Introduction: Cinemas of Memory

This chapter describes the aims, theoretical framework and structure of the book. As explained here, one of the goals of this study is to move beyond a national framework for remembering and to adopt, instead, a transnational approach that sheds new light on ways in which mnemonic discourses about South American dictatorships move across and beyond borders, whether these are national, cultural or linguistic. Moreover, by taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach I seek to illuminate thematic concerns in post-dictatorship cinema that have hitherto remained underexplored, for example, the rise of cross-cultural forms of solidarity, the emergence of new, hybrid identities associated with migration, exile and post-war experiences, and the enduring consequences of forced exile and transnational campaigns of state terror. Above all, such an approach allows me to identify similar patterns of strategies, practices and styles utilized by directors in South America and beyond. Finally, a transnational approach to memory also serves to draw attention to what the term appears to negate: the persistence of national forms of collective remembrance and their coexistence with transnational and transcultural tendencies. After a brief overview of the meanings of memory and the narrative approach to memory, I examine some of the main concepts that inform this study and their relevance for post-dictatorship cinema.