Chilean cinema and neoliberal capitalism. Notes for a critique of political economy of film production

Abstract

During the last twenty years almost twice as many films were produced in Chile as those made throughout the twentieth century. Economic, technological and political reasons that allowed the “boom” of Chilean cinema are analyzed from a critical perspective, looking into the structural factors of this cinematographic development scheme which is functional to Chilean neoliberal economic model. I argue this cinema can be defined in its aesthetic, ethical, conceptual and theoretical dimension from the own regime of cultural production that makes it possible. As such, it can be described as anodyne in aesthetic terms, culturally conservative, ethically individualist, ideologically at the right and discursively “progressive”.