What is Third Cinema?

Third Cinema is a revolutionary filmmaking movement, theorized in 1960s Latin America, that opposed both commercial Hollywood and individualist art cinema, using film as a tool of anti-colonial and political struggle.

How does it relate to postcolonial film studies?

Third Cinema is a key precursor to postcolonial film studies, which more broadly analyze how cinema has represented colonized peoples and seek to decenter the Eurocentric assumptions of mainstream film history.

Postcolonial and Third Cinema

Postcolonial and Third Cinema name the militant and critical filmmaking traditions of the global South and decolonizing world, which opposed both Hollywood and European art cinema in the service of liberation.

Definition

The traditions of anti-colonial, revolutionary, and postcolonial filmmaking that sought to oppose dominant Hollywood ('First') and auteurist European ('Second') cinema in the cause of political liberation and decolonized representation.

Scope

This topic covers the political film movements that emerged from anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles, above all the Latin American Third Cinema theorized in the 1960s. It examines its manifestos and aesthetics of imperfect, militant cinema, the cinemas of decolonizing Africa and Asia, and the broader postcolonial critique of how film has represented colonized peoples, as well as debates over the movement's legacy.

Core questions

What did the Third Cinema manifestos call for, aesthetically and politically?
How did decolonizing cinemas represent themselves against colonial images?
How does postcolonial criticism analyze cinematic Eurocentrism?
What is the legacy of Third Cinema for contemporary political film?

Key theories

Three cinemas: Solanas and Getino's distinction between First Cinema (Hollywood commercial film), Second Cinema (auteurist art film), and a revolutionary Third Cinema serving anti-imperialist liberation.
Unthinking Eurocentrism: Shohat and Stam's postcolonial critique of how dominant cinema and media naturalize a Eurocentric perspective, and their call to provincialize and pluralize film history.

History

Third Cinema crystallized in late-1960s Latin America with the Argentine manifesto 'Towards a Third Cinema' and Glauber Rocha's Cinema Novo, alongside revolutionary Cuban and African film, notably the work of Ousmane Sembène. The 1980s and 1990s brought postcolonial theory to bear on cinema, with Shohat and Stam's critique of Eurocentrism, while later scholars reassessed Third Cinema's relevance amid globalization.

Debates

Relevance of Third Cinema today: Critics dispute whether Third Cinema's militant, oppositional model retains force in a globalized, market-driven media landscape, or whether it must be substantially rethought for contemporary conditions.

Key figures

Fernando Solanas
Octavio Getino
Ella Shohat
Robert Stam

Seminal works

solanasgetino1969
shohatstam1994
wayne2001

Frequently asked questions

What is Third Cinema?: Third Cinema is a revolutionary filmmaking movement, theorized in 1960s Latin America, that opposed both commercial Hollywood and individualist art cinema, using film as a tool of anti-colonial and political struggle.
How does it relate to postcolonial film studies?: Third Cinema is a key precursor to postcolonial film studies, which more broadly analyze how cinema has represented colonized peoples and seek to decenter the Eurocentric assumptions of mainstream film history.