Abstract
This chapter explores the ways in which the Sydney Latin American Film Festival (SLAFF) contributes to the visibility of Latin American cinema in the Australian context; it focuses on the history of the Festival, on film selection and programming. Given the limited circulation of Latin American films in Australia, and the evident crowd-gathering ability of these film exhibition events, this chapter builds on the hypothesis that the range of experiences and diverse set of agendas that these cultural spaces create are essential to further our understanding of the transnational forces that traverse contemporary “Latin American cinemas.” Furthermore, Film festivals like SLAFF are fascinating cases to explore how responses/appropriations/interpretations of both cultural differences and individual and collective agency are deliberately exalted.
This chapter is part of a larger project that studies how film festivals and other film exhibition circuits and events contribute to the visibility of Latin American cinema in the Australian context; it focuses on film audience experiences as well as on film selection and programming. I would like to express my gratitude for Tamara Falicov’s encouragement to undertake this project.
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Notes
- 1.
Academic literature on the topic of multiculturalism in Australia is very extensive; for one of the most recent studys in this area, see Martina Boese and Vince Marotta. 2017. Critical Reflections on Migration, ‘Race’ and Multiculturalism: Australia in a Global Context, vol. 21. London: Routledge.
- 2.
One of the earlieriest international film festivals in Latin America is the Festival de Cine de Mar del Plata (1954), the same year of the first edition of the SFF.
- 3.
According to data from the Australian 2016 Population Census, there are 136,350 Latin American residents living in the country; this figure represents 2.3% of the total population. Although the figure seems modest, it is interesting to note Spanish is in the top ten list of foreign languages spoken at home. In addition to this, New South Wales, the state where Sydney is located has the highest population of overseas-born residents, and therefore the largest Latin American population of Australia (See Australian Bureau of Statistics (2017). Census of Population and Housing: Reflecting Australia—Stories from the Census, 2016: Cultural Diversity in Australia. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7ECultural%20Diversity%20Article%7E60. Accessed 21 December 2018).
- 4.
I would like to acknowledge SLAFF collaboration over the years, particularly Giselle Gallego, Laura Luna, Mark Taylor, Lidia Luna, and Vicki Gutierrez. I would also like to thank Tamara Falicov for her comments on this draft and her ongoing, generous support.
- 5.
Natalia Ortiz was the founder and director of the well-established Spanish Film Festival, one of the biggest and most successful in Australia. The festival ran under Ortiz’s management from 1998 to 2012, until the exhibition/distribution company Palace took charge of it. From then on, the Spanish Film Festival, which tours other other Australian cities—a characteristic that many other festivals that focus on a particular country share—almost exclusively selects films from Spain. The reason might be in one of their newest Festivals: in 2015 Palace created the Cine Latino Festival.
- 6.
Sydneysiders is term that refers to residents of the city of Sydney.
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Peñaloza, F. (2019). Screening Latin America: The Sydney Latin American Film Festival. In: Peñaloza, F., Walsh, S. (eds) Mapping South-South Connections. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78577-6_9
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