced following the collapse of the Soviet Union compelled Cuban filmmakers to rethink the values developed after the 1959 Castro revolution. Long-forgotten genres re-emerged, established auteurs incorporated new aesthetics into their films and an influx of foreign capital led to the repackaging of revolutionary ideology into more visually attractive narratives. Films such as Alice in Wondertown (1991), Strawberry and Chocolate (1993) and Juan of the Dead (2011) stirred controversy, criticized revolutionary discourse and helped establish new models that allowed post-Castro cinema to find global audiences on an unprecedented scale. This book offers a detailed analysis of key post-Cold War Cuban films. Recurrent sociopolitical tropes are examined to reveal how Cuban cinema reflects the turbulent changes in the island.

The Cinema of Sara Gómez
The Cinema of Sara Gómez

Author: Susan Lord

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2021-07-06

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0253057078

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Throughout the 1960s until her untimely death in 1974, Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez engaged directly and courageously with the social, political, economic, and cultural transformations promised by the Cuban Revolution. Gómez directed numerous documentary films in 10 prolific years. She also made De cierta manera (One way or another), her only feature-length film. Her films navigate complex experiences of social class, race, and gender by reframing revolutionary citizenship, cultural memory, and political value. Not only have her inventive strategies become foundational to new Cuban cinema and feminist film culture, but they also continue to inspire media artists today who deal with issues of identity and difference. The Cinema of Sara Gómez assembles history, criticism, biography, methodology, and theory of Gómez's work in scholarly writing; interviews with friends and collaborators; the film script of De cierta manera; and a detailed and complete filmography. Featuring striking images, this anthology reorients how we tell Cuban cinema history and how we think about the intersections of race, gender, and revolution. By addressing Gómez's entire body of work, The Cinema of Sara Gómez unpacks her complex life and gives weight to her groundbreaking cinema.

Fidel between the Lines
Fidel between the Lines

Author: Laura-Zoë Humphreys

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2019-10-25

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1478007141

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In Fidel between the Lines Laura-Zoë Humphreys traces the changing dynamics of criticism and censorship in late socialist Cuba through a focus on cinema. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban state strategically relaxed censorship, attempting to contain dissent by giving it an outlet in the arts. Along with this shift, foreign funding and digital technologies gave filmmakers more freedom to criticize the state than ever before, yet these openings also exacerbated the political paranoia that has long shaped the Cuban public sphere. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, textual analysis, and archival research, Humphreys shows how Cuban filmmakers have historically turned to allegory to communicate an ambivalent relationship to the Revolution, and how such efforts came up against new forms of suspicion in the 1990s and the twenty-first century. Offering insights that extend beyond Cuba, Humphreys reveals what happens to public debate when freedom of expression can no longer be distinguished from complicity while demonstrating the ways in which combining anthropology with film studies can shed light on cinema's broader social and political import.