Towards a Global and Decentralised History of Film Cultures: Networks of Exchange among Ibero-American Film Clubs (1924–1958)

This chapter contributes to a decentralised global film history that pays attention to units of analysis that go beyond the national framework in order to analyse cross-border phenomena that result in so far overlooked movements and networks. We aim at addressing the following issues: (1) the idea of multiple film cultures (Navitski, 2017) and the pressing need to abandon a focus on innovative centres and imitative peripheries (Roig-Sanz, D., & Meylaerts, R., Literary translation and cultural mediators in “peripheral” cultures: Customs officers or smugglers?. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). We propose a comparative and decentralised approach that sheds light into these neglected cinematic experiences, and that will theoretically reflect upon a large-scale context and the idea of networks of exchange, and (2) Ibero-American film clubs as an outstanding example of these processes of cultural transfer (Espagne, M., Revue Sciences/Lettres 1, 2013) and cultural mediation. A relational perspective will help us to trace the multiple networks that shaped film-club phenomena in Ibero-America in the first half of the twentieth century.