Workshop and screenings at BIMI
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD
17-18 March 2017 – Register here
Julio interviewed in 1983
In 1969, the Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa, who died in April at the age of 89, wrote one of the key manifestos of the New Latin American Cinema. A polemic calling ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’, he argued that the imperfections of a low budget cinema of urgency, which sought to create a dialogue with its audience, were preferable to the sheen of high production values which merely reflected the audience passively back to itself.
“It is impossible to question a given reality without questioning the particular genre you select or inherit to depict that reality.” – Julio García Espinosa
This workshop will include glimpses of some of his films and consider the heritage of ‘imperfect cinema’. Led by Michael Chanan (Roehampton), it will include presentations by Catherine Grant (Sussex), William Brown (Roehampton) and Humberto Perez-Blanco (UWE), and as a bonus, a new video in tribute to García Espinosa by the Mexican filmmaker Paul Leduc, In memoriam (2016, 45’).
Click here to read ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’
SCREENINGS:
Friday 17 March, 6pm Las aventuras de Juan QuinQuin (‘The Adventures of Juan Quinquin, 1967, 106’)
Saturday 18 March 10am-6pm
Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial (‘Third World, Third World War’, 1970, 90’)
Son o no son (1978, 77’)
In memoriam (Paul Leduc, 2016, 45’)
NB. Juan QuinQuin and Son o no son will be shown in English version DVD copies
Tercer mundo is an ‘imperfect’ copy of the English version for study purposes only.
Saturday Programme:
10am Introduction: Chanan
10.15 Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial
12.00 coffee
12.15 ‘“The Duty of a Revolutionary Filmmaker Is to Make the Revolution in Film.” Imperfect Cinema as Popular Cinema.’ Humberto Perez-Blanco (UWE)
‘For an imperfect cinema studies’, Catherine Grant (Sussex)
1.15 lunch
2.15 Son o no son (1978, 77’) Introduction: Chanan
3.45 ‘Embracing imperfection: teaching no-budget ‘guerrilla’ filmmaking today’, William Brown (Roehampton)
4.15 In memoriam (Paul Leduc)
5.00 Concluding discussion