Papers by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Archive Prism, 2023
Any number can win. All
Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, 2021
URL: https://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2021/02/reinventing-film-festival-space/
Pablo La Parra-P... more URL: https://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2021/02/reinventing-film-festival-space/
Pablo La Parra-Pérez and Ekain Olaizola Lizarralde discuss new research initiatives to construct a historical cartography of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF). Archival traces of the Barrios y Pueblos project (1977-1985) reveal how it brought film screenings and discussions from luxury downtown venues to working-class neighborhoods and peripheral municipalities.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2018
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2017
This essay explores the resonances between two moments in Spanish alternative film-culture histor... more This essay explores the resonances between two moments in Spanish alternative film-culture history: the 1930s and the 1970s. We analyze how an anachronistic network of referents and practices regarding the democratization of film production and the political potential of nonprofessional film technologies was articulated across epochs. We locate these practices in an expanded genealogy of political nontheatrical film culture, from which the Spanish context has been largely excluded. To conceptualize these transhistorical echoes, we draw on some contributions elaborated by Jacques Rancière around the idea of anachronism and the missed encounters between radical theory and practice. As our case study, we examine how the project of an alternative film culture envisioned in the 1930s by radical film critic Juan Piqueras irrupted into two radical film formations that emerged in Spain in the 1970s: a new generation of radical critics known as the “Nuevo Frente Crítico” and a series of manifestations of militant cinema taking place in Catalonia.
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2014
Este artículo tiene por objeto el punto de inflexión político abierto por el 15M en el Estado esp... more Este artículo tiene por objeto el punto de inflexión político abierto por el 15M en el Estado español. La tesis central que se defiende es que el 15M constituye un movimiento radicalmente democrático que ha planteado la primera contestación masiva y sistemática formulada contra el régimen establecido a partir de la Constitución de 1978. Mi argumentación se estructura en cuatro pasos. Primero, tomando como punto de partida el carácter eminentemente democrático del movimiento 15M y con el referente fundamental del pensamiento político de Jacques Rancière, propongo una reflexión general sobre el término “democracia” para establecer una distinción entre la concreción institucional del término y un posible sentido disruptivo del mismo. En segundo lugar, abordo el contexto histórico, social y político en contra del que arremetió el 15M: el Régimen de 1978. En tercer lugar, examino algunas objeciones relevantes formuladas contra el 15M, tratando de argumentar que, a pesar de sus veleidades radicales, gran parte de estas lecturas no son sino la prolongación de una larga tradición de desprecio por las formas autónomas de politización desde abajo. Por último, analizo la práctica política desarrollada por el 15M con el objetivo de argumentar que sus consecuencias sobrepasan con creces los límites temporales del evento de mayo de 2011. Así, sostengo que la praxis contestataria del 15M sigue inspirando nuevos imaginarios políticos y formas de lucha en el marco de un ciclo de movilización todavía en curso y que constituye el frente social más activo en la crisis política del Régimen de 1978.
Sociologias , 2013
Proponemos un diálogo transdisciplinar entre el análisis sociológico de las representaciones y la... more Proponemos un diálogo transdisciplinar entre el análisis sociológico de las representaciones y la interpretación crítica de prácticas estéticas (literatura y vídeo) para esbozar una mirada singular sobre la violencia social. En concreto, observaremos diversas prácticas estéticas contemporáneas que abordan la transición política española (1973-1985), construyendo discursos muy divergentes entre sí. Los discursos actuales sobre la Transición tienden a situarse entre dos posiciones contrapuestas: una visión crítica y una visión celebratoria. Establecido esto, pasamos a comentar con más detalle algunas obras recientes que muestran una visión crítica de la Transición. En concreto, observaremos dos novelas recientes de género policial, que sitúan su acción en los años de la Transición y dos ejercicios de video-ensayo contemporáneo que impugnan la visión celebratoria, construida como discurso dominante sobre la Transición. Finalmente, evaluaremos la pertinencia de este tipo de abordaje transdisciplinar para indagar sobre debates abiertos que involucran el ejercicio de la violencia.
Book Chapters by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Performing Memory Corporeality, Visuality, and Mobility after 1968, 2023
In Performing Memory Corporeality, Visuality, and Mobility after 1968, Edited by Luisa Passerini ... more In Performing Memory Corporeality, Visuality, and Mobility after 1968, Edited by Luisa Passerini and Dieter Reinisch. New York: Berghahn, 2023.
Una cultura cinematográfica en transición. España, 1970-1986, 2021
La Parra-Pérez, Pablo. 2021. “El festival fuera del palacio. Una aproximación al ‘68 tardío’ del ... more La Parra-Pérez, Pablo. 2021. “El festival fuera del palacio. Una aproximación al ‘68 tardío’ del Festival de San Sebastián.” In Una cultura cinematográfica en transición. España, 1970-1986, ed. Fernando Ramos-Arenas, 361–90. València: Tirant lo Blanch.
Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures, 2020
For too long, the field of amateur cinema has focused on North America and Europe. In Global Pers... more For too long, the field of amateur cinema has focused on North America and Europe. In Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures, however, editors Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez fill the literature gap by extending that focus and increasing inclusivity.
Through carefully curated essays, Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez bring wider meaning and significance to the discipline through their study of alternative cinema in new territories, fueled by different historical and political circumstances, innovative technologies, and ambitious practitioners. The essays in this volume work to realize the radical societal democratization that shows up in amateur cinema around the world. In particular, diverse contributors highlight the significance of amateur filmmaking, the exhibition of amateur films, the uses and availability of film technologies, and the inventive and creative approaches of filmmakers and advocates of amateur film.
Together, these essays shed new light on alternative cinema in a wide range of cities and countries where amateur films thrive in the shadow of commercial and conventional film industries.
https://iupress.org/9780253052032/global-perspectives-on-amateur-film-histories-and-cultures/
Humanitats en acció, 2019
'Humanitats en acció' recull les propostes de l’Aula oberta, un cicle de conferències dirigit per... more 'Humanitats en acció' recull les propostes de l’Aula oberta, un cicle de conferències dirigit per la filòsofa Marina Garcés en col·laboració amb l’Institut d’Humanitats de Barcelona.
'Humanitats en acció' és pensar les humanitats des del seu potencial transformador i com un actiu positiu per al conjunt de la societat. Les humanitats no són un conjunt de disciplines acadèmiques en extinció, sinó que són el conjunt d’activitats amb les que donem sentit a l’experiència humana, des del punt de vista de la seva dignitat. Per aquest motiu, a l’Aula oberta s’han convocat una vintena de ponents d’àmbits molt diferents per reflexionar sobre les seves respectives línies de treball, els seus límits i els seus reptes. Artistes, acadèmics, activistes, periodistes, cineastes, científics, entre d’altres, han participat en aquest projecte, cadascun i cadascuna des de la seva disciplina, mirada i trajectòria.
El resultat és aquest conjunt de vint veus, que presenten una aposta generacional i renovadora sobre el discurs i les pràctiques de les humanitats actualment, i sobre quin pot ser el seu futur.
Textos de:
David Bueno, David Casassas, Lúa Coderch, Eduard Escoffet, Eudald Espluga, Oriol Fontdevila, Marina Garcés, Marcos García, Raül Garrigasait, Ingrid Guardiola, Albert Lladó, Pablo La Parra, Irene Masdeu, Joana Masó, Karo Moret, Manel Ollé, María Ruido, Mireia Sallarès, Victoria Szpunberg i Brigitte Vasallo.
1968 and Global Cinema, eds. Christina Gerhardt and Sara Saljoughi. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2018
1968 and Global Cinema addresses a notable gap in film studies. Although scholarship exists on th... more 1968 and Global Cinema addresses a notable gap in film studies. Although scholarship exists on the late 1950s and 1960s New Waves, especially on the French New Wave and the subsequent May '68 in Paris, scholarship that puts cinemas on and of 1968 into dialogue with one another across national boundaries is surprisingly lacking. Well-known are the celebrated productions of the French New Wave, especially of Truffaut and Godard, the left bank cinema of Marker; of Brazilian cinema novo, and especially of Rocha; of the British New Wave, and the so-called Angry Young Men; and of the Czech New Wave. Often, film of the global 1960s has screened at film festivals or as special film programming. Only in recent years have histories of '68 begun to consider the interplay among social movements globally. This volume undertakes a similar initiative vis-à-vis 1968 and global cinema.
Antoni Abad. megafone.net/2004-2014, 2014
Janeiro, F., Jornet, A., Saccone, D., and Sancho, S. (eds). Facing Humanities. Current Perspectives from Young Researchers, 2014
Este ensayo tiene por objeto la representación visual de los migrantes ilegalizados en los medios... more Este ensayo tiene por objeto la representación visual de los migrantes ilegalizados en los medios de comunicación españoles. A través de la referencia a algunas reflexiones de teoría post-colonial (Santos, Fanon) y aportaciones teóricas vinculadas a los estudios visuales (Mitchell, Rancière, Didi-Huberman), se propone que la radical privación de derechos que pesa sobre la población migrante está directamente relacionada con los modos dominantes de representación mediática de este colectivo.
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This essay focuses on the visual representation of illegalized migrants in Spanish media. Drawing on post-colonial theory (Santos, Fanon) and contributions linked to visual studies (Mitchell, Rancière, Didi-Huberman), it argues that the migrants’ radical deprivation of rights is deeply related to the dominant ways of representation depicting this collective.
Reviews by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Conferences/Seminars/Talks by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Este curso propone una aproximación al concepto de imagen superviviente de Georges Didi-Huberman ... more Este curso propone una aproximación al concepto de imagen superviviente de Georges Didi-Huberman desde experiencias de trabajo material con archivos cinematográficos a cargo de investigadores, comisarios, artistas y cineastas. Las siete sesiones exploran diferentes proyectos que entienden el archivo como una constelación de materiales abiertos al montaje y la resignificación histórica y política, liberando las imágenes supervivientes del encierro o el olvido de la memoria dominante. El objetivo es promover una nueva función del archivo que, en lugar de consolidar los poderes hegemónicos, ayude a dibujar nuevos marcos de pensamiento y acción política a través de imágenes ignoradas, malinterpretadas y enterradas pero, también, supervivientes.
Dice Harun Farocki que “la primera cámara en la historia del cine enfocó a una fábrica, pero un s... more Dice Harun Farocki que “la primera cámara en la historia del cine enfocó a una fábrica, pero un siglo más tarde podemos decir que el cine se ha acercado más bien poco a la fábrica, y hasta que ha sido repelido por ella”. La fábrica es, por definición, un espacio delimitado por la norma de la propiedad y la lógica de la producción. Filmarla desde el punto de vista de la fuerza de trabajo sólo es posible cuando su “funcionamiento correcto” se ha interrumpido. Filmar la fábrica es negar la fábrica. En los últimos años de la dictadura franquista y a lo largo de la transición, en un momento en que las fábricas del Estado español se convirtieron en un hervidero de contestación y revuelta, algunas cámaras militantes intentaron desafiar este régimen de visualidad cerrado. Veremos una contra-historia de la fábrica en Super 8 y 16 milímetros. Un archivo que se mueve entre el anonimato forzoso y la colectividad militante, pero que en ocasiones también revela el valor radical de dar la cara ante la cámara como gesto político. Un archivo de imágenes robadas clandestinamente a sus propietarios, de tomas temblorosas que acaban topándose con barreras de alambradas y policía a las puertas de la fábrica, pero también de instantes de revuelta en que la cámara traspasa el umbral, convirtiendo un espacio de producción y disciplina en un set cinematográfico improvisado.
Recent scholarly contributions show that militant film culture over the “Long 1968” took the form... more Recent scholarly contributions show that militant film culture over the “Long 1968” took the form of a dynamic transnational network (Chanan, Salazkina, Eshun and Gray). A series of transfers provided links among different manifestations of militant cinema, generating untimely dialogues. I will focus on a largely unknown chapter of this network. In the mid and late Seventies (right after Franco’s death and coinciding with the fascination with third-world independence movements by radical Galician nationalists) a series of critics and filmmakers encouraged the development of a minor national film culture largely inspired by the idea of Third Cinema and revolutionary models of militant film practice. I will analyze the Xornadas de Ourense as the main "discursive platform" where these discussions took place and the film practices of militant filmmakers Carlos Varela Veiga and Llorenç Soler.
Complete lecture: http://www.cccb.org/ca/multimedia/videos/pablo-la-parra-aula-oberta13/226663
U... more Complete lecture: http://www.cccb.org/ca/multimedia/videos/pablo-la-parra-aula-oberta13/226663
Una aula, dirigida per Marina Garcés, des d'on actualitzar el discurs, els referents i les pràctiques de les humanitats a la nostra societat.
Com afecten les condicions materials a l'articulació del pensament i de les humanitats? Quina és la importància de les imatges per a re-pensar l'inacabament de les humanitats? Poden ser les imatges eines crítiques, eines de resistència? Podem re-aticular l'actualitat de les humanitats a partir de la configuració d'allò visual? Afecta la temporalitat a la configuració crítica del coneixement? Com irromp la imatge del passat en la nostra capacitat de figurar el present? Abordarem aquestes i altres qüestions amb Pablo La Parra, investigador que actualment desenvolupa la seva tesi doctoral a la Universitat de Nova York (NYU). Ivestigador resident a Tabakalera amb el projecte Europa, futuro anterior.
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Papers by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Pablo La Parra-Pérez and Ekain Olaizola Lizarralde discuss new research initiatives to construct a historical cartography of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF). Archival traces of the Barrios y Pueblos project (1977-1985) reveal how it brought film screenings and discussions from luxury downtown venues to working-class neighborhoods and peripheral municipalities.
Book Chapters by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Through carefully curated essays, Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez bring wider meaning and significance to the discipline through their study of alternative cinema in new territories, fueled by different historical and political circumstances, innovative technologies, and ambitious practitioners. The essays in this volume work to realize the radical societal democratization that shows up in amateur cinema around the world. In particular, diverse contributors highlight the significance of amateur filmmaking, the exhibition of amateur films, the uses and availability of film technologies, and the inventive and creative approaches of filmmakers and advocates of amateur film.
Together, these essays shed new light on alternative cinema in a wide range of cities and countries where amateur films thrive in the shadow of commercial and conventional film industries.
https://iupress.org/9780253052032/global-perspectives-on-amateur-film-histories-and-cultures/
'Humanitats en acció' és pensar les humanitats des del seu potencial transformador i com un actiu positiu per al conjunt de la societat. Les humanitats no són un conjunt de disciplines acadèmiques en extinció, sinó que són el conjunt d’activitats amb les que donem sentit a l’experiència humana, des del punt de vista de la seva dignitat. Per aquest motiu, a l’Aula oberta s’han convocat una vintena de ponents d’àmbits molt diferents per reflexionar sobre les seves respectives línies de treball, els seus límits i els seus reptes. Artistes, acadèmics, activistes, periodistes, cineastes, científics, entre d’altres, han participat en aquest projecte, cadascun i cadascuna des de la seva disciplina, mirada i trajectòria.
El resultat és aquest conjunt de vint veus, que presenten una aposta generacional i renovadora sobre el discurs i les pràctiques de les humanitats actualment, i sobre quin pot ser el seu futur.
Textos de:
David Bueno, David Casassas, Lúa Coderch, Eduard Escoffet, Eudald Espluga, Oriol Fontdevila, Marina Garcés, Marcos García, Raül Garrigasait, Ingrid Guardiola, Albert Lladó, Pablo La Parra, Irene Masdeu, Joana Masó, Karo Moret, Manel Ollé, María Ruido, Mireia Sallarès, Victoria Szpunberg i Brigitte Vasallo.
///
This essay focuses on the visual representation of illegalized migrants in Spanish media. Drawing on post-colonial theory (Santos, Fanon) and contributions linked to visual studies (Mitchell, Rancière, Didi-Huberman), it argues that the migrants’ radical deprivation of rights is deeply related to the dominant ways of representation depicting this collective.
Reviews by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Conferences/Seminars/Talks by Pablo La Parra-Pérez
Una aula, dirigida per Marina Garcés, des d'on actualitzar el discurs, els referents i les pràctiques de les humanitats a la nostra societat.
Com afecten les condicions materials a l'articulació del pensament i de les humanitats? Quina és la importància de les imatges per a re-pensar l'inacabament de les humanitats? Poden ser les imatges eines crítiques, eines de resistència? Podem re-aticular l'actualitat de les humanitats a partir de la configuració d'allò visual? Afecta la temporalitat a la configuració crítica del coneixement? Com irromp la imatge del passat en la nostra capacitat de figurar el present? Abordarem aquestes i altres qüestions amb Pablo La Parra, investigador que actualment desenvolupa la seva tesi doctoral a la Universitat de Nova York (NYU). Ivestigador resident a Tabakalera amb el projecte Europa, futuro anterior.
Pablo La Parra-Pérez and Ekain Olaizola Lizarralde discuss new research initiatives to construct a historical cartography of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF). Archival traces of the Barrios y Pueblos project (1977-1985) reveal how it brought film screenings and discussions from luxury downtown venues to working-class neighborhoods and peripheral municipalities.
Through carefully curated essays, Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez bring wider meaning and significance to the discipline through their study of alternative cinema in new territories, fueled by different historical and political circumstances, innovative technologies, and ambitious practitioners. The essays in this volume work to realize the radical societal democratization that shows up in amateur cinema around the world. In particular, diverse contributors highlight the significance of amateur filmmaking, the exhibition of amateur films, the uses and availability of film technologies, and the inventive and creative approaches of filmmakers and advocates of amateur film.
Together, these essays shed new light on alternative cinema in a wide range of cities and countries where amateur films thrive in the shadow of commercial and conventional film industries.
https://iupress.org/9780253052032/global-perspectives-on-amateur-film-histories-and-cultures/
'Humanitats en acció' és pensar les humanitats des del seu potencial transformador i com un actiu positiu per al conjunt de la societat. Les humanitats no són un conjunt de disciplines acadèmiques en extinció, sinó que són el conjunt d’activitats amb les que donem sentit a l’experiència humana, des del punt de vista de la seva dignitat. Per aquest motiu, a l’Aula oberta s’han convocat una vintena de ponents d’àmbits molt diferents per reflexionar sobre les seves respectives línies de treball, els seus límits i els seus reptes. Artistes, acadèmics, activistes, periodistes, cineastes, científics, entre d’altres, han participat en aquest projecte, cadascun i cadascuna des de la seva disciplina, mirada i trajectòria.
El resultat és aquest conjunt de vint veus, que presenten una aposta generacional i renovadora sobre el discurs i les pràctiques de les humanitats actualment, i sobre quin pot ser el seu futur.
Textos de:
David Bueno, David Casassas, Lúa Coderch, Eduard Escoffet, Eudald Espluga, Oriol Fontdevila, Marina Garcés, Marcos García, Raül Garrigasait, Ingrid Guardiola, Albert Lladó, Pablo La Parra, Irene Masdeu, Joana Masó, Karo Moret, Manel Ollé, María Ruido, Mireia Sallarès, Victoria Szpunberg i Brigitte Vasallo.
///
This essay focuses on the visual representation of illegalized migrants in Spanish media. Drawing on post-colonial theory (Santos, Fanon) and contributions linked to visual studies (Mitchell, Rancière, Didi-Huberman), it argues that the migrants’ radical deprivation of rights is deeply related to the dominant ways of representation depicting this collective.
Una aula, dirigida per Marina Garcés, des d'on actualitzar el discurs, els referents i les pràctiques de les humanitats a la nostra societat.
Com afecten les condicions materials a l'articulació del pensament i de les humanitats? Quina és la importància de les imatges per a re-pensar l'inacabament de les humanitats? Poden ser les imatges eines crítiques, eines de resistència? Podem re-aticular l'actualitat de les humanitats a partir de la configuració d'allò visual? Afecta la temporalitat a la configuració crítica del coneixement? Com irromp la imatge del passat en la nostra capacitat de figurar el present? Abordarem aquestes i altres qüestions amb Pablo La Parra, investigador que actualment desenvolupa la seva tesi doctoral a la Universitat de Nova York (NYU). Ivestigador resident a Tabakalera amb el projecte Europa, futuro anterior.
Research Seminar
European University Institute (Florence) 22, 23 and 24 February 2017
Organised by Prof Alexander Etkind and Prof Luisa Passerini
* * *
This workshop is a case study of simultaneous events that shaped our world in entangled ways. While we remember 1968 as the moment of liberating, though non-accomplished, student revolutions in France and the US, this year also saw the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia. The year marked the turning point in the Vietnam war and, arguably, in the Cold War as well. Richard Nixon was elected the president of the US, and Leonid Brezhnev consolidated his power over the USSR. Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis, and Andrej Siniavsky was serving in a forced labor camp in Mordovia. Yale University announced it was going to admit women. Using the new language of human rights, Russian and Ukrainian dissidents started their struggle with the Soviet regime. From Brazil to Italy, protest movements shook the world but mostly failed to change the governments. Led Zeppelin started performances, and the Beatles sang “Back in the USSR” and became popular there. On the both sides of the Iron Curtain, the enthusiasm and disappointments of 1968 transformed philosophy, political thought, literature and cinema of the subsequent era. The best-known French philosophers, Italian film-makers, American politicians, Polish dissidents all came from the generation that shaped 1968 and were shaped by this historical moment. After 1968, the crucial concepts of human existence – sex, power, gender, class, race – have never been the same, and their tectonic shifts also occurred across the Iron Curtain. In this workshop, we will explore various dimensions of this transnational change. We will complement case studies from countries of Western, Central and Eastern European with broader speculations on issues of history and memory, generations and revolutions, subjectivity and power.
The symposium: "The Capture of Speech / Dialogues with the militant film archive", is therefore simply another chapter in an ongoing process of research and investigation.
Guest speakers include a number of different filmmakers, artists and researchers whose work is in some way related to the militant film archive. The backbone of the event is the idea of dialogue. Or rather dialogues, in plural, because our aim is to test out different ways of engaging in conversation with the militant archive. A series of dialogues then, with one foot in the audiovisual world and the other in the discursive sphere, halfway between theory and practice, between past and present; a hybrid mix of screenings, debates and performances.
In short, a dialogue between images and words.
Our feeling is that we cannot separate the militant film project from words. But not just any words. Rather, words taken by force; the words Michel de Certeau was referring to when, shortly after May ’68, he wrote: ‘Last May speech was taken the way, in 1789, the Bastille was taken.’ And indeed the militant archive is full of words engaged in some kind of struggle. It is almost as if the lightweight cameras and tape recorders that merged together in the struggles of the 60s and 70s also became mixed up with the different meanings of the verb ‘to take’: to capture by force (a square, for instance), but also to film or record photos or images.
Thus, in the militant films, speech (and the rights that come with it) is taken by the peoples of the south, students, inmates, housewives, workers and heretic sexualities. These films, which themselves speak out so eloquently, were conceived as an invitation to engage in debate. In innumerable documents, manifestos and testimonials, militant films define themselves as unfinished works that must be completed by viewers through a process of collective debate. Thus, the militant film culture spread around the world, through a complex network of interrelated images and words running through the nervous system of festivals and meetings, film theatres and improvised screenings, manifestos and declarations, cerebral conversations and heated debates, and magazines and books that often took on the job of translating into words the content of films that could not be viewed.
Over the course of two days we propose an encounter to recover this spirit of critical dialogue. We want to take the speech of the militant film archive in order to reflect upon the paths it took in its dream to unite film and political struggle. But we also want to take the speech of the present day, in order to ask ourselves what we can do now with this legacy of words and images.