Film Studies

A Section of the Latin American Studies Association

Awards

Film Studies Section Awards 2024

Early Career Award 2024

Dr. Olivia Cosentino, Zemurray-Stone Post-Doctoral Fellow

Stone Center for Latin American Studies

Tulane University

Since receiving her Ph.D. in Spanish (Latin American Cultural & Literary Studies) from The Ohio State University in 2020, Dr. Olivia Cosentino has established an outstanding publication record and active scholarly presence in the field of Latin American Film Studies. Over the past four years, Cosentino’s scholarship on 20th and 21st-century Mexican cinema and culture includes a co-edited book, several book chapters, and three peer-reviewed articles published in leading venues for Film and Media Studies research, including Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas. Dr. Cosentino’s article “Slower Cinema: Violence, Affect, and Spectatorship in Las elegidas” (Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Spring 2021) and her book chapter “Un cine familiar: Recovering the 1980s Mexican Family Film” (In The Lost Cinema of Mexico: From Lucha Libre to Cine Familiar and Other Churros, edited by Olivia Cosentino and Brian Price, University of Florida Press, 2022) demonstrate the different ways she brings contemporary and historical Mexican cinemas into dialogue with the broader field of Film and Media Studies. Cosentino’s research deftly combines close cinematographic analysis with current discussions about transnational cinemas, filmic violence, affect and spectatorship, while also bringing attention to lesser-known filmmakers and genres within the Mexican film and media industries. Finally, Dr. Cosentino’s CV demonstrates a commitment to sharing her research within and beyond LASA’s scholarly community through conference presentations in Spanish and English at national and international congresses, film moderation and discussions, and public-facing podcasts and blogs.

Best Article or Book Chapter 2024

Dr. Carolyn Fornoff

Assistant Professor

Department of Romance Studies

Cornell University

Dr. Carolyn Fornoff is an Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University. She is the co-editor of two volumes in the environmental humanities: Timescales: Thinking Across Ecological Temporalities (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and Pushing Past the Human in Latin American Cinema (SUNY Press, 2021), and recently published her first book titled Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Culture in the Era of Climate Change (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024). Dr. Fornoff’s argues in her article “Greening Mexican Cinema” (in Ecocinema Theory and Practice 2, 2023) that studies of ecocinema in Latin America cannot be based solely on issues of representation, but rather have to take into account its materiality and the way in which many film industries, and the Mexican one in particular, have been directly dependent on oil profits. Making ecodocumentaries cannot be only about how Latin American landscapes have been destroyed by the fossil fuel industry, but also about how cinema in itself has a history of contributing to greenhouse gasses that have accelerated climate change. What does “greening” Mexican cinema mean, then? Dr. Fornoff uses two case studies to respond to this question: first the YouTube web series called “El Tema” (“The Issue”) hosted by Yásnaya Aguilar Gil and film star Gael García Bernal, which highlighted in 2021 and in the eco-documentary style, how Mexican society is impacted by “the issue” of the 21st century: climate change. And second, the eco-mobile exhibition group Cine Móvil ToTo in Mexico, that serves as a post-carbon example of a “green” mobile cinema energized by solar panels and bicycles. Dr. Fornoff uses “El Tema” and Cine Móvil ToTo to beautifully reflect on the biggest issues facing Mexican cinema today, as well as alternative proposals for a post-carbon future while highlighting the contradictions within their projects. Overall, her thorough analysis sheds light into what needs to be taken into account when imagining a “green” future in the Mexican cinematic context.

• “Greening Mexican Cinema.” Ecocinema Theory and Practice 2, edited by Stephen Rust, Selma Monani, and Seán Cubitt, Routledge, 2023, pp. 34-51.

Travel Grants 2024

Francisco Huichaqueo, Mariana Sabino Salazar, y María del Carmen Valdez

Films Studies (2018-2019)

 

Premio al Mejor Ensayo

Winner: Irene Depetris Chauvin

Universidad de Buenos Aires CONICET

Mirar, escuchar, tocar. Políticas y poéticas de archivo en Tierra Sola (2017) de Tiziana Panizza Travel Awards: Olivia Consentino Sandra Del valle Casals

Premio al Mejor Ensayo de un/a Estudiante Graduad@

Winner: Nicolás Suárez

Universidad de Buenos Aires CONICET

Movimiento y proyección en el matadero del cine argentino: Martín Fierro (1923) de Alfredo Quesada

Chair of subcommittee: Charles St-Georges
Members of the subcommittee: Jo Pertkiewicz, Dr. Vania Barraza


Premio de Investigador/a Joven

Winner: Marie-Eve Monette

The University of Alabama

Trayectoria profesional como investigadora en el área de Cine Latinoamericano

Chair of subcommittee: Zulema Moret
Members of the subcommittee: Carolina Rocha


Travel Awards:

Olivia Consentino

Sandra Del Valle Casals

Chair of subcommittee: Jo Pertkiewicz
Members of the subcommittee: Anita Simis, Charles St-Georges

 

Films Studies (2017-2018)


Best Essay Awards
"Playing in Public: Domestic politics and prosthetic memory in Paula Markovich's El Premio/The Prize (2011)" -- Geoffrey Maguire, Cambridge University


"Cruzando el Atlántico: cine argentino en España" --Leandro R. González, Universidad de Buenos Aires


Chair of subcommittee: Michelle Farrell
Members of the subcommittee: Jo Pertkiewicz, Dr. Vania Barraza, Anita Simis


Travel Awards:


Jorge Sala, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina jorgesala82@hotmail.com Accepted


Anabella Castro Avelleyra, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina anabella.castro.a@gmail.com Declined


Chair of sub-committee: Dr. Vania Barraza
Other members: Anita Simis, Jo Pertkiewicz, Valentina Zvierkova