Súper 8 contra el grano

The Super 8 format was first marketed in 1965. Its peak, between the early seventies and the mid-eighties, coincided with a global cycle of revolutions, defeats and transformations of the left, marked by the violent appearance of neoliberal policies at global level. In this context, Super 8 played a fascinatingly ambiguous role in terms of film-making practices. It played a decisive part in redefining the parameters of the political cinema that emerged from the cycle of 68, but also generated new, closer links between cultural practices, the fossil economy and the imaginative energies of expanding capitalism.

On this basis, and concentrating on a materialist approach, we have prepared a programme of six films that fundamentally explore two internal tensions in the medium. Both of them emerge from problems of scale, i.e. from the axis that runs from the small to the big: on the one hand, local issues -and local ways of dealing with them with simple film technology- and on the other global economic, political and media logics -and ways of confronting them from alternative viewpoints.

Thus, the films we present show some of the multiple facets that made Super 8 more than just a format. Whether as the protagonist of artistic experimentation seen as intervention in the public space, as a tool for a post-modern portrayal of conflicts between labour and capital, as the key to activating collective forms of organisation or as a means of expressing the different formulas for third-world internationalism, Super 8 is presented here as a key political tool in convulsive times.

This session has been suppported by PUBLICOS from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (PID2019-105800GB-I00), in collaboration with  Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola and the Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico, and the work of Milena Fiore, Laura Ibáñez and Monica Maurer.

Alberto Berzosa is a European doctor of History and Theory of Art, head of the publisher Brumaria and author of books like Cine y sexopolítica (2020) and Cámara en mano contra el franquismo (2009). He works as a member of the Estética Fósil project (CSIC) and on the management committee of Cost Action TRACTS. He recently co-published, together with Miguel Errazu the monographic issue of Secuencias. Revista de historia del cine no. 55, 2022, on "Súper 8 contra el grano" [Super 8 Against the Grain].

Miguel Errazu is a European doctor of Audiovisual Communication. His work deals with the cultural history of 20th-century alternative cinema in Mexico and Latin America. He is currently the María Zambrano postdoctoral researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and member of the Devisiones research group. He is the joint author, together with Alberto Berzosa, of the above-mentioned monograph that gives its name to this Lan programme.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Chuck Kleinhans
United States, 1979, 2 min, Super 8 transfer video, colour, English

Riotinto, una modesta experiencia de reforma educativa
Tomás Alberdi
Spain, 1973, 19 min, Super 8, colour, Spanish

Pira
Sérgio Péo
Brazil, 1972, 14 min, Super 8, colour, Portuguese

Cile, 1972
Monica Maurer
Italy & Chile, 1972, 24 min, Super 8, colour, Italian, Spanish & German

Les espagnols ont ils conquis les Andes?
Audiopradif
France, 1978, 27 min, Super 8 transfer video, colour, French & Spanish

Rank and File
Sylvia Harvey
USA, 1973, 6 min, Super 8, colour, English

All the films in this programme are exhibited in digital formats.