Third Cinema

Solanas and Getino's manifesto considers 'First Cinema' to be the Hollywood production model that idealizes bourgeois values to a passive audience through escapist spectacle and individual characters.

Solanas and Getino strongly argue that traditional exhibition models also should not be used: the films should be screened clandestinely, both in order to dodge censorship and commercial networks, but also so that the viewer must take a risk to see them.

The authors cite the Imperfect Cinema movement in Cuba, Cinegiornali liberi in Italy, Zengakuren documentaries in Japan as proof that it is already happening.

Because of this paradox of subversion but need for distinctions between commodified rebellion and "the cinema of revolution", Solanas and Getino recognize that film-makers must function like a guerilla unit, one that "cannot grow strong without military structures and command concepts.

"[6] The authors also recognize that the difficulties encountered by those attempting to make revolutionary cinema will stem mainly from its need to work as a synchronized unit.

Claiming that the only solution to these difficulties is common awareness of the basics of interpersonal relationships, Solanas and Getino go further to state that "The myth of the irreplaceable technicians must be exploded.

This condition—based on the fact that monetary support will be slim and come mainly from the group itself—also requires that members of the guerilla-film unit be wary and maintain an amount of silence not custom to conventional film-making.

"The success of the work depends [on]…permanent wariness, a condition that is difficult to achieve in a situation in which apparently nothing is happening and the film-maker has been accustomed to telling all…because the bourgeoisie has trained him precisely on such a basis of prestige and promotion.

Using their own experience with La Hora de los Hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces), Solanas and Getino share that the most intellectually profitable showings were followed by group discussions.

The following elements (Solanas and Getino even refer to them as mise en scène) that "reinforce the themes of the films, the climate of the showing, the 'disinhibiting' of the participants, and the dialogue":[6]

Our truth, that of the new man who builds himself by getting rid of all the defects that still weigh him down, is a bomb of inexhaustible power and, at the same time, the only real possibility of life.

"[6]Third Cinema manifestos and theories evolved in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to the social, political, and economic realities in Latin American countries which were experiencing oppression from Neo-colonial policies.

This style of filmmaking includes a radical form of production, distribution and exhibition that seeks to expose the living conditions of people at the grassroots level.

"[9]Along with the advancement and availability of technology, and the revolutionary tactics proposed by Third Cinema, third-worldist feminist film-makers began to tell their own stories.

"[10] Notable films include Sarah Maldoror's Sambizanga (Mozambique, 1972) which takes place in Angola where a woman awakens to "revolutionary consciousness" to the struggle of the ruling party the MPLA.

Sara Gómez's De cierta manera (One Way or Another) epitomizes Third Cinema's involvement in the intersection of fiction and documentary as it gives a feminist critique of the Cuban revolution.

Third Cinema attempted to unite Third World populations experiencing oppression, focusing on Central America, Africa and Asia (Ivo, 2018).

While many a filmmaker have deemed the movement antiquated and not of progressive value, experts re-envision the Third Cinema as an object of analysis (Dixon & Zonn, 2005).

The result of this conference was the publication of Questions of Third Cinema by many authors, which failed to include contributors from Latin America and even Solanas and Getino themselves.