MCP 13 (3) pp.

265–285 Intellect Limited 2017

International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics

Volume 13 Number 3
© 2017 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/macp.13.3.265_1

Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig

Universidad de las Américas

New Ecuadorian cinema:

Small, glocal and
plurinational

Abstract Keywords
This article conceptualizes New Ecuadorian cinema as small, glocal and pluri- Ecuadorian film
national. It makes the case that it is a propitious time to study this emergent New Ecuadorian
cinema. However, while it is a heterogeneous film scene, this article argues that cinema
it is still traversed by long-standing ethno-racial, class and regional inequali- small cinemas
ties. After inserting Ecuador’s largely unknown film history into regional trends, glocal cinema
different spheres of production are analysed, including mestizo fictionalized narra- plurinational
tives, activist documentaries, indigenous and community filmmaking and coastal Latin American
‘guerilla’ filmmaking. The article looks at both the accomplishments of the sector cinemas
and current challenges. It proposes that more state and private funds invest in indigenous media
fostering plurinational and regional initiatives, and cultivating diverse makers community media
and audiences.

Introduction
Despite Ecuador’s unprecedented upsurge in film production by 300 per cent
between the years 2006 and 2012 (Andes 2012), whereas it had produced
less than a dozen feature films in the 1990s, there has been a paucity of
Spanish- and English-language scholarship on its recent cinema. Rather,
Latin Americanist film scholars tend to focus principally on the region’s major

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1. We refer to a ‘sector’ film-producing countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico
or a ‘field’, rather than
‘industry’ as there is
(Podalsky 2011; Bermúdez 2011; Queipo 2013). Some anomalies include
large agreement that Ecuadorian filmmaker Pocho Álvarez’ chapter in Gumucio Dagron’s (2014)
this term is largely edited volume, Ecuadorian cultural critic Pao de la Vega’s (2015) analysis of
aspirational at the
present time. In Ecuador’s film sector between 1977 and 2006, and the work of non-Ecua-
addition, while it is now dorian scholars (Copertari and Sitnisky 2016; Venkatesh 2016; Ruétalo and
a film and audio-visual Tierney 2011). Yet, there is no shortage of interesting dialogue and debate at
field, we use the term
‘film’ to demarcate the the local level among filmmakers, audiences and cultural critics, but these
cinematographic sector conversations are not often accessible to international film scholars. Hence,
from other audio-visual
arenas.
one of the goals of this article is to offer an analysis of this small, emergent
cinematographic sector.1
2. It is too early to
comment on how these
This article focuses on what we refer to as New Ecuadorian Cinema, which
changes will play out. by most accounts began roughly at the end of the 1990s. We have chosen to
begin our periodization in 2006, when the first film law (Ley de Fomento del
Cine Nacional) came into effect, through 2017, as the sector is facing a large
institutional shift, following the passage of the long-awaited Culture Law
(Ley de Cultura). The new Culture Law incorporates the film law and demotes
the National Council for Cinematography (CNCine) from its more autono-
mous status as a Council to that of an Institute.2
We make the case that it is a propitious time to study Ecuadorian cinema.
There has been a steady increase in the sector’s institutionality, infrastructure
and professionalization. Yet, this field is still marked by long-standing ethno-
racial, class and regional inequalities, and with this, unequal conditions of
cultural production. It is an exciting, multifaceted film scene that emerged at
the cusp of Latin America’s, and Ecuador’s ‘left turn’, which ushered in a more
progressive social and cultural agenda than what preceded the region in the
1980s and the 1990s.
We first offer a theoretical framework that characterizes Ecuadorian cinema
as small, glocal and plurinational. By bringing into our analysis a broader
spectrum of production activity, we question what constitutes the ‘national’.
We propose that the cinemas – as they are not homogenous – of this small
Andean country comprise an arena of struggle in state–society relations, and
reflect a larger struggle for plurinational citizenship. As such, one of the ques-
tions that we ask is how to move beyond the paradigm of national cinema to
the plurinational.
After proposing a conceptual framework, we seek to insert Ecuador’s
largely unknown film history (outside of this Andean country) into regional
trends. Moving to recent history, we examine how the 2006 Film Law and
CNCine’s investments in the sector have shaped contemporary film prac-
tices. We then discuss different spheres of production: the ‘top-tier’ mestizo
fictionalized narratives that make it into the international festival circuit and
that receive the majority of attention and funding; activist documentaries;
indigenous and community filmmaking; and coastal ‘guerilla’ filmmaking.
These other spheres receive far less attention than the mestizo narra-
tives. As such, we interrogate the extent to which the film sector reflects
Ecuador’s plurinational designation outlined in the 2008 Constitution.
We also explore how a burgeoning small cinema can become more self-
sustaining as state financing diminishes and what constitutes successful
exhibition and distribution strategies in a new media environment. The
article concludes by considering key debates about the best way to move
the sector forward as technological and political changes are underway in
Ecuador and the region.

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

Theoretical framework: From the national to a small, 3. For example, the

Andean quinoa plant,
glocal, plurinational cinema whose seeds are edible,
has been hybridized by
In today’s global society any ‘national’ cinema research programme must occur the cuisines of North
beyond post-Westphalian borders and within micro regions of the national. America and Europe.
This section theorizes New Ecuadorian Cinema as a qualitatively new type of
filmmaking that is at once glocal, small and plurinational.
Glocalization, as we understand it, is a portmanteau term used by soci-
ologists to describe conditions in which local and global phenomena cross-
pollinate in unique ways (Robertson 1995; Roudometof 2016), such as when
global foods are flavoured with local ingredients so as to be made palatable
for a wide number of both world and local markets.3 In cinema studies,
glocalization theory has been used to analyse the ways in which film worlds
hybridize. Communication scholar Shakuntala Rao (2010) uses a glocaliza-
tion framework to examine the ways in which Bollywood filmmakers have
attempted to negotiate local audiences’ demand that such filmmaking have
an ‘Indian touch’, while at the same time including western clothing and
English-language dialogue so as to theoretically make such movies exportable.
Similarly, Asian cinema expert Christina Klein (2007) argues that crossover,
transnational Chinese-language films such as Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow,
2004), produced by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, constitute a new
business strategy of ‘local globalization’.
In terms of the glocalization of Ibero-American cinemas, film scholar Juan
Poblete (2004) makes the case that Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González
Iñárritu has reappropriated the Hollywood vernacular and the MTV aesthetic
and in doing so has mounted a critique of neo-liberal globalization, essentially
turning cultural imperialism against itself. Cuba’s reliance on co-productions
has, posits cultural studies scholar Verena Berger (2014), problematized the
Cuban Revolutionary and national identity. Also Spanish film expert Isabel
Santaolalla (2007) argues that Spanish co-productions with Latin American
countries have deepened and expanded the españolidad imaginary outside of
the Spanish borders. As these examples indicate, the processes of glocaliza-
tion produce a complex, hybridized cinematic product, thus requiring multiple
modes of theoretical enquiry.
A consideration of just how glocal cinemas in the Andes might be,
however, remains under-theorized, with few exceptions. Film scholar María
Luna (2013) notes that contemporary Colombian independent cinema is often
characterized by a contrast between its cosmopolitan centres of production
and the local or the non-urban content that it depicts, such as the festival
hit Los viajes del viento (The Wind Journeys) (Guerra, 2009). She argues that a
Foucauldian ‘otherspace’ allows for a use of performative strategies to question
the depiction of reality in this emergent glocal cinematic space.
We intervene in this debate by problematizing ‘the glocal’ in the unique
environment of Ecuador. New Ecuadorian Cinema can be understood in a
glocal context: its films are conceptualized locally, but with a global target
audience. Indeed, at the international level, New Ecuadorian Cinema plays
an ambassadorial role, providing memorable images of a country that, unlike
much of Latin America, has not historically exported its culture (Wong
2012). For example, apart from legendary pasillo composer Julio Jaramillo
(1935–78), and artist Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919–1999) Ecuador has not
produced many internationally recognized artists. New Ecuadorian Cinema
has become an incipient vehicle for filling this cultural exportation void as

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4. Cited in El Telégrafo 12 its films circulate widely in the United States, European and Latin American
October 2011. It should
be mentioned that
festivals.
these census figures We further argue that some Ecuadorian films are more glocal than others.
are often imprecise Many of the celebrated filmmakers under the rubric of New Ecuadorian
in that the numbers
for Afrodescendents Cinema tend to produce what we refer to as mestizo fictionalized narratives –
and indigenous auteur films specific to the Ecuadorian context, but done so in the form of
populations tend to be universally palatable stories designed for the festival circuit. Often produced
underestimated.
by and featuring middle- and upper-class urban mestizos, these films domi-
5. This context obviously nate the still-developing film sector, and received the lion’s share of CNCine
extends to most
spheres of cultural funding. By naming it as ‘mestizo’, we seek to call attention to the politics of
production, not just representation in Ecuador and systemic exclusions. That is, on the one hand, it
cinema.
is a diverse nation comprised of, according to the census of 2010,4 the follow-
6. ‘So-called’ because ing demographic breakdown: mestizo (71.9%), white (6.1%), indigenous
the term ‘independent
cinema’ has always
(7%), montubio or coastal mestizo (7.2%) and afrodescendent (7%). On the
been contested. For other hand, urban mestizos overwhelmingly are the producers, directors and
example, in 1993, protagonists of New Ecuadorian Cinema.5 Filmmaker Camilio Luzuriaga goes
Disney purchased the
studio Miramax, which even further to argue that ‘Ecuadorian film is perceived of as Quiteño [of the
had been known for capital city], not as national’ (2014).
its production of many Examples of glocal mestizo fictionalized narratives include Alba (Barragán,
high-profile, low-
budget American films 2016), which is Ecuador’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film for
of the 1980s and the the Oscars competition of 2018. On the one hand, the film thematizes the
1990s.
universally understood growing pains of adolescence in its depiction of an
11-year-old light-skinned Mestizo girl coping with her estranged father
and sick, bedridden mother. Moreover, Alba is minimalist in its dialogue, as
if to not alienate the non-Spanish-speaking audiences. On the other hand,
this film has signifiers that Quiteño audiences would appreciate, such as its
dilated portrayal of the multiple-hour journey from the chilly highlands to the
perennially hot Ecuadorian coast. The other important centre of production is
Guayaquil. The urban drama Sin muertos no hay carnaval (‘Without the dead,
there is no carnival’) (Cordero, 2016) deals with the sensitive issue of informal
land occupation in Guayaquil. While the film accessibly offers a snapshot of a
problem common in Ecuador and in the region, Sin muertos was shot entirely
on location and offers guayaquileños a sense of place that they rarely see
on-screen. Both of these films have done very well with both Ecuadorian and
global audiences. Ecuador submitted Sin Muertos in its entry into the foreign-
language film competition in the Oscars of 2016. A few glocal films, though,
lack the right balance. Films such as La Llamada (‘The call’) (Nieto, 2012), shot
in Quito but featuring generic shots of modern buildings, are so devoid of
local context that they offer no sense of place.
Another reason why this global–local complex is pertinent for such an
analysis of current Ecuadorian cinematic activity is that tastes in the coun-
try are informed largely by the global cinemas of Hollywood and Europe
rather than those of Latin America. Generally, younger moviegoers are
reared on these foreign cinemas as they have easy, affordable digital access
to such content (pirated versions of new Hollywood movies are priced
for as low as three for $5.00). Similarly, the curricula of many of the new
Ecuadorian film schools tend to focus more on the theories, histories and
practices informed by Classic Hollywood Cinema, so-called US independ-
ent cinema6 and European Art Cinema. Such pedagogy shapes the struc-
tural basis of how many of these aspiring filmmakers might perceive cinema.
As storytellers, they glocalize, or Ecuadorianize, these western narra-
tive bases, inscribing them with the world they know. This is in contrast

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

to earlier generations of Ecuadorian filmmakers such as Pocho Álvarez 7. Hansen’s thesis

is a rebuttal to
and Camilo Luzuriaga, who are intimately connected to Latin American the structuralist
cinema movements. Film scholar Miriam Hansen (1999) puts forward the theorization of
term ‘vernacular modernism’ to explain Classic Hollywood Cinema’s endur- Classical Hollywood
Cinema, put forward by
ing appeal. For her, its success as an ‘international modernist idiom’ is Bordwell (1997).
attributable not to its ‘presumably universal narrative form but because it
8. Accordingly, a minor
meant different things to different people and publics, both at home and literature has the
abroad […] [T]hese films […] were consumed in locally quite specific, and following three
unequally developed, contexts and conditions of reception’ (1999: 68–69).7 characteristics: it is
written in a ‘major’ or
Although Hansen is writing about the classical period (1920–60), her a colonial language,
argument remains salient in the post-classical, digital era. its practitioners often
consisting of formerly
The glocal provides a useful entry point into New Ecuadorian Cinema occupied people
because it accounts for both local and global particularities implicated by the now inhabiting the
difficulties of jumpstarting a film sector at the beginning of the third millen- colonizer’s space;
by definition, it has
nium. As communication scholar Shakuntala Rao proposes, ‘In the new political aims in that
phenomenological era of global consciousness where there has been large- its goal is to activate
scale proliferation of visual images in people’s media repertoire, glocalization similarly liminalized or
marginalized peoples
can provide a theoretical framework to better understand the global-local as in the case of Kafka
nexus in audience reception’ (2010: 2). In present-day Ecuador, then, insofar himself, a Czech-born,
German-speaking Jew
as American movies clutter the screens and, potentially the consciousness of writing in German for
many moviegoers, the emergent New Ecuadorian Cinema must be conceived the Jewish population
of in its relationship with global Hollywood and other cinemas. However, this of Central Europe), and
it has a collectivistic,
article raises the question as to whether or not these glocal films actually have enunciative ethos
broad appeal outside of the largely mestizo middle- and upper-middle class inasmuch as it speaks
urban audiences within Ecuador. for a heretofore
silenced group. In his
In addition to its status as a glocal cinema, we understand New Ecuadorian original analysis, Kafka
Cinema as a ‘small cinema’, a term that we have modified from, and is in stark had written, ‘[I]n
the small nations,
contrast to, Deleuze and Guattari’s (1986) analysis of Kafka’s writings as a ‘minor [a minor literature
literature’.8 Deleuze later (1986) devised the notion of a ‘minor cinema’, which, should supplement]’ a
like its literary counterpart, has a revolutionary vocation of catalysing the glob- ‘national consciousness
which is often inert and
ally sidelined through the creation of a new vernacular, a cinema by and for the always in process of
oppressed, of which ‘third cinema’ is an articulation (Gettino and Solanas 1969). disintegration’ and thus
This article coopts and modifies these debates on ‘minor cinema’ to postu- serve a collectivistic
role in revitalizing
late that, as our Ecuadorian case makes clear, in the twenty-first century, Latin an oppressed people
American cinemas can no longer be delimited to politically oriented cinematic (quoted in Abdul-Jabbar
2014: 161).
projects such as Third Cinema and New Latin American Cinema, which, as
various world cinema scholars (León 2005; Stam 2003) have made clear, has
been the case since the late 1980s. New Ecuadorian Cinema differs from these
‘minor cinemas’ in several important respects. First, it has no transformative
or ‘revolutionary’ mandate. On the contrary, we follow the conceptualization
of film theorist Tom Gunning (1989), who had originally conceived of ‘minor
cinema’ relationally: it refers to any film scene eclipsed by a hegemonic cinema
culture. Whereas the aforementioned ‘major’ – ‘minor’ cinema polarity implies
a hierarchy, and by implication a certain social order that can be contested, we
have opted instead to designate New Ecuadorian Cinema as a ‘small cinema’
to differentiate it from these previous political film projects, and also to call
attention to its condition as a cinema that is overshadowed by larger cinemas.
That is, the new generation of Ecuadorian filmmakers remain cognizant of
the fact that to the extent that Hollywood fare saturates the large and small
screens in Ecuador and worldwide, any attempt to compete with this enter-
tainment mammoth would be next to impossible. It is also overshadowed by
the region’s larger film industries.

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9. Ecuador’s pueblos Another way in which New Ecuadorian Cinema contrasts with these earlier
and nacionalidades
consist of millenary
theorizations of ‘minor cinema’ is that it needs to be rethought beyond the
indigenous peoples, nation state borders (Andersson and Sundholm 2016; Martin-Jones 2011: 5)
afro-descendants and as both transnational and translocal. Transnational, in that cinema has rapidly
montubios.
become a global phenomenon: its financing, labour and circulation increas-
10. Cine de los pueblos ingly defy national barriers and thus its ‘flows’ must be problematized in a
y nacionalidades is
a broad designation transnational modality. It is simultaneously translocal because within the
that seeks to include Ecuadorian nation, there is enormous multiplicity in terms of regions, ethno-
all of Ecuador’s ethnic racial groups and other distinctions. In fact, the Small Cinemas Conference,
groups. In 2015, this
concept became in its eighth edition in 2017, proposes that the proliferation of small cinemas
an official funding is partially a response to globalized cinema, and therefore it privileges local
category for CNCine
awards.
languages, cultures and regional cinemas.
We maintain that given the ethno-racial diversity and strong regional
accents of a country such as Ecuador, there is not one cinema enunciative of
an entire nation. Rather, the New Ecuadorian Cinema’s plurinational character
encompasses not only the indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian officially denomi-
nated pueblos and nationalities but also other regional identities that are not
necessarily regarded as such, such as other local expressions of mestizaje. It
is a multi-layered site of uneven power dynamics: dwarfed by the cinemas of
North America, Europe and the major Latin American film-producing coun-
tries, it has become another of an infinite number of options in an already
overcrowded cinemascape. Competition from the more powerful film indus-
tries renders the sector doubly small, while the films that have a more local,
plurinational character are even further sidelined, making them triply small.
There is a particularity to New Ecuadorian Cinema´s smallness: given its
heterogeneity, it is to be conceived of as plurinational, even though there is
a long road ahead until that character is more fully reflected on the screens.
Ecuador has legally constituted fourteen nacionalidades and eighteen pueblos,9
and four vastly different geographical regions: the coast, the Andean moun-
tains, the Amazonian region and the Galapagos Islands. As such, the small(er)
cinemas reflect such diversity through ethno-racially and culturally identified
cinemas such as cine indígena or cine de los pueblos y nacionalidades,10 cine comuni-
tario (community-based cinema), activist documentaries and regional cinemas
such as the coastal area’s ‘guerilla’ cinema.
Such denomination has legal grounding. Article 1 of Ecuador’s Constitution
(Constitución de la República del Ecuador 2008) declares the state as both
intercultural and plurinational. These interrelated concepts stem from a
historic political process led by indigenous movements. While the concept
‘intercultural’ recognizes the ethno-racial diversity in Ecuador, the ‘plurina-
tional’ status generates the legal conditions that can transform a discourse on
diversity into political, social and cultural rights. Importantly, plurinational-
ity, as a political concept, goes beyond the ethno-racial and can also recog-
nize other differences, such as gender and culture (Chuji 2008). Finally, as
the following sections make clear, Ecuadorian cinema is also small, given the
absence of investment in this sector by the Ecuadorian government until the
twenty-first century.
Hence, we propose that New Ecuadorian Cinema constitutes a glocal,
small, plurinational cinema in its character as a cluster of various, sometimes
competing, small cinemas within cinemas. While the still emergent panorama
of Ecuadorian film is one of heterogeneity, ultimately, it is one still profoundly
traversed by ethno-racial, class and regional divides. The smaller spheres are
specific to certain regions, cultures and historical struggles. In fact, the target

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

audiences of these smaller spheres are perhaps more well defined than the 11. At present it is being
re-made by Manabí-
more glocally focused, mestizo, fictionalized auteur narratives that seek to based filmmaker
broadly cultivate national and international audiences. Fernando Cedeño
(21 January 2017, El
Universo).
Ecuador’s uneven film history in a regional context
We find it worthwhile to briefly chronicle the country’s twentieth-century
film history and how it fits into the region’s film movements, especially as it
is a relatively unknown, small cinema. Such history also provides evidence of
the absolute lack of institutionality and infrastructure that existed in Ecuador
until 2006.
With few exceptions, Ecuador did not have many watershed moments in
its early film history that, unlike the case in other Latin American countries,
placed it on the global cinematic map. El tesoro de Atahualpa (‘The treasure
of Atahaulpa’) (Miguel, 1924), referred to as the country’s first film, is now
considered lost.11 The phenomenon of this silent film was followed by rela-
tive inactivity; the country did not produce its first ‘talkie’ until 1950, with the
release of Se conocieron en Guayaquil (‘They met in Guayaquil’) (Santana).
Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, the Third Cinema move-
ment embodied a solidaristic and collectivistic ethos that united filmmakers
from the many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The idea was
that cinema should strive to be a revolutionary, continent-wide project to
liberate the region from the shackles of dependency and underdevelopment
by the ideological and material domination of Hollywood. Concurrently, in
Ecuador, a small group of filmmakers fit in with the regional cine militante –
with politically left, nationalist, anti-imperialist stances. Their practices were
shaped by the left turn led in the region by the Cuban Revolution, and the
social upheavals of the times, from the petrol boom, to protests against the
dictatorship. They included hard-hitting documentaries such as ¡Fuera de
aquí! (‘Get out of here!’) (Sanjinés, 1977), which chronicles the anti-impe-
rialist resistance of an indigenous community against a mining company
(King 2000: 196), and Quién mueve las manos (‘Who moves the hands?’)
(Nacional, 1975) about a factory strike. There was also a ‘boom’ of films about
indigenous peoples (León 2010: 71). According to film historian John King,
Ecuador produced only one feature film during this period, El cielo para la
Cushi, caraju (‘Cushi Goes to Heaven, Damnit’) (Guayasamín, 1975), an
adaptation of the early twentieth-century social realist novel Huasipungo by
Jorge Icaza Coronel (1934). The classic ethnographic work of the era was Los
Hieleros del Chimborazo (‘The ice makers’) (Guayasamíns, 1980), a film docu-
menting indigenous groups whose trade was to transport glacial ice to local
towns and cities. However, it would be more than a decade later until indig-
enous filmmakers would be able to make films that represent their cultures,
livelihoods and cosmovisions.
By the late 1980s, this left-leaning liberatory impulse was interpelated by
both the increase in transnational filmic exchanges facilitated by neo-liberal
globalization, and at the same time, the self-representation of groups whose
histories and identities had been excluded from ‘the meta-narrative of national
identity’ (León 2005: 20). Hence, New Latin American Cinema ushered in an
era of personal filmmaking that explored questions of race, class, gender and
sexuality that made its way onto the screens of Latin America, overtaking
if not obliviating this collectivity (Shaw and Dennison 2005). In Ecuador, a
second generation of filmmakers, trained in film schools, produced films in

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12. CNCine, ‘Películas this fashion, including La tigra (Luzuriaga, 1989) and Entre Marx y una mujer
Ecuatorianas
Estrenadas en Salas de
desnuda (‘Between Marx and a naked woman’) (Luzuriaga, 1996). After study-
Cine Comercial’. ing in Mexico, Alberto Muenala, a Kichwa filmmaker, returned to Ecuador in
1985 and began a career of directing and producing fiction films and docu-
mentaries that focus on indigenous stories, cultures and political struggles,
grounded in indigenous values and philosophies (see León 2017 for a discus-
sion of Muenala’s long career as a filmmaker).
While New Ecuadorian Cinema remains an aspirational enterprise, inso-
far as it operates in contested terrain in realizing its plurinational mandate, it
has made some strides in reversing the worldwide gender gap. Of the 57 films
financed by CNCine between 2007 and 2015, thirteen of these were directed or
co-directed by women.12 While Ecuador’s gender politics also remain mired in
this contestatory plurinational sphere, inasmuch as non-mestizo women film-
makers rarely have a platform, this CNCine statistic proportionately outranks
that of Hollywood, where, according to a recent USC Annenberg report
(2017), 80 per cent of Hollywood women directors made only one movie in
the last decade. One of the most prominent of these Ecuadorian female direc-
tors is the Cuenca-born Tania Hermida. In the last decade, Hermida made
two highly successful films, the road movie Qué tan lejos (‘How much further’)
(2006) and the 1970s-set En el nombre de la hija (‘In the name of the daugh-
ter’) (2008), that were among the most critically acclaimed New Ecuadorian
Cinema hits both nationally and abroad. Both films feature strong young
women protagonists and minor characters and both break out of the major
cities and take place in different parts of Ecuador. Hermida, her films and
other women directors have made strides in combating the universal gender
divide. Another important film written and co-directed by a woman is Esas no
son penas (‘Anytime soon’) (Hoeneisen and Andrade, 2006), which focuses on
the lives of five women.
With the devastating effects of neo-liberalism, Latin American filmmak-
ers began creating narratives that explored the urban underworld. León
refers to this subgenre as cine de la marginalidad (films of marginality), with
its films that depict a ‘social and cultural reality that has its own existence at
the margins of rational productivity of modernity’ (2005: 13). The Colombian
Víctor Gaviria’s films, such as La vendedora de rosas (‘The rose seller’) (1998)
and Rodrigo D: No futuro (‘Rodrigo D: No future’) (1990), are some of the
most emblematic of this genre. In Ecuador, the release of Ratas, ratones, rateros
(‘Rodents’) (Cordero, 1999) opened to rave reviews, and like the Mexican
Amores perros (‘Love’s a bitch’) (González Iñárritu) of the same year, intro-
duced new generations of global audiences to Latin American cinema, but
also laid the groundwork for Ecuador’s subsequent cinema upsurge.

Institutionalization of the film sector in Ecuador’s

contradictory ‘left turn’
For most of the twentieth century, Ecuadorian cinema had virtually no insti-
tutions or cultural policies that could help develop the sector (de la Vega
2015). The nascent film sector’s first milestone was the founding in 1977 of
the Asociación de Cineastas del Ecuador (ASOCINE), which emerged ‘in
the middle of the loneliness of castaways’ (Herrería 2009: 2). Until then, as
filmmaker Camilo Luzuriaga describes, Ecuadorian filmmaking had been in
a ‘phase of interminable gestation made of impulses, all of them masculine,
individual and sporadic, without fecundity, without inheritor’ (Luzuriaga 2014).

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

ASOCINE was the first to advocate for a film law. The creation of the 13. According to CNCine
(2015), 56 Ecuadorian
Cinemateca Nacional (the national film archive) followed in 1981. feature-length fiction
The next and arguably most important milestone was the passage of the and documentary
2006 Film Law. Although the 2006 Film Law was passed before Rafael Correa films were shown in
commercial movie
(Alianza País, 2007–17) was elected, during his administration film production theatres between 2007
skyrocketed, with the founding of the governmental CNCine in 2007, which, and 2015; 2 in 2007;
in 2017, became the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Production (ICCA). 3 in 2008; 5 in 2009; 3
in 2010; 4 in 2011; 6 in
Under CNCine’s stewardship, film production increased exponentially. 2012; 13 in 2013; 16 in
Cinematic production grew from the release of one film a year or every few 2014; and 5 in 2015.
years before 2007, to the release of sixteen feature films in 2014) (IEPI, 6 May
2015).13 Simply put, there would not be a vibrant film sector without CNCine’s
support. Notwithstanding this context, the sector still cannot be considered an
industry as it is mainly a freelance one, largely made up of small production
houses and loosely organized through various associations and guilds.
Institutional support for the film sector has occurred within the politi-
cal auspices of Ecuador’s ‘left turn’, which began in 2006 with the election of
Rafael Correa as President of the Republic. This period has been marked by
the innovative and progressive 2008 Constitution, but also by many contradic-
tions. With respect to communicational politics, while the Correa government
dramatically increased its own media power and propaganda apparatus as a
counterweight to the private media, it has constrained the communication
rights of critical journalists and social movements (Abad 2011; Coryat 2015),
in many respects constructing its own version of communication hegemony,
as has been done in chavista Venezuela (Bisbal 2009). This context would seem
to bode badly for the film sector. Yet, CNCine was able to operate with rela-
tive autonomy compared to other state institutions and ministries. Certainly,
except for a few notable cases in the activist documentary category (most of
which do not seek government funding), few films critique the government as
harshly as critical journalists or social movements.

Interrogating the cinematic ‘boom’

Although some Ecuadorian filmmakers have referred to the increase in cine-
matic activity as a ‘boom’ (Pineda 2013), we problematize this nomenclature.
Indeed, a ‘cinema boom’, as we understand it, often implies an extended time
period in which a country other than the United States produces a series of
successful and lucrative films, thus obviating the hegemony of Hollywood
(whose ‘boom’ has been its history). If a boom mainly refers to financial gain,
then Ecuadorian cinema does not fit the bill as the large investment by the
state has not yet yielded a financial return for filmmakers or the state. This is
true overall in neighbouring film sectors, including in Bolivia, Colombia and
Peru (Fuertes 2014). Without state support, most film sectors in Latin America
would simply not exist. While Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are exceptions in
this respect, these industries have also received considerable state support
(Fuertes 2014; Ross 2010).
Ecuador’s audiovisual upsurge certainly constitutes a quantitative ‘boom’ at
the level of production. This growth has been due, in large part, to CNCine’s
support for script development, production, post-production and distribution
of feature films, short films, animation and films made for television. CNCine
has also provided support for film festivals across the country and internation-
ally, and for filmmakers to be able to present their work in international festi-
vals. To provide an example of the scale of funding over several years: $700,000

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Diana Coryat | Noah Zweig

14. This list covers was awarded in both 2012 and 2013; in 2014 this figure markedly increased to
the most notable
programmes; there
$2,200,800. The following year there was a 19 per cent reduction to $1,800,000
are several other (El Telegrafo, 4 March 2015).
universities and Another element that is fueling this audio-visual explosion has been the
institutes that offer
filmmaking courses. burgeoning interest of young people and subsequent professionalization of
the field. If the filmmakers of the 1990s and the early 2000s were self-taught,
or studied abroad in Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, various European countries and
the United States, Ecuadorian film schools are now educating a new gener-
ation of aspirants. Between 1996 and 2014 four universities established film
programmes and one film institute was created: the San Francisco University
of Quito (1996), the University of Cuenca (2010), the University of the
Americas (2012) (Quito), the University of the Arts (2014) (Guayaquil), which
is Ecuador’s first public film school, and INCINE, the Superior Technological
Institute of Cinema and Acting (2005) (Quito).14

Popular themes in New Ecuadorian Cinema

Filmmaker and CNCine’s former Executive Director Juan Martín Cueva argues
that ‘if one speaks of themes, styles or form, it is clear that [New Ecuadorian
Cinema] is not homogeneous and does not pursue that objective; it is distin-
guished by its diversification’ (Andes.Info 2013). Similarly, Ecuadorian film
scholar Christian León suggests that identifying Ecuadorian cinema remains a
tall order insofar as ‘it is a cinema absolutely emergent in the sense that we do
not have a tradition’ (Andes.Info 2013). Yet, although New Ecuadorian Cinema
is as diverse as the country itself, our analysis offers broad categories, suggests
some of its unifying themes and notes historical, systemic exclusions. To briefly
recap our theoretical framework, we argue that New Ecuadorian Cinema is
small, glocal and plurinational: ‘small’ describes the cinematic landscape of
production and circulation; ‘glocal’ mainly refers to the urban mestizo fiction-
alized narratives that compete in national and international film markets; and
‘plurinational’ points to the various modalities of filmmaking that do not fit
into the urban mestizo narratives. These are the smaller spheres of cinematic
activity (small cinemas within a small cinema) that reflect different ethno-
racial and cultural groups not well represented in the mestizo narratives.
These include indigenous filmmaking, documentary and activist filmmaking,
and the so-called cine guerrilla (underground filmmaking). In this section we
analyse several of these cinemas.
Many of the ‘glocal’ urban mestizo fictionalized narratives explore some
aspect of the past, oftentimes from the memories of the filmmakers them-
selves, and as such feature young mestizo protagonists. UIO: Sácame a pasear
(‘UIO: Take me for a Ride’) (Rueda, 2016) depicts a lesbian romance among
teens in the country’s capital. Feriado (‘Holiday’) (Araujo, 2014), whose main
character is a teenage Quiteño boy, pensively looks at Ecuador’s tumultuous
period in the late 1990s when the country underwent a banking crisis that was
resolved by the dollarization of the country’s currency. Ochentasiete (‘Eighty
seven’) (Andrade and Hoeneisen, 2014) presents a young man returning to
his native Quito after fifteen years away to confront his haunted past.
Another tendency is the examination of events of the last century, when
the country had next to no cinematic tradition, thus leaving an endless reser-
voir of storytelling ideas for twenty-first-century filmmakers. Monos y Gallinas
(‘Monkeys and chickens’) (León, 2013) recounts the Ecuadorian-Peruvian

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

war of 1941 from the perspective of a teenage soldier who is captured as a

prisoner-of-war. Fictional twentieth-century writer Marcelo Chiriboga
(1933–90), fabricated by filmmaker Javier Izquierdo, is the subject of the film
Un secreto en la caja (‘A secret in the box’) (2016), ultimately a pretext to explore
Ecuador’s overlooked twentieth-century literary tradition. As these exam-
ples suggest, the past becomes an expedient tool for glocal cinema as they
are accessible to international audiences and younger Ecuadorian moviegoers
alike, unfamiliar with this literature and these historical contexts.

Documentary and activist filmmaking

Some of the most well-received films both nationally and internationally
are feature-length documentaries that have explored historical memory
and contested political issues of the recent past. Such films have enjoyed a
robust reception among Ecuadorian audiences. They include the critically
acclaimed La muerte de Jaime Roldós (‘The death of Jaime Roldós’) (Sarmiento
and Rivera, 2013), about the first democratically elected president following
military rule, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1981, and the inter-
nationally successful documentary Con mi corazón en Yambo (‘With my heart
in Yambo’) (Fernanda Restrepo, 2011), an investigation into corrupt authori-
ties under authoritarian rule who covered up information about the abduc-
tion of two Quiteño teenagers in 1988. These two films have been favourites,
in that they are at once deeply personal and well-researched pieces that
provide fresh perspectives to dark moments in history. Another historically
based documentary El secreto de la luz (‘Blomberg’s secrets’) (Barriga and
Ortega, 2014) considers the life of Swedish explorer Rolf Blomberg (1912–
96), who had documented Ecuador through film and photography.
Pocho Álvarez, one of the founders of ASOCINE, and considered one of
Ecuador’s most important and beloved documentarians, has made dozens of
films on a wide range of social and political themes. Many of his films have
documented citizen struggles against Ecuador’s extractive industries, includ-
ing A cielo abierto, derechos minados (‘In the open sky: Undermining rights’)
(2009), about civil society resistance to big mining, and Javier con I, Íntag
(2015), a documentary about environmentalist leader Javier Ramírez. Álvarez’
films are often screened in non-commercial theatres, and in national and
international film festivals. Julian Larrea Aria and Tania Laurini, filmmakers
based in the Amazon, have produced documentaries about conflicts between
the Shuar nationality and the Ecuadorian government such as Por qué murió
Bosco Wisum (‘Why did Bosco Wisum die?’) (2012).
In addition to these painstakingly crafted feature-length documentaries
that require higher budgets and longer production periods, activist filmmak-
ers and audio-visual collectives have been producing shorter videos designed
for more rapid intervention in public debates and policy issues. These film-
makers, which include mestizo, afro and indigenous makers, like journalists
and social movement actors, run the risk of harassment by the government.
Resistir es mi Derecho (I have a right to resist) is an Internet-based campaign
that features personal testimonies that chronicle stories of abuse and criminal-
ization of indigenous leaders, students, ecologists and human rights defend-
ers. This kind of audio-visual activism has been expanding in recent years,
made possible because of greater access and ease of use of digital technologies
to produce and circulate work over the Internet.

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15. In Ecuador cine Plurinational and regional cinemas

comunitario is a
cinematographic genre There is a plethora of emergent small cinemas that reflect the ethnic, regional
that is distinguished and cultural diversity of Ecuador that are vying for recognition and resources.
from community
media, which often Given that such diversity has been constitutionally recognized, these groups
refers to radio and also have a legal leg to stand on, just as the government has a mandate to
television production.
provide these groups with access to self-representation. This section analyses
issues associated with cine guerrilla, indigenous filmmaking and community-
based filmmaking, three distinct modes of production.

Cine guerrilla (Chonewood)

One type of Ecuadorian filmmaking that provides a stark contrast to New
Ecuadorian Cinema is the violent, exploitative, shoestring budget guerrilla
cinema, based in the coastal town of Chone, located in the Manabí province.
‘Chonewood’ is probably most associated with its charismatic practitioner
Fernando Cedeño, who has been called the ‘Ecuadorian Tarantino’ (Zibell
2013) and like Tarantino, directs, produces and acts in his films. Cedeño, who
considers himself among the founders of the so-called cine guerrilla (some
filmmakers familiar with Latin American militant cinema reject the term guer-
rilla for this genre of moviemaking), states that this counter cinema began in
1994 with the release of his action, suspense film En busca del tesoro perdido
(‘Search for the lost treasure’). Explaining the significance of this cinematic
genre, Cedeño comments, ‘This is ‘cine guerrilla’ because we are outside of the
rules, the laws and because professional actors would never accept to work
under our conditions’ (Programa 33 2014). As the case of guerrilla cinema indi-
cates, not all of this filmmaking is glocal, inasmuch as Chonewood is mostly
consumed by regional audiences. When Cedeño showed his work at the New
York Ecuadorian Film Festival several years ago, it stirred controversy among
Ecuadorians about what kind of films should represent Ecuador. Más allá del
Mall (‘Somewhere beyond the mall’) (Alvear, 2010) is perhaps the first cine-
matic attempt to reflect on the struggles of Ecuadorian filmmakers, including
those producing ‘cine guerrilla’.

Community-based filmmaking
Cine comunitario15 or community-based filmmaking in Ecuador is in its infancy,
especially when compared to similar initiatives in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Colombia and Peru, where there has been much more training, infrastruc-
ture and funding for this mode of production. The recently formed Red de
Cine Comunitario en America Latina y El Caribe (the network of community
filmmaking in Latin America and the Caribbean), a loosely organized group
of community filmmaking initiatives in these and other countries (including
Ecuador), has conceptualized this mode of production as a collective and hori-
zontal practice in which communities appropriate audio-visual tools to repre-
sent themselves and make visible their realities.
Until recently, most makers of cine comunitario in Ecuador have been
indigenous (Álvarez 2014). Contemporary indigenous filmmakers include
Eriberto Gualinga, from the Amazonia Kichwa Sarayaku people. He has
directed several short films, among them Children of the Jaguar (2012), that
chronicle his community’s fight against oil-drilling in their territories and their
philosophy of Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest). While this mode of filmmaking
is often thought of as only indigenous in Ecuador (as indigenous pueblos are

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

often referred to as communities), there are also urban youth collectives that 16. It is important to note
that Afro Ecuadorians
have begun to produce and facilitate the production of community films. In are one of Ecuador’s
2015, El Churo, a collective of young mestizos from Quito that mainly worked pueblos, although
in community radio, founded an itinerant community filmmaking school, Ojo production by Afro
Ecuadorians is minimal,
Semilla, that has since had several intensive residencies and gatherings. The even more so than
response from a diverse array of indigenous, afro and mestizo groups across other smaller cinemas.
Ecuador has been overwhelmingly positive. While the films coming out of this 17. Indigenous films must
genre lack budgets and are often made by citizens making their first films, we be distinguished from
argue that down the road, with proper investment, community filmmaking ‘indigenist’ films, with
the latter made about
can significantly broaden the scope of New Ecuadorian Cinema. Collectively but not by indigenous
produced films coming out of Ojo Semilla include documentary portraits of makers.
indigenous artists and musicians in the indigenous village Peguche, fictional-
ized narratives about the exclusion of women in traditionally male occupa-
tions and a music video by indigenous women from the Saraguro community
that changes the lyrics of a popular local song to reflect on machismo. Again,
looking to Colombia as an example, there are many community filmmak-
ing initiatives whose intimate documentary and fiction portrayals of diverse
communities have been widely seen and have garnered important awards and
recognitions (Montes de María and El Colectivo Mejoda to name just two).
Colombia is also the home of several community film festivals such as Ojo al
Sancocho in Ciudad Bolivar.

Indigenous filmmaking
Although cine indígena, also referred to as cine de los pueblos y nacionalidades
(films of peoples and nationalities16), has remained small-scale and invisibi-
lized, it is not a recent phenomenon.17 Indigenous makers began to produce
films in the 1990s, although like other kinds of Ecuadorian films, only a hand-
ful were made before 2006 (Gómez 2014). Eliana Champutiz, an indigenous
filmmaker, argues that there have been three moments in indigenous film-
making in Ecuador: the ‘old guard’, those who were self-taught or learned from
mestizos; the second generation, who also ‘learned by doing’ and that were
guided by those with more experience; and a third generation that has had
access to technical and academic education. For Champutiz, ‘film is the possi-
bility to say, do and show how we see and how we feel’ (El Telegrafo, 16 March
2015). Now, this important arena of cultural production is professionalizing,
and is being led, in part, by young indigenous women. There are an increas-
ing number of indigenous filmmakers who have been able to attend both
film schools and graduate school, and so we expect to see not only more
indigenous-made films but also indigenous intellectual production about
cine indígena in the near future. Moreover, cine indígena is being produced in
different regions by indigenous makers of ethnically and culturally distinct
groups (although cine indígena is dominated by the Kichwa of the highlands).
In addition to filmmakers working in Quito and Otavalo (an indigenous city
two hours north of Quito), there are films emerging from many other regions.
To provide an idea of how this smaller cinema sphere is expanding, Alberto
Muenala has cited the existence of over 50 indigenous collectives (Medina
Uribe 2015). In 2015, 35 films (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental
and music video) made by Ecuadorian indigenous makers were screened over
five days at the Kikinyari (a Kichwa term that means identity) Indigenous Film
and Video Festival. This project, along with several films within it, and a travel-
ling component, were funded in part by CNCine.

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18. Not all indigenous Tensions in intercultural and plurinational funding

filmmakers identify
as ‘community’ Indigenous and community filmmakers have advocated for more state fund-
filmmakers as ing to develop these modes of production.18 CNCine has sought, albeit
many work in more
conventional modes partially and not always successfully, to build an intercultural film sector. In
of production. its own words, ‘Ecuadorian film is a complex tangle of contradictory realities,
Both camps agree
that ‘community’
diverse practices and multiple positions to such a degree that it is indispen-
and ‘indigenous’ sable to speak in the plural of the cines that are made in Ecuador’ (CNCine
filmmaking overlap in 2015). At one point CNCine did use ‘community’ and ‘indigenous’ filmmak-
many ways, but should
not be conflated. ing as the same, but after much dialogue with practitioners of both, it imple-
mented a new funding category, intercultural production, which included
a broader concept and more categories. That year, funds were disbursed,
but the jury (none of them indigenous filmmakers from Ecuador) awarded
substantially fewer funds than the minimum amount set by CNCine. In what
was considered a controversial move, the jury returned $73,000 to CNCine
due to a lack of projects that they felt merited the award. In total, $127,000
was awarded among nine beneficiaries, with each one receiving between
$7,000 and $25,000 (El Telegrafo, 21 June 2015). Eliana Champutiz, member
of Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Pueblos and Nationalities
(CORPANP), responded that the jury used traditional film criteria, without
taking into account that they ‘are in the process of constructing audio-visual
narratives, other ways to do and think about film’ (El Telégrafo, 21 June 2015).
CNCine subsequently spent those funds on capacity-building workshops
to filmmakers who applied to the Intercultural Film category. This series of
events foregrounded many issues, including who should decide on the selec-
tion criteria and quality of indigenous film projects and how can the proposal
process be made more accessible to non-traditional filmmakers who have
less experience with the proposal writing process or formal film training. The
larger issue, how to truly foster intercultural filmmaking, remains a formida-
ble challenge. Unfortunately, in 2016, CNCine’s funding was drastically cut
and it had to eliminate most funding categories. With institutional changes in
process, including the conversion of CNCine to an institute, there has been
no new project funding for indigenous and community filmmaking.

Cultivating new producers and audiences

Whether or not one calls it a ‘boom’, the Ecuadorian film sector has had great
success jumpstarting this cultural field in less than a decade. This article has
analysed some of the key accomplishments of the sector in the past decade,
and has also raised some of the challenges that it faces. Moving forward, the
sector needs to identify new sources of financing as state funding decreases;
cultivate new makers and new audiences within a more intercultural and
plurinational film ecology; and adapt to a new media environment in all
phases of the production cycle. Indeed, these are issues that small cinemas
across the globe face, even with quota laws. While all of these issues require a
careful analysis, we only touch briefly on each of them and turn our focus to
the interrelated questions of cultivating new producers and audiences.
With respect to financing, in the first place, the current film law did not
specify how funds are to be derived; rather, film financing is dependent on the
political will of the government. The will and the funds were there for several
years. However, in 2015, an economic crisis set in, principally due to the drop
in oil prices that impacted this OPEC nation in particular, and CNCine’s
budget was drastically reduced. Current proposals from the film sector include

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 New Ecuadorian cinema

the creation of tax incentives to promote private investment; the creation of a

film board to attract foreign productions; and the taxing of commercial exhi-
bition. These reforms are consistent with strategies of other small cinemas in
Latin America and elsewhere (Fuertes 2014). Also, in the last several years,
filmmakers have begun to assertively seek out crowd-sourced dollars, corpo-
rate sponsors, co-production deals and other international funding streams.
Second, the problem of national film exhibition is multifaceted. Although
the movie screen is not the sole marker of success in the digital age,
Ecuadorian multiplexes remain dominated by Hollywood fare. The difficult
truth is that after much investment on the part of filmmakers and CNCine,
audience numbers have steadily declined after the excitement that was gener-
ated when La tigra (‘Tiger’) (Luzuriaga, 1989) and Qué Tan Lejos (‘How much
further’)? (Hermida, 2006) came out. La tigra remains the highest grossing
Ecuadorian film among domestic audiences, with 250,000 spectators upon
its initial release (Donoso 2012), and Qué tan lejos had 230,000. A generation
later, Mejor no hablar (de ciertas cosas) (‘Better not talk about certain things’)
(Andrade, 2012), a relatively popular film, sold 53,000 tickets. In fact, of the
fifteen national films screened in commercial theatres between 2006 and 2012,
510,000 tickets were sold. In 2012, of the fourteen million movie tickets sold,
only 1.4 per cent of audiences showed up for national films (Chávez 2014).
Putting these numbers in context, while Latin American cinemas vary from
large industries to fledging artisanal endeavours, all face similar conditions
such as the high concentration of screens and audiences, tastes formed by
Hollywood and the necessity to adapt to a new media environment to effec-
tively produce, distribute and exhibit films. Even in Latin American countries
such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, where up to fifty feature films might
be produced in a year, these films garner at best 25 per cent of the market,
with most Latin American films garnering around 10 per cent of the market
(Fuertes 2014).
A related issue is who has access to movie theatres, both in terms of afforda-
bility and in terms of where they live. CNCine’s former Executive Director Cueva
maintains that the state needs to think about widening the narrow space that is
commercial exhibition, and develop an alternative circuit to bring film program-
ming via television and Internet. CNCine has also conducted audits of alter-
native screens across the country, and has funded regional film festivals, and
innovative exhibition strategies, and so it is not as if efforts have not been made.
At the same time, many Ecuadorians argue that the European auteur
style of many of the films, the scripts and the acting do not resonate with the
majority of the population, and that what needs to change are the films them-
selves (Cueva 2015). In a telling statement, María Eugenia Báez, Coordinator
of the Colibrí Awards (Ecuador’s Oscars), asserts that

there have to be Ecuadorian films with which one can be entertained

and eat popcorn, as well as auteur cinema with intimate stories and
strong conflicts. The problem is that we are forgetting about commer-
cial cinema, but we can’t be closed to it because we are competing with
Hollywood.
(IEPI, 6 May 2015)

If some of the work coming out of the film schools is any indication, some
of these younger filmmakers are steering away from the auteur style and are
focused on thrillers, action films and other more commercial kinds of cinema.

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Another critique that is less visible in the Ecuadorian media, but that
circulates among indigenous, regional and community filmmakers, is that
Ecuadorian audiences would like to see their lives reflected on the screen. The
first feature-length Kichwa-language film Killa (Muenala, 2017) has done very
well in smaller cinema spaces, including in the Sierra canton Otavalo, where
the majority of the population is indigenous. It also enjoyed a run in commer-
cial cinemas. When Ojo Semilla, the itinerant community film school, screens
films made by communities, the screening venues have been packed. So, rather
than reduce this complex issue to an either or (auteur films vs commercial-
style films), we propose that more state and private funds be invested in
fostering regional initiatives. In 2016, Colombia’s Film Board targeted funding
for regional film institutes that seek to professionalize local makers. Similarly,
we advocate for the disbursement of more funds for students and profession-
als that propose projects in their own provinces and communities. Ultimately,
we argue that New Ecuadorian Cinema needs to continually find ways to
bring in more kinds of makers and audiences.

Conclusion
This article poses questions about what constitutes a ‘national cinema’ in
an enormously diverse, regionalist small country such as Ecuador at a time
when the media ecosystem is increasingly cluttered with competition. But we
remain optimistic in the case that we make for a small nation jumpstarting
a film sector in the first quarter of the twenty-first century when there is so
much free and low-cost access to foreign content, principally from Hollywood.
We make such an argument in the way in which we characterize the emergent
Ecuadorian film sector as a cluster of cinema spheres. Among them the glocal-
ized small cinema, which typically recounts the urban mestizo experience,
aimed at the festival circuit; the investigative, journalistic political documenta-
ries; and regional film movements (Chonewood, cine indígena, cine comuni-
tario, among other smaller small cinemas).
What unites these vastly different cinematic spheres is their situatedness
in the contestatory, aspirational space of plurinationalism that we have deline-
ated and analysed in the preceding pages. The decade of Correísmo (2007–17),
concurrent with the film boom, capitalized on this language and in some respects
foregrounded the disconnect between the political rhetoric and the aesthetic
reality that we have discussed here. This is emphasized not to cast blame on
filmmakers or CNCine for these cinematic shortcomings; indeed, as we have
pointed out, New Ecuadorian Cinema – a term that we define ecumenically to
encompass all of these cinema spheres – has made considerable achievements
in barely a decade. Rather we want to emphasize the long history of these strug-
gles for self-determination. Naturally, then, it should not be a surprise that for
the most part, with its propensity for glocalized urban mestizo fictionalized
narratives, New Ecuadorian Cinema struggles to project a more inclusive sense
of Ecuadorianidad. It has inherited the same colonial legacies of institutional
racism, classism, sexism and homophobia that have plagued much of Latin
America and the world – the struggle against which remains a tall order.
Finally, another key contribution of this article is a recontextualization of the
concept of minor, what we call ‘small’, cinema. During the twentieth century,
minor cinemas were often tied to national-liberation movements, such as the
case with third cinema. By contrast, twenty-first-century Ecuadorian cinemas
are translocal and transnational. The theoretical frameworks that we have put

280   International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics

 New Ecuadorian cinema

forward around this film sector – small cinemas, glocalism and plurinationalism –
offer a roadmap for studying this deep tapestry of small cinemas within
smaller cinemas, these wheels within wheels. 

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Lizardo Herrera, Christian León and Alvaro Muriel for their
comments.

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Suggested citation
Coryat, D. and Zweig, N. (2017), ‘New Ecuadorian cinema: Small, glocal
and plurinational’, International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 13:3,
pp. 265–85, doi: 10.1386/macp.13.3.265_1

284   International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics

 New Ecuadorian cinema

Contributor details
Diana Coryat (Ph.D.) is a research professor of film in the Department of
Communication and Audiovisual Arts at the University of the Americas
(Ecuador). Her research interests include Latin America cinema, community
media and how the mediated and artistic practices of social movements shape
social imaginaries. She is the co-founder of Global Action Project (www.
global-action.org), and has been a recipient of a Fulbright fellowship that
allowed her to engage in pedagogy exchanges with community media groups
in Colombia.
Contact: Facultad de Comunicación y Artes Audiovisuales, Universidad de
las Américas, Sede UDLA Park, Vía a Nayón, Quito El Inca 170901, Quito,
Ecuador.
E-mail: [email protected]

Noah Zweig (Ph.D.) is a research professor of film in the Department of

Communication and Audiovisual Arts at the University of the Americas
(Ecuador). His research interests include contemporary Andean cinema and
Latin American media. He is author of the recent article ‘Televising the revo-
lution as cultural policy: Bolivarian state broadcasting as nation-building’ and
the forthcoming ‘Rethinking the Caudillismo Mediático: Chavismo and ‘spec-
tacular modernity’. He was recently a juror at the second annual International
Film Festival of Quito.
Contact: Facultad de Comunicación y Artes Audiovisuales, Universidad de
las Américas, Sede UDLA Park, Vía a Nayón, Quito El Inca 170901, Quito,
Ecuador.
E-mail: [email protected]

Diana Coryat and Noah Zweig have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in
the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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Journalism Re-examined
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