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“Consciousness of a Need”

The renowned Uruguayan filmmaker Mario Handler wrote the “Consciousness of a Need” manifesto as an open letter to Uruguay’s leftist magazine Marcha in 1970, and was written 3 years before the civic-military dictatorship took place in Uruguay (1973-85). The manifesto lays out the urgency that lies in developing the country’s first cinematic industry in response to the harsh political climate that Uruguayans were facing at the time. Previous to generating a movement of Third World Cinema, many Latin American filmmakers had been exposed to the literary and filmic technique of Italian Neorealism and were inspired to create their own countercinema. Much like Third Cinema, Italian Neorealism sought to represent poverty and everyday life in counter to the popular mainstream films, but some film scholars believed it lacked the impact of Third Cinema to use film as a tool to create social commentary. Because during the late half of the twentieth century many Latin American countries were under the control of oppressive regimes –which in its entire state was recognized as Operation Condor– revolutionary intellectuals took it into their own hands to depict their social reality in order to invoke global consciousness.

#Uruguay #Militant cinema #Third Cinema #Film manifesto #Mario Handler #Latina America #Latin American Cinema #Uruguayan Cinema #Cine #Film

Mario Handler

Is a film director, photographer and University Professor, and was born on November 10, 1935 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was one of the founders of Cinematheque of the Third World (C3M).

#C3M #Mario Handler #Uruguay #Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo

Uruguay’s Twelve Years of Dictatorship

For the majority of the 20th century, Uruguay was considered “the Switzerland of Latin America” due to its political stability, democracy and impressive social indicators that would closely compare to those found in First World European nations. It wasn’t until the mid-70’s that a prolonged coup d’état took place and Uruguay’s democracy turned into a right-wing military regime. After a worker’s strike that took place in reaction to President Juan Maria Bordaberry dissolving parliament on June 27, 1973, the regime entered the phase of “Controlling Dictatorship” (as recognized by historian Luis Eduardo Gonzalez) in which the regime’s main purpose was to clear all obstacles. During this time, the regime prohibited left-wing political groups and shut down leftist publications such as the weekly Marcha newspaper in 1974. Throughout the period of the civic-military dictatorship, as much as 11% of the Uruguayan population evacuated the country, either through emigration or forced exile. Inclusively, a considerable amount of educators, academics, and state employees lost their jobs due to ideological opposition, and this would include the exilement of pioneering filmmakers Mario Handler, Mario Jacob and Walter Tournier.

#Uruguay #Latin America #Mario Handler #Uruguayan cinema #Film #Cine #Walter Tournier #Uruguayan dictatorship #Latin American film #Latin American Cinema #Uruguayan politics

Unlike their Latin American colleagues, Uruguayan filmmakers had no previous film industry and therefore had no previous models of production, distribution, and ideology. This in turn gave them the advantage of avoiding a common mistake which other revolutionary filmmakers make, which was attempting to create revolutionary cinema within the bourgeoisie frameworks of production, which in turn “trapped them inside the fortress of official cinema.” Towards a Third Cinema pg. 231 Despite being granted with the powerful opportunity of autonomously creating films, these filmmakers had several obstacles ahead of them. Mario Handler urgently points out that they had no economic or cultural support whatsoever –the I.C.U.B. (Institute of Uruguayan-Brazilian Culture) along with other cultural institutions were shut down during the dictatorship– they had no copyright protections, and lacked formally trained people, money and equipment. At the time, the most support they had was from outside, foreign sources such as other Latin American film industries that formed part of the “Third World Cinema”.

However, Mario Handler translated these obstacles into a radical vision, in which he saw this new terrain as room for innovation and liberation from European tradition. This was Third Cinema’s objective, to detach oneself from the oppressor’s hold in as many ways as possible: ideologically, culturally, and economically. “As early as the 17th century the Jesuit missionaries proclaimed the aptitude of the [South American] native for copying European works of art. Copyist, translator, interpreter, at best a spectator, the neocolonialised intellectual will always be encouraged to refuse to assume his creative possibilities.” (Towards a Third Cinema)

Cine clubs in Uruguay played an important role in the distribution of government-censored material. Between 1976 and 1983, independent filmmaking groups made several productions that were then organised and screened by the cine club Cinemateca. Modes for distribution and exhibition were screenings at cine clubs such as Cine Arte SODRE, Cinemateca and “private screenings held in factories, cultural centre (mostly the Italian Cultural Institute and the Alliance Francaise) and even kindergartens.”

#Cine clubs #Mario Handler #Uruguay #Uruguayan Cinema #Latin American Cinema #Third World Cinema #Third Cinema #Latin American Politics #Uruguayan politics #Film #Cinema

C3M (Cinematheque of the Third World)

The Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo (Cinematheque of the Third World) was a cine club that started out as an extended publication of the weekly newspaper Marcha, and was founded by Mario Handler, M. Jacob, W. Achugar, J. Wainer, among others in 1969.(Historias Universitarias) More commonly known as the C3M, the cine club lasted 4 years before it was shut down by the dictatorship. Its objective was to archive, compile and produce militant films, in its conception that films should be used as a weapon to disrupt society and the nation’s destiny. Hence, the logo is that of a filmmaker holding camera like one would hold a machine gun. (Contemporanea)

C3M logo

(Source: http://sanjurjo-toucon.blogspot.com)

“The revolutionary filmmaker acts with a radically new vision of the role of the producer, team-work, tools, details, etc. Above all, he supplies himself at all levels in order to produce his films, he equips himself at all levels, he learns how to handle the manifold techniques of his craft. His most valuable possessions are the tools of his trade, which form part and parcel of his need to communicate. The camera is the inexhaustible expropriator of image-weapons; the projector, a gun that can shoot 24 frames per second.” (Towards a New Cinema)

Throughout the course of the dictatorship, both the independent film industry and the government-sponsored film industry created an impressive amount of productions. Contrary to the common pattern of commercial film industries in countries under dictatorial rule that would produce films for the sake of entertainment––which would serve as escapism for the domestic public– Uruguay’s both independent and official film industries were found to create films that “address[ed] the specificities of life under dictatorship.” (CInema by and against the Dictatorship) In 1975, President Bordaberry created DINARP, which was a government-sponsored office in charge of handling audiovisual products such as documentaries, newsreels, and fiction films.

#Uruguay #Uruguayan cinema #Militant cinema #Third Cinema #Latin American Cinema #Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo #film #cine #Latin America

Cinema by and against the Dictatorship

Significant films that stood out during the regime are:

Liber Arce, Liberarse (Mario Handler and Mario Jacob 1969) (a title that translates to “Liberate”) is a 10 min short film about a student named Liber Arce (hence, the wordplay with the title) who was shot by a government official and whose funeral turned into the most celebrated demonstration of Montevideo.

El Honguito Feliz (The Happy Mushroom) is an animated children’s film in which a sad mushroom find support from other animal friends which are all diverse but nonetheless manage to help one another despite their differences. The role of sweet animation took on a role of subversion to the violent regime that was taking place at the time. It is important to note that the filmmakers took on the same values of solidarity that the film depicted as they cooperatively created the film and chose a simple cut-out technique for animation in order to have non-trained CINECO members participate in the creation of the film.

En la Selva Hay mucho por Hacer (Walter Tournier 1974) is a stop-motion animation film for children that depicts Uruguayan society as a jungle with a diverse range of animals. The film uses metaphors to depict the exilement, execution, and incarceration of revolutionaries while the animals represent Uruguayan citizens and their families.

Guri (Eduardo Darino, 1980) took on a significant role in the film history of Uruguay, as its main character, a gaucho, served as a nation-building figure. It was sponsored by the State, and was distributed in both Uruguay and in the US. It has been categorized as a docudrama, a heritage film, and an educational film, depending on its context.

#Uruguay #Uruguayan Cinema #Mario Handler #Latin American Cinema #Cine #Film #Militant Cinema #Third Cinema #Dictatorship

Bibliography

Milligan, Ben. “Uruguay: 1973-85 - The Rise and Fall of Military Dictatorship in a Democratic Stronghold.”www.academia.edu/4179871/Uruguay_1973-85_-_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Military_Dictatorship_in_a_Democratic_Stronghold.

Handler, Mario. “Consciousness of a Need (Uruguay, 1970).” Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology, 1970, pp. 253–256.

Fuica, Beatriz Tadeo. “Cinema by and against the Dictatorship (1973-85).” Text, Materiality, Archive, 2017, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1t6p5mj.7.

http://historiasuniversitarias.edu.uy/biografia/handler-mario/

[El Archivo General de la Universidad de la República (AGU) custodia el fondo personal de Mario Handler. Por más información, consultar http://www.universidad.edu.uy/renderPage/index/pageId/454]

Sierra, Carmen De. “El Semanario Marcha : Una Conciencia De La Fragilidad Nacional En Un Contexto Internacional Amenazante (Uruguay, 1939).” America, vol. 4, no. 1, 1990, pp. 333–346., doi:10.3406/ameri.1990.995.

Towards a Third Cinema

Tournier, Walter. YouTube, 1974, www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0FZqVlv5mg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=PRcwf7r4qGA

Espinosa, Julio García. “For an Imperfect Cinema.” The Cuba Reader, Jan. 2009, pp. 458–465., doi:10.1215/9780822384915-093.

http://www.um.edu.uy/_upload/_descarga/web_descarga_136_HUMANIDADES2_Resena1_PEIRANO.pdf ????

Villaça, Mariana. “El Cine y El Avance Autoritario En Uruguay: El ‘Combativismo’ De La Cinemateca Del Tercer Mundo (1969-1973).” Contemporanea, vol. 3, no. Ano 3, 2012, pp. 243–264.

Ruberto, Laura E., and Kristi M. Wilson. “Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema.” 2007.

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