Cinema Novo, New Cinemas: The Politics of the Image in Brazilian Film

Catalog description

This course will provide students with a critical overview of Brazilian cinema from the silent era to the present day, with an emphasis on productions spanning the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We will read texts from a wide range of film historians, scholars, and directors in order to not only familiarize themselves with Brazilian political and social history, but also to acquire basic film vocabulary and critical media literacy. Sketching a semi-chronological panorama of Brazilian films, the class will also explore the aesthetic movements and sociopolitical undercurrents that informed and shaped the nation’s cinematic corpus. We will explore themes such as race, gender, sexuality, national identity, repression, revolution, and socioeconomic inequality, emphasizing the ways Brazilian filmmakers and intellectuals theorized and produced cinema in relation to a Latin-American politico-aesthetic emancipation.