Channel 4 and the South Series (1991-93): from the Third World to the Global South

Abstract

This article provides a case study of a groundbreaking yet hitherto overlooked transnational coproduction experience on European broadcasting: the South series (1991–93). An ambitious initiative led by Channel 4’s Independent Film and Video Department (IFVD) and the South Productions company, headed by Argentine producer Ana de Skalon, the South series was widely conceived and promoted as the first magazine programme in the world to be directed by film and video makers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Focusing on Latin America, this article reconstructs this unique experience of transnational collaboration on a global scale while also examining the shifting relationship between European broadcasting and the cinema of this region. Drawing on the internal production files of South Productions and using interviews with filmmakers, commissioning editors, and producers as well as the valuable information contained in Channel 4’s press packs, this article sheds light on this major effort of transnational coproduction. South not only constitutes the peak of the transatlantic collaborations developed between British television and Latin American cinema, but also embodies the conceptual shift from the Third World to the Global South through its broadening of film- and video-making practices, as is made clear through the series’ title.