José Mojica Marins and the cultural politics of marginality in third world film criticism

This article seeks to revise and question the cultural politics through which Third World film criticism has historically constructed Latin American continental and national film canons. To this end it reassesses the highly politicized notion of an imperfect, marginal or alternative cinema promoted in the 1960s by filmmakers like the Brazilian Glauber Rocha and the Cuban Julio Garca Espinosa by looking at the contemporaneous exploitation cinema of Brazils Jos Mojica Marins. The article suggests that what makes Mojicas work significant is the fact that it challenges the elitist, high cultural standards on which Brazils Cinema Novo is judged the representative of Brazilian cinema of 1960s by subverting the idea of what a an imperfect/marginal/alternative cinema is.