Exploring the much neglected area of Latin American exploitation cinema, this anthology challenges established continental and national histories and canons which often exclude exploitation cinema due to its perceived 'low' cultural status. It argues that Latin American exploitation cinema makes an important aesthetic and social contribution to the larger body of Latin American cinema - often competing with Hollywood and more mainstream national cinemas in terms of popularity.

Emilio Fernandez: Pictures in the Margins is the first book-length English language account of Emilio Fernandez (1904-1986) the most successful director of classical Mexican Cinema, famed with creating films that embody a loosely defined Mexican school of filmmaking. However, rather than offer an auteurist study this book interrogates the construction of Fernandez as both a national and nationalist auteur (including racial and gender aspects e.g. as macho mexicano and indio). It also challenges auteurist readings of the films themselves in order to make new arguments about the significance of Fernandez and his work. The aim of this book is to question Mexico's fetishisation of its own position on the peripheries of the global cultural economy and the similar fetishisation of Fernandez's marginalisation as a mixed race (part white and part indigenous) director. This book argues that, as pictures in the margins, classical Mexican cinema and specifically Fernandez's films are not transparent reflections of dominant post Revolutionary Mexican culture, but annotations and re-inscriptions of the particularities of Mexican society in the post-Revolutionary era. -- .

Exploring the much neglected area of Latin American exploitation cinema, this anthology challenges established continental and national histories and canons which often exclude exploitation cinema due to its perceived ?low? cultural status. It argues that Latin American exploitation cinema makes an important aesthetic and social contribution to the larger body of Latin American cinema ? often competing with Hollywood and more mainstream national cinemas in terms of popularity.

Several Latin American films ('Amores Perros', 'Y Tu Mama Tambien', 'Cidade de Deus', 'Central do Brasil', 'Nueve Reinas', 'El Hijo de la Novia') enjoyed an unprecedented level of critical and commercial success in the world film market. These films were considered transnational as they benefited from substantial external capital or creative. Followed in the 2000s by a series of equally critical and/or commercially successful 'deterritorialised' films by some of the same directors, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles the incipient transnationalism of the first films and the directors' position in international cinema was confirmed. This book incorporates the Latin America/Hollywood and Indiewood vector of filmmaking into its study of the region's transnationalised filmmaking. It argues that although undoubtedly 'commercial', films produced either within, or under the structures of Hollywood are not necessarily apolitical nor totally divorced from key notions of national or continental identity. Tierney shows that it is the auteurist nature of many of these deterritorialised transnational films which plays a key role in their ability to engage with issues of national and continental identity and to forge a transnational tradition beyond the geospatial limits of the region. To support its arguments about the transnational trend, the book uses textual analysis and industrial case studies looking both at the five directors who have most publically interacted and, in their own ways influenced, the trend as well as those of other filmmakers who are also involved in it.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s Latin American films like Amores perros, Y tu mama tambien and Cidade de Deus enjoyed an unprecedented level of critical and commercial success in the world market. Benefitting from external financial and/or creative input, these films were considered examples of transnational cinema. Through a textual analysis of six filmmakers (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles and Juan Jose Campanella), this book examines these transnational films and the subsequent wave of commercially successful 'deterritorialised' films by the same directors. It argues that although films produced within the structures of the United States film industry may have been commercially successful, they are not necessarily apolitical or totally divorced from key notions of national or continental identity. Bringing a new perspective to the films of Latin America's transnational auteurs, this is a major contribution towards understanding how different genres function across different cultures.