You are cordially invited to attend the following talk as part of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures Seminar Series:

Politics of Realism in Contemporary Venezuelan Filmmaking

Ms Mercedes Vasquez

Date: 19 May 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Venue: Convocation Room, Main Building

Abstract: Latin American Cinema has responded to the serious socio-economic problems encountered across Latin America by creating a strong tradition of socially-committed filmmaking. The principles of the New Latin American Cinema or Third Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s are not the only guiding theories of contemporary Latin American filmmaking, as many film scholars have argued, but still exert a strong influence in some current filmmaking practices. With this tradition in mind, in this seminar I will attempt to compare two current filmmaking trends in Venezuela, a particularly interesting country due to the development of a 21st century socialist program that is affecting cultural production there.

About the speaker: Mercedes Vasquez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong and a full-time language Instructor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, where she teaches Latin American cinema and literature, and Spanish. She has published articles and book chapters on theatre, language pedagogy, the development of Spanish Studies in Hong Kong and, more recently, on the role of cinema within foreign language programmes and the relationship between aesthetics and politics in contemporary Latin American Cinema.

All are welcome. No registration is required.

For enquiries, please contact Dr Marie Berne, mberne@hku.hk.