Issue 6 – 2020 (3) | Grupo de Investigación Televisión-cine: memoria, representación en industria

Tecmerin. Journal of Audiovisual Essays

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Issue 6 – 2020 (3)

Certain directors, such as Atom Egoyan, or films, such as Memories of Underdevelopment by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, are part of the auteur (or art cinema) canon. Others, however, exist within its margins. Even though some Iranian filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi or Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbaf are globally known, premiering their works in reputed festivals (Cannes, Berlin or Venice) to subsequently release them in most western urban centers, most filmmakers working in the periphery of Europe and the United States have a much more limited path within most transnational distribution networks. Such is the case of Forough Farrokhzad and Ebrahim Golestan, also from Iran. In addition, certain approaches to cinema—auteurs, genres, movements, etc.—are privileged in most historiographies. Other perspectives, such as the relationship between filmic and familial genealogy, are virtually unexplored. Similarly, and despite the fact that more and more studies on the haptic, specifically, and the relationship between cinema and the different senses, more generally, are being published, we still inhabit an analytical regime that gives priority to the image.

In this context, we are delighted to point out that this issue of Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays, engages with the canon and also deviates from it. We feature a series of audiovisual pieces on Atom Egoyan and Memories of Underdevelopment but also works that explore the filmic and familial genealogy of Lucía and Miguel Bosé, the collaborations between editor and poet Forough Farrokhzad and Ebrahim Golestan, or the importance of the haptic in fourth generation Spanish women filmmakers. Besides, the last video of this issue, “From ‘Choni’ Aesthetic to Trap Music: The Representation of the Working Class in Spain (2008-2018)”, approaches one the most relevant cultural movements within the Spanish music panorama in the last decade, trap, putting forth a perceptive reading on class issues. Finally, in our section “From the Archive”, Gabriel Doménech González opens the doors of pinku-eiga, a Japanese softcore erotic film genre, focusing on the careers of two of its most important figures, Kōji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi.

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The Transformational Potential of Atom Egoyan’s Armenian Diasporic Films

Shant Bayramian (Video Essayist) – 11:47

Using Atom Egoyan’s Ararat (2002), this audiovisual essay demonstrates the power and relevance of self-reflexivity and metacinematic techniques, particularly the mise en abyme, in Egoyan’s film and within the Armenian diasporic context. Furthermore, it briefly explores how metacinematic techniques function in the more general field of Diasporic Cinema.

Keywords: Atom Egoyan, Armenian Diasporic Cinema, Metacinema, Diasporic Cinema, Transformational Potential

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Haptic Visuality in the Fourth Generation of Spanish Women Filmmakers: The Tactile and Aural Reflection About Language

Nuria Cancela & Miriam Sánchez Manzano (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) – 04:30

This audiovisual essay explores the recurring haptic visuality in the films of fourth generation Spanish fiction women filmmakers.

Keywords: Haptic Cinema, Tactile, Aural, Women Filmmaker, Fourth Generation.

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Farrokhzad / Golestan: Sinergies between Cinema and Poetry

Luis Aceituno, Javier Leiva & Fernando Yubero (UC3M)–04:30

This audiovisual essay analyzes the short films A Fire (1961) and The House is Black (1962). Authorial traits can be extricated from research on Forough Farrokhzad and Ebrahim Golestan’s collaborations, taking into consideration that they switched roles as editor and director in each other’s films. From this comparative analysis, an extended authorial theory on Forough Farrokhzad can be extracted, as well as an understanding on how their partnership enriches their cinematic output.

Keywords: Farrokhzad, Golestan, The House is Black, A Fire, Iranian Cinema.

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Double repetitions in Memories of Underdevelopment

Erin K. Hogan (University of Maryland Baltimore County) – 04:30

This audiovisual essay explores cinephilia through the filial by tracing a filmic genealogy between the star-texts of Lucia and Miguel Bosé. The familiarity of their femmes fatales roles in Death of a Cyclist (Bardem 1955) and High Heels (Almodóvar 1991) highlights resonances across national filmmaking.

Keywords: Bosé, femme fatale, Bardem, Almodóvar, genealogy

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Familiar Fatales

Erin K. Hogan (University of Maryland Baltimory County) – 04:30

This audiovisual essay explores cinephilia through the filial by tracing a filmic genealogy between the star-texts of Lucia and Miguel Bosé. The familiarity of their femmes fatales roles in Death of a Cyclist (Bardem 1955) and High Heels (Almodóvar 1991) highlights resonances across national filmmaking.

Keywords: Bosé, femme fatale, Bardem, Almodóvar, genealogy

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From “Choni” Aesthetic to Trap Music: The Representation of the Working Class in Spain (2008-2018)

Fidel Enciso Durán (UC3M) – 04:30

The emergence of trap music has entailed an evolution in the media representation of the working classes in Spain, undermining previously dominant pejorative stereotypes of the “cani” and the “choni”. Does trap music’s success open a space for a class coexistence, or rather, is it a capitalist assimilation of working class’ popular culture?

Keywords: choni, trap, working class, 2008 crisis, Spain, music

From the Archive

Sex, Politics and Provocation: The Curious and Exciting Story of Kôji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi

This article deals with the history of pinku-eiga, a Japanese film genre focused on softcore eroticism, by addressing the careers of Kōji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi. Between the 1960s and 1970s, these filmmakers collaborated in a series of films that combined the clichés of the genre with the radical approaches of left-wing militant cinema.

Gabriel Doménech (UC3M)

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