La Tricontinental

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This series presents the filmic actions, imaginaries and productions of the Tricontinental, a collaboration between Global South countries during the period of decolonisation and emancipation in the 1960s and 1970s. The First Tricontinental Conference was held in Havana in January 1966, whereby a new organisation called OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America) was set up to build relations of solidarity between countries and revolutionary movements from the three Third World continents flying the flag of internationalism. It sought to bring together “the tw0 biggest contemporary movements from the World Revolution: the Socialist and National Liberation movements,” in the words of Mehdi Ben Barka, chairman of the Tricontinental preparatory commission.

Drawing inspiration from the ideas of Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961), Amílcar Cabral, Ho Chi Minh and Ernesto Che Guevara (with his famed “Message to the Tricontinental: create two, three… many Vietnams, that is the watchword”, published in 1967), the Tricontinental formed and set the revolutionary trends of a subaltern world searching for its own speech and identity. After the First Conference, the Tricontinental magazine was published on a regular basis in different languages under the artistic direction of Alfredo G. Rostgaard, while the Conference of the Latin American Solidarity Organisation was arranged in Havana in August 1967.

This frenetic, cosmopolitan and transversal activity, carried out in only a couple of years, interspersed and circulated hitherto national and fragmentary debates about Third Cinema and the New European cinemas — movements such as Cinema Novo in Brazil, Argentina’s New Wave, the Documentary Movement in Cuba and the Liberation Cinema in Africa splintered and mutated into an international, alter-global network of collaboration. The undercurrent of a new political imagination oriented the work of film-makers such as Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra, Leon Hirszman, Humberto Solás, Santiago Álvarez, Ousmane Sembène, José Massip, Ugo Ulive, Sarah Maldoror, Masao Adachi, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard and Fernando Solanas, who all worked in alignment with the objectives and aspirations laid down by the pioneering International Tricontinental. This film series demonstrates the cinematic articulations and exchanges of this constellation to set forth a genealogy of responses to contemporary globalization, formulated as the prevalence of the neoliberal regime. Moreover, beyond its fervent but short-lived political moment, the Tricontinental constituted the search for an imaginary of equality in difference, and the fascination of this experience still endures today.

Programme

Session 1. Insurgent cities, cities on the move

Wednesday, April 19 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, April 29th - 7:00 p.m.

Jorge Sanjinés. ReOVlución [ReOVlution]
Bolivia, 1963, OV, b/w, 9 '

Mario Handler. Me gustan los estudiantes [I like students]
Uruguay, 1968, OV, b/w, 6 '

Ugo Ulive. ¡Basta! [Enough!]
Venezuela, 1969, OV, b/w, 19 '

Mario Handler. Liber Arce, Liberarse [Liber Arce, Liberate]
Uruguay, 1968, OV, b/w, 11 '

Ugo Ulive. Caracas dos o tres cosas [Caracas two or three things]
Venezuela, 1969, OV, b/w, 15 '

João Trevisan. Contestação [Reply]
Brazil, 1969, OV, b/w, 14 '

Nicolás Guillén Landrián. Desde La Habana 1969 recordar Cuba [From Havana 1969 remember Cuba],
Cuba, 1969, OV, b/w, 17 '

With the presentation of Olivier Hadouchi, curator of the cycle.

Session 2. Tackling Torture

Thursday, April 20 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, April 30th - 5:00 p.m.

Mohandi Ali-Yahia. Die Frage [The Question]
Germany, 1961-1962, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 16 '

Ugo Ulive. TO3
Venezuela, 1972, OV, b/w, 24 '

Sarah Maldoror. Monagambée
Angola / Algeria, 1969, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 19 '

Chris Marker. On OVus parle de la torture [We talk about torture]
France, 1969, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 23 '

Cine Base Group. Las tres A son las tres armas: Carta abierta de Rodolfo Walsh a la junta militar [The three A's are the three arms: Rodolfo Walsh's open letter to the Argentine military junta]
Argentina, 1979, OV, b/w, 25 '

Session 3. Portrait of an artist in crisis

Wednesday, April 27 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, May 6th - 7:00 p.m.

Glauber Rocha. Terra em transe [Earth in trance]
Brazil, 1967. OV , b/w, 100 '

Session 4. Breathing blows

Friday, April 28th - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, May 7th - 5:00 p.m.

Piero Nelli. Labanta negro! [Get up nigger!]
Italy-Guinea Bissau, 1966, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 38 '

Jean Rouch and Jacques d'Arthuys. Makwayela
France, Mozambique, 1977, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 18 '

Session 5. Towards a cinema of liberation

Wednesday, May 3 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, May 13 - 7:00 p.m.

Leon Hirszman. Maioria absoluta [Absolute majority]
Brazil, 1964, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 16 '

Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. La hora de los hornos [The hour of the furnaces]
Argentina, 1968, OV, b/w, 90 '

Session 6. The Dawn of the Damned

Friday, May 5 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, May 14 - 5:00 p.m.

Ahmed Rachedi. L'Aube des damnés [The dawn of the damned]
Algeria, 1965, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 90 '

Session 7. Black Atlantic Screams

Wednesday, May 10 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, May 20th - 7:00 p.m.

Ousmane Sembène. Borom Sarret [The man and the car]
Senegal, 1963, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 18 '

Ousmane Sembène. The noire of ... [The She Black ...]
Senegal, 1966, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 60 '

Djibril Diop Mambéty. Contras 'City
Senegal, 1970, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 22'

Humberto Solás. Simparelé
Cuba, 1974, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 31 '

Session 8. African culture will be reOVlutionary or not

Thursday, May 11 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, May 21 - 5:00 p.m.

William Klein. Festival Panafricain d'Algiers
RFA, Algeria, France, 1970, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 90 '

Session 9. Reinterpreting the Colonial Massacre

Wednesday, May 17 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, May 27th - 7:00 p.m.

Ruy Guerra. Mueda, memória e massacre [Mueda, memory and massacre]
Mozambique, 1979, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 100 '

Session 10. 4 times 25

Friday, May 19 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, May 28th - 5:00 p.m.

Celso Martinez Corréa and Celso Lucca. 25
Brazil, Mozambique, 1975, OV with Spanish subtitles, b/w, 120 '

Session 11. Storms from the East

Wednesday, May 24th - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, June 3 - 7:00 p.m.

Masao Adachi and Koji Wakamatsu. Red Army / PLFP: Declaration of World War
Japan, 1971, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 71 '

Session 12. Here and elsewhere

Thursday, May 25th - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Sunday, June 4 - 5:00 p.m.

Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville. Ici et ailleurs [Here and elsewhere]
France, 1974, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 53 '

Session 13. Lost and forgotten battles in the Middle East

Wednesday, May 31 - 7:00 p.m.
Second pass: Saturday, June 10 - 7:00 p.m.

Heiny Srour. Saat El Fahrir Dakkat, Barra Ya Isti Mar [The time of liberation has arrived]
United Kingdom, France, Lebanon, 1974, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 62 '

Jocelyne Saab. Beirut Madinati [Beirut, my city]
Lebanon, 1982, OV with Spanish subtitles, color, 36 '