LAS 335 Latin America on Film

This course is focused on the portrayal of historical, cultural and socio-political issues in Latin America. It also incorporates strongly the representation of Latin American literature on films and Latin Americans search for their identity through their art. It helps to integrate a vision of themselves and their world. This course teaches a historical, cultural as well as a cinematic approach to Latin America. This is achieved through an analysis of its literature and cinema. The former element is important because a great part of the films develop from novels and novellas. The selected short stories and films express characteristics common to the entire subcontinent, with reference to cultural heritage, landscape, political environment, and artistic development.
Through cinema, intercultural themes will be studied, considering that each Latin American country has developed a culture of its own. The approach will be multicultural including films made by artists from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and the United States in both English and/or Spanish.
The Spanish versions will be subtitled. An analysis of the contrasting views will be performed. In this way we can infer how we see ourselves and how we are viewed by the American culture.