Introduction

Summary

In Novia que te vea (Like a Bride; Guita Schyfter, 1994), two Jewish girls growing up in Mexico City try to carve their own path in life. In Olga (Jayme Mojardim, 2004), Jewish-German Olga Benário travels to Brazil where she marries communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes, only to be deported by President Getúlio Vargas to Nazi Germany. A Jewish therapist becomes involved in a homicide investigation and eventually thwarts the plans of corrupt Argentine police officers in Tiempo de valientes (On Probation; Damián Szifrón, 2005). A Mexican photographer travels to Chile to reunite with her estranged Jewish father in El brindis (The Toast; Shai Agosin, 2007). Acné (Acne; Federico Veiroj, 2008) tells the story of a Jewish teenage boy growing up in Montevideo. Finally, in the last short of the portmanteau film Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales; Damián Szifrón, 2014), a Jewish bride takes revenge on her husband for his infidelity. These are only a handful of examples that reveal an unprecedented phenomenon in contemporary Latin American cinema, namely the growing number of films portraying Jews in leading roles. This burgeoning interest in the cinematic depiction of Jews has had a notable impact on Argentine film. Being home to approximately 250,000 Jews – making it the largest Jewish community in the region – and possessing a well-established film industry, Argentina has become one of the most prolific Latin American countries in terms of Jewish cinematic representation. Between 1983 – the year Argentina returned to civilian rule after seven years of military government – and 2018, the Argentine film industry released more than fifty films, including documentary and fiction, which either deal with various Jewish-related topics or portray Jewish characters, or both. As I write these lines, the number of portrayals of the Jewish-Argentine experience shows no signs of abating: El último traje (The Last Suit; Pablo Solarz, 2017), a film about a survivor of the Shoah who sets off on a journey from Argentina to Poland to reunite with an old friend, has recently been released in Argentina, and a fictional account on the infamous 1994 bombing of the headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), Argentina's most important Jewish community centre, is in preproduction phase.