Third Cinema: History and Key Facts

Third Cinema (Spanish: Tercer Cine) is a Latin American film movement formed in the 1960s which critiques neocolonialism, the capitalist system, the Hollywood model of cinema as mere entertainment to make money (First Cinema), as well as the individualistic, European film d'auteur (Second Cinema). The term was used by Latin American filmmakers and critics of the 1960s, including the article El Tercer Cine: Cinema Novo - realidad y alternativa, published in April 1968 in the journal Cine al día (Venezuela) by Oswaldo Capriles, and later the manifestos by Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, members of the Grupo Cine Liberación ¿Por qué Tercer Cine? (Why Third Cinema?), written and published in June 1969 in the journal Cine al día (Venezuela), and Hacia un tercer cine (Toward a Third Cinema), written and published in October 1969 in the journal Tricontinental by the OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America).

Although conceived by Latin American authors, Third Cinema, as a category, is not limited to Latin America: it was imagined from the outset as a tricontinental paradigm, applicable to anticolonial African cinema (Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Sarah Maldoror, Mostafa Derkaoui, Ahmed Bouanani, Ahmed Rachedi) and Asian cinema (Jocelyne Saab, Heiny Srour, Kidlat Tahimik). Indeed, starting in the 1970s, initiatives emerged such as the Moroccan magazine CINEMA 3, directed by Noureddine Saïl, as well as the Groupe du Troisième cinéma (Jamaat es cinima eth talitha), which arose in Egypt in 1976, directly influenced by the Latin American experience.

Third Cinema shares common ground with other manifestos of the period: Glauber Rocha's "Aesthetic of Hunger" (1965), Julio García Espinosa's "For an Imperfect Cinema" (1969), "Problems of Form and Content in Revolutionary Cinema" (1976) by Jorge Sanjinés.

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