February 20, 2009

Film Selection: An abuse of interpretive power?

At first the task seemed simple enough; choose engaging films that fit with the theme of the conference- Latin America and the World: Challenges and Opportunities. But as I started to watch perspective films, I began to realize that we three student organizers are performing an act that we often discuss in Hispanic Studies. In choosing and eliminating films, we are exercising interpretive power.
The last three films that I have previewed have all had very strong anti-capitalism, anti-neo-liberal messages. In including these sort of films, are we assigning to our film festival, or even to the conference, a particular message or bias? In my experience in Latin America, I have found these issues salient and this point of view common, but what about the opposing perspective that supports globalization and capitalism, perhaps the view of those who commonly hold power. The obvious answer would be to include films from the opposite perspective: pro-neo-liberal, pro-capitalist, pro-globalization films. As you can probably imagine, few (if any) of this type of film appeared on our initial list. I would personally feel morally opposed to this type of film, and even if I were to overcome my personal bias, there seem to exist fewer films that treat important Latin American interests from this outlook.
So my question is: Is an anti-global, anti-capitalist perspective inherent in an academic gathering that focuses on challenges and opportunities in Latin Ameirca?
To my fellow organizers: Have any of the movies you have screened taken the opposite tone?
To conference participants: Would you recommend showing films with the opposite message? If so what would they be? And more importantly, would you come see them?

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