Algiers-Buenos Aires-Montreal: Thirdworldist links in the creation of the Latin American Filmmakers Committee (1974)

Abstract

In terms of the New Latin American Cinema, the documents and audiovisual records of the Rencontres international pour un nouveau cinéma provide insight into this period of organization of filmmakers in the region. In the most common accounts of this historical moment, three key aspects revealed in the Montréal Documents are often ignored or attributed little importance: a) the fact that during the Rencontres, Latin American filmmakers had given shape to an initial group that is the immediate predecessor of the renowned Latin American Filmmakers’ Committee created in September that same year (1974); b) that the political relations among the most well-known Latin American figures (like Solanas, Pallero, Achugar, Littin, García Espinosa) were wrought with tensions and conflict; and c) that within the goal of organizing and forming a group of Latin American filmmakers, the Third Worldist trends seen in the gatherings in the Third World Cinema Committee meetings of Algiers (December 1973) and Buenos Aires (May 1974) and (in some way also) Montréal (June 1974) were aimed at forming a Latin American Filmmakers Federation (FELACI) that would operate under or follow the example set by FEPACI (the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers). This article focuses on these questions, which have been largely ignored in the film historiography of political cinema in the world.