The Third World Cinematheque in Dialogue with the Region: Films, Visits, Collaborations

Abstract

A good part of the academic works on Uruguayan political cinema of the 60s have in their title the Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo (C3M 1969-1972), the group that had the filmmaker Mario Handler and the distributor and producer Walter Achugar at the head, and that came from the process that inaugurated the Film Festivals of the weekly magazine Marcha from 1967 and the Cine Club de Marcha (1969). In this work, I am interested in expanding its significance by focusing on two aspects not yet reviewed: its regional links and the diffusion of Latin American cinema that it promoted in the commercial circuit during 1970 and 1971. Faced with the approaches that have thought of C3M in its connection with the discourses, proclamations and ideas about the exchange and the need for mutual knowledge that circulated in the manifestos and magazines of the time and in the meetings of what was called the New Latin American Cinema, this article proposes another perspective that concentrates on recovering concrete exchange experiences between Uruguayans and filmmakers or groups from other countries in the region. From the survey of primary sources and interviews, I map a dynamic of visits, friendships, and common projects of Latin Americans with C3M, and show that its study cannot yet been considered exhausted.