Latino American cinema is a provocative, complex, and definitively American topic of study. This book examines key mainstream commercial films while also spotlighting often-underappreciated documentaries, avant-garde and experimental projects, independent productions, features and shorts, and more. Latino American Cinema: An Encyclopedia of Movies, Stars, Concepts, and Trends serves as an essential primary reference for students of the topic as well as an accessible resource for general readers. The alphabetized entries in the volume cover the key topics of this provocative and complex genre-films, filmmakers, star performers, concepts, and historical and burgeoning trends-alongside frequently overlooked and crucially ignored items of interest in Latino cinema. This comprehensive treatment bridges gaps between traditional approaches to U.S.-Latino and Latin American cinemas, placing subjects of Chicana and Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban and diasporic Cuban, and Mexican origin in perspective with related Central and South American and Caribbean elements. Many of the entries offer compact definitions, critical discussions, overviews, and analyses of star artists, media productions, and historical moments, while several foundational entries explicate concepts, making this single volume encyclopedia a critical guide as well. Nearly 300 entries on movies, actors and actresses, concepts, and trends A resource guide and bibliography provides listings of online references and databases, research centers, and media distributors Sidebar discussions that elaborate on key points within the entry, spotlight historical and social contexts, and offer examples

Charting production, distribution, censorship, and reception, this book examines Y Tu Mama Tambien in its presentation as a journey of self-discoveries. Three young adults enjoy a road trip together in search of a legendary beach. Behind their stories are mythologies of youth, a network of ideas in the film that reflects life outside the theaters. The deceptively complex film leaves the characters and its viewers with, instead of oversimplified and hollow answers, provocative questions and existential concerns. Made independently in Mexico, the film crosses over transnational issues, global markets, and mainstream and alternative aesthetics. It transforms road movie and youth film genres and shows a 'musical, magical' Mexico to the world. This book synthesizes several approaches in order to extensively examine Y Tu Mama Tambien. Covering the film's production history, its distribution and censorship, and larger industrial, political, and cultural contexts, this book analyzes the too-often overlooked aspects of youthful sexuality alongside figurations of maturity, rites of passage, and covenants-made, broken, and remade-that not only inform representations of identity but also complicate the processes of identity formation themselves.

Charting production, distribution, censorship, and reception, this book examines Y Tu Mama Tambien in its presentation as a journey of self-discoveries. Three young adults enjoy a road trip together in search of a legendary beach. Behind their stories are mythologies of youth, a network of ideas in the film that reflects life outside the theaters. The deceptively complex film leaves the characters and its viewers with, instead of oversimplified and hollow answers, provocative questions and existential concerns. Made independently in Mexico, the film crosses over transnational issues, global markets, and mainstream and alternative aesthetics. It transforms road movie and youth film genres and shows a 'musical, magical' Mexico to the world. This book synthesizes several approaches in order to extensively examine Y Tu Mama Tambien. Covering the film's production history, its distribution and censorship, and larger industrial, political, and cultural contexts, this book analyzes the too-often overlooked aspects of youthful sexuality alongside figurations of maturity, rites of passage, and covenants-made, broken, and remade-that not only inform representations of identity but also complicate the processes of identity formation themselves.