The Aesthetics of disaffection in the Latin American Festival Film

Abstract

The increasingly transnational character of contemporary Latin American cinema has led to the emergence of new analytical categories for its study. This article centers on the so-called festival film and argues that more attention should be paid to its aesthetic styles. By proposing the concept of «aesthetics of disaffection», the author summarizes and revises current definitions of the festival film, drawing attention to the affective economies on which festival films rely to reach an international audience. Three films are discussed: Play (Alicia Scherson, 2004), Medianeras (Gustavo Taretto, 2010), and Güeros (Alonso Ruizpalacios, 2015). Being representative of a wider tendency in contemporary Latin American cinema, these three films center on «disaffection» as a key feeling of late modernity, while simultaneously transcending this feeling through a playful and partially anti-realist aesthetics.