FQ Columnist Paul Julian Smith reports from Peru on a new wave of pop culture, from variety shows to teen telenovelas, popping up on television. He also discusses the popularity of the musical comedy feature films that function as Peru's equivalent f the summer blockbuster. He closes his report with a discussion of the films of filmmaker and professor Rossana Díaz Costa, whose art-house style is in stark contrast to the broad comedies and melodramas of Peruvian popular culture. Her debut feature Viaje a Tombuktú (2014) sets its 1980s teenage love story against a backdrop of political violence, while her latest production—an adaptation of the classic Peruvian novel, Un mundo para Julius—probes race, class, and gender inequalities in 1950s Peru.
Screenings: Letter from Peru: Teen Telenovela, Popular Comedy, Auteur Cinema
Paul Julian Smith, a Fellow of the British Academy, is distinguished professor in the Program in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of twenty books including Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar (Verso, 1994), Dramatized Societies: Quality Television in Spain and Mexico (Liverpool University Press, 2016), and the new Queer Mexico: Cinema and Television since 2000 (Wayne State University Press, 2017). He has served on the juries of the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain and the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico. Follow him on Twitter @pauljuliansmith.
Paul Julian Smith; Screenings: Letter from Peru: Teen Telenovela, Popular Comedy, Auteur Cinema. Film Quarterly 1 September 2018; 72 (1): 64–68. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2018.72.1.64
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University of California Press