Ism, Ism, Ism: Estrellas de Ayer: Latin Camp

Estrellas de Ayer: Latin Camp
(Various Artists, 1959-1975, Various Countries, digital and 16mm, 73 min total)

This evening offers two programs exploring alternative strategies of appropriation: found footage and camp. “Recycled Cinema” presents acts of decolonization and critique through collages of appropriated images and audio, challenging dominant modes of representation. In 1958’s ‘Cowboy’ and ‘Indian’ Film, Nuyoriquen artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz hacked the reels of an American western to pieces with a tomahawk “to release their evil,” while a more recent work, Artemio’s Apoohcalypse Now, is a mash-up of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh and Apocalypse Now. The filmmakers in “Estrellas de Ayer” borrow an alternative reading of Hollywood stars, emphasizing queer nostalgia and excess. Films such as Teo Hernandez's Estrellas de ayer and José Rodriguez Soltero’s Lupe pay homage to Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Lupe Vélez with performative extravagance. 

Estrellas de ayer
(Teo Hernandez, 1969, Mexico/France, digital, 9 min)

Encuentros Imposibles
(Eduardo Solá Franco, 1959, Ecuador/Spain, digital, 8 min)

A Olga
(Horacio Vallereggio, 1975, Argentina, digital, 7 min)

Lupe
(José Rodriguez Soltero, 1966, USA, 16mm, 49 min)