Cine Piquetero Satire

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The very idea of cine piquetero is controversial. For some, the term refers to militant cinema made by those who participate directly in the piquetero movement—those who “recuperate” dormant factories, cut off traffic in the streets, or march in political demonstrations; for others, the term refers, more broadly and capaciously, to films made by individuals or groups who sympathize with the piqueteros and their contestations of neoliberalism, the media’s false images, poverty, and corruption. Some creators of this kind of cinema support the idea that cine piquetero constitutes a genre that both converges with and diverges from Third Cinema; others reject outright the idea that cine piquetero is a genre. Developed in parallel with the reflexive, …show more content…

Furthermore, it is worth noting that groups like Cine Insurgente, Alavío, Boedo Films, and Ojo Obrero find inspiration in sixties collectives like Solanas’s Cine Liberación or Raymundo Gleyzer’s (1941–1976) Cine de la Base (Cinema of the Militant Base), yet diverge from them insofar as the street is the main site for …show more content…

Although some filmmakers do sign their films as individuals, many are signed by groups so as to consciously suppress the individual in the interest of the collective. Piqueteros carajo! (Fucking piqueteros, 2002), by Ojo Obrero, a collective with links to the Trotskyist Partido Obrero (Workers’ Party), is one representative example of current piquetero cinema that suppresses individual authorship, is guided by concrete political objectives, and, like Third Cinema, is meant to be viewed and debated mainly by militants committed to struggle and political action. The film centers on the deaths of two piqueteros who were killed during a July 2002 protest at the Pueyrredón Bridge in Buenos Aires as a result of police brutality. It lacks a voice-of-god narrator and instead privileges the voice of “Coco,” one of the protestors, who channels his comrades’ feelings in testimonial key. Its gritty feel, and its use of wide angle camera shots, give the impression that we are on the ground, mired in the chaos of police action, brutalized citizens, reporters chasing a scoop, and gunfire. More than merely denouncing a certain reality—as in Memoria—Coco incites the viewer to organize politically and calls for the installation of a “workers’

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