18th and 19th September 2017

Senate House, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London


Latin American filmic production has rightly held a celebrated place in the global cinematic canon with many key filmmakers and theorists receiving significant scholarly and public attention. Traditionally, however, the vast majority of these acclaimed practitioners have been men. While recent years have witnessed an increase in the international popularity of notable directors such as Lucrecia Martel, Anna Muylaert, and Claudia Llosa, and in studies of women’s filmmaking in Latin America, much work remains to be done. Women have played a crucial role in the region’s rich cinematic history, yet many female artists have yet to be included in the overarching narrative of Latin American cinema history. Moreover, their contribution to the politics and aesthetics of the region’s filmic landscape has not been fully recognised or analysed. Indeed, the new critical methodologies required to examine these contributions are still under construction. This conference seeks to address each of these concerns.

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Deborah Shaw (University of Portsmouth) and Dr Deborah Martin (UCL), editors of the forthcoming volume Latin American Women Filmmakers: Production, Politics, Poetics to be published with I. B. Tauris and launched during the conference.

Professor Lucia Nagib (University of Reading), author of The New Brazilian Cinema (2003) and Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema, Utopia (2007).

For more information, see the programme here. The conference includes a day of screenings on September 19 held at Birkbeck Cinema. See the film screening schedule here.


Part of the programme of events organised by the Centro de Estudios La Mujer en la Historia de América Latina, hosted by the Institute of Modern Languages Research and the Institute of Latin American Studies (University of London), and with the participation of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (Birkbeck, University of London).