Published Blogs
Selection of Published Blogs
‘Living undocumented: A new Netflix series that gives a human face to immigrant stories’, Mediático
Two Netflix series of 2019 have for me most effectively captured the precarious and painful immigrant experience under the Trump administration: Living Undocumented and Orange is the New Black (series 7). I was moved to write this short piece on the lesser seen of the two, Living Undocumented, a 6-episode series released on 2nd October 2019, as through its intimate focus on 8 families it reveals to viewers human and tragic consequences of US immigration policies built on pain, family separations and fear.
Children of Women: Cuarón’s love letter to his nana
Roma the latest film by Alfonso Cuarón has attracted much media attention for many reasons: it has already won a number of international awards and looks set to win many more; it has showcased the Netflix production and distribution model proving that cinemagenic films can flourish with simultaneous and near simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases; it has shown that a Spanish (and Mixteco) language art film can reach global audiences; and, most importantly, and the focus of this short essay, it has placed an indigenous woman centre-stage and highlighted the value of her story.
Latin American Women’s Filmmaking: A Manifesto
‘Latin American Women’s Filmmaking: A Manifesto’, published by Mediático, a Hispanic film blog published by the University of Sussex.
Manifestos have long been central to film culture and many of them have been collected in an anthology compiled by Scott MacKenzie, Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology (2014, available online). For MacKenzie manifestos present ‘calls to action for political and aesthetic changes in the cinema and, equally important, the cinema’s role in the world’ (1). An entire section of this wonderful resource is dedicated to manifestos by women filmmakers and reproduces calls to action by American, German, Arab, African, Spanish and British directors. More recently Raising Films, a UK based community and campaigning organisation published an Open Letter to the UK Film Industry on Addressing Harassment and Discrimination that can be read as a manifesto for change.
Falling into the Embrace of the Serpent
Every so often a special film comes along and slaps us in the face and demands our attention. A film that reminds us why we became and remain academics, critics and teachers. We take on these roles because we love films that teach us about the world we live in, and because we want to share our enthusiasm and that knowledge. Learning and sharing knowledge is one of the central themes of Embrace of the Serpent. It is an award-winning film, securing Colombia’s first Oscar nomination, for director Ciro Guerra previously known for two films that were well received on the festival circuit: Wandering Shadows (2004) and The Wind Journeys (2009). Like Guerra’s previous films Embrace of the Serpent has been exhibited on the festival circuit, but it has also found its way on to global screens small and large.
