The Latin American Modern Short Film. Aesthetic Experimentation and Connections with the Cultural Field in Argentina, Cuba and Mexico

Abstract

The cinematography of Argentina, Mexico and Cuba —heterogeneous in their industrial filmmaking— saw a productive and expressive renewal in the mid-1950s in dialogue with other transformations in the cultural field. The driving force of renovation was the short film. The present article makes a comparative analysis of these cinemas and the respective cinematographic and cultural contexts of production as exemplified in three short films. Exploring the genre of films dealing with art, this article shows the fundamental role of the short movie in the constitution of modern Latin American cinema through the aesthetic experimentation with language and its semantic link with the reconfiguration of regional cultural and artistic fields.