Portrayals of Jews in Contemporary Argentine Cinema: Rethinking Argentinidad

An in-depth study of the presence and representation of Jews in contemporary Argentine film, focusing on films shot since the year 2000.

Runner-up for the AHGBI-Spanish Embassy Doctoral Publication Prize for 2017

Notwithstanding the current visual prominence of Jewish life and Jewish culture on the Argentine big screen, surprisingly little has been written about Jewish film characterization in academic scholarship. In order to fill this lacuna, Portrayals of Jews in Contemporary Argentine Cinemaexplores the depiction of the Jews of Argentina in modern Argentine cinema with particular attention to the ways in which Jews and Jewishness interact with issues of national identity. The central aim of the book is to investigate how Argentine cinema negotiates the argentinidad of Jewish Argentines, thereby adding to the mosaic that is the imagined community of Argentina. To this end, key films by both Jewish and non-Jewish directors are scrutinized, shedding light on three main areas: the masculinity of the Jewish gaucho, the effects of the 1994 AMIA bombing and family relations, including fatherhood and the intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. Organized around these topics, the book comprises four chapters and with the exception of the first, which is a historical exposition of Jewish presence in Argentina and Argentine film, all subsequent ones take a theme-centered approach.

Mirna Vohnsen is a faculty member in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Maynooth University.