Mediático wanted to let its readers know of a FREE event taking place over two days in London next week, organised by one of this website’s wonderful contributors, Professor Michael Chanan. Details below!

Julio García Espinosa & ‘imperfect cinema’

Workshop and screenings at Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image (BIMI)
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD
17-18 March 2017 – Register here

In 1969, the Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa, who died last year, wrote one of the key manifestos of the New Latin American Cinema. A polemic calling ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’, he argued that the imperfections of a low budget cinema of urgency, which sought to create a dialogue with its audience, were preferable to the sheen of high production values which merely reflected the audience passively back to itself.

“It is impossible to question a given reality without questioning the particular genre you select or inherit to depict that reality.” Julio García Espinosa

This workshop will include glimpses of some of his films and consider the heritage of ‘imperfect cinema’. Led by Michael Chanan (Roehampton), it will include presentations by Catherine Grant (“For an Imperfect Cinema Studies” – Sussex & Mediático), William Brown (“Embracing imperfection: teaching no-budget ‘guerrilla’ filmmaking today” – Roehampton) and Humberto Perez-Blanco (“The Duty of a Revolutionary Filmmaker Is to Make the Revolution in Film.” Imperfect Cinema as Popular Cinema” – UWE), and as a bonus, a new video in tribute to García Espinosa by the Mexican filmmaker Paul Leduc, In memoriam (2016, 45’).

Read the essay here: ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’

Watch an interview with Julio García Espinosa

SCREENINGS

Friday 17 March 2017, 6pm

Las aventuras de Juan Quinquin (‘The Adventures of Juan Quinquin, 1967, 106’)

Introduction: Michael Chanan

Saturday 18 March, 10am-6pm

Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial (‘Third World, Third World War’, 1970, 90’)

Son o no son (1978, 77’)

In memoriam (Paul Leduc, 2016, 45’)

NB Films will be shown in English-language version DVD copies, but Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial is an ‘imperfect’ copy for study purposes only.

SATURDAY WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

10am Introduction: Chanan

10.15 Tercer mundo, tercera guerra mundial (1970, 90’)

12.00 coffee

12.15 ‘“The Duty of a Revolutionary Filmmaker Is to Make the Revolution in Film.”

Imperfect Cinema as Popular Cinema.’ Humberto Perez-Blanco (UWE)

‘For an imperfect cinema studies’, Catherine Grant (Sussex)

1.15 lunch

2.15 Son o no son (1978, 77’)

Introduction: Chanan

3.45 ‘Embracing imperfection: teaching no-budget ‘guerrilla’ filmmaking today’,

William Brown (Roehampton)

4.15 In memoriam (Paul Leduc, 2016, 45’)

5.00 Concluding discussion