Introduction: Digital changes in Latin American cinemas

Abstract

This article introduces the dossier of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies devoted to the study of digital cinema in Latin America. First, the text addresses the lack of research on the history of digital cinema in Latin America. Then, it proposes a comprehensive analysis of the digital, in terms of film aesthetics, production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption. At the same time, it establishes a dual axis to account for the changes and continuities generated by digital technology in temporal and spatial terms, within both sub- and supra-national logics. In this way, it emphasises the need to understand digital cinema as connected with previous technological and cultural phenomena such as analogue cinema or magnetic video. It also acknowledges that digital cinema is an extension of several local and global economic and industrial processes that different countries have negotiated in diverse and, at times, antagonistic fashions. Lastly, the article presents the five articles included in this dossier, and a sixth, shorter piece that functions as a critical response to the arguments and points addressed by the contributors.