Film series: Imaginaries of Resistance

How do we frame the act of resistance on film? What is lost and what remains after the fact? In this year’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Film Series, entitled “Imaginaries of Resistance”, we invite viewers to reflect on the notion of resistance in all its manifestations. Through their distinct genres and styles, the three films in this series seek to problematize the idea: resistance to what? To what end, and with what consequences? 

Whether these multiple resistances push up against tyranny or progressive social change, this series reminds us that the act of resisting is always entangled within a constantly evolving web of complexities.

Free admission! Cosponsored by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS).

This series is curated by Jack Brown, PhD student of Spanish and Portuguese in the Department of Romance Studies and LACS Graduate Fellow ‘24-25.

Featuring:

Conducta impropia / Mauvaise Conduite (Improper Conduct)

Monday, April 7, at 7pm
(1984, dir. Nestor Almendros & Orlando Jimenez Leal)

In this 1984 documentary film, Almendros and Jiménez Leal present interviews of Cuban refugees in France to understand the Castro regime’s repression of queer people and political dissidents in the camps of the Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Protección (Military Units to Aid Production). Yet, as scholar David William Foster notes, Conducta impropia is not a simple condemnation of Castro and the Cuban Revolution, focusing its critique on the UMAP camps, not on the entirety of the Cuban government. In that light, though it shares certain resonances with the critique of Castro, the film evades neat classification into a discrete genealogy of anti-Revolution resistance.

Courtesy of Les Films du Losanges

Ainda estou aqui (I’m Still Here)

Monday, April 14, at 7pm
(2024, dir. Walter Salles)

This Oscar-award winning film, based on a true story, is centered around the transformation Eunice Paiva experiences after the disappearance of her husband, congressman Rubens Paiva, at the hands of Brazil’s military dictatorship. In the fallout of this disappearance, the family must adapt to their new reality. After also being imprisoned by the dictatorship, Eunice turns to activism, dedicating herself to exposing the regime’s oppression. Ainda estou aqui intertwines the realms of the personal and the political, exploring the affective registers of everyday life marked by a constant resistance against tyranny.

Courtesy of Sony Picture Classics

Santo contra las mujeres vampiro (Santo vs. The Vampire Women)

Monday, April 21, at 7pm
(1962, dir. Alfonso Corona Blake)

In this cult classic and one of luchador El Santo’s most well-known films, a young girl’s father discovers she is next in line to become the Queen of the Vampire Women and recruits the famed luchador to protect her from the wicked vampire women. These monstrous women threaten not only the professor’s daughter but the patriarchal order through their performance of masculinity. This film blends discourses of nationality, sport, gender, and sexuality to impart a moral lesson on its viewers. That said, can we read the film against the grain? Is Santo’s formulaic victory of the vampire women a story of heroic resistance to a real threat or misogynist repression of non-conformity?

Courtesy of Clarovideo/AMX Contenido and Filmoteca UNAM

Special thanks to Luke Urbain (LACS), Jack Brown (LACS), Ernesto Bassi Arevalo (LACS), and Marianna Ruiz Durán (Filmoteca UNAM).