Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America

Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America was a major curatorial and research project dedicated to the history and contemporary practice of experimental filmmaking across Latin America. Presented by Los Angeles Filmforum in 2017 as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative, the project was led by Luciano Piazza as Project Director and Co-Curator, alongside Jesse Lerner as Artistic Director and Co-Curator.

Developed through an extensive programme of screenings, research and archival investigation, Ism, Ism, Ism brought together experimental moving-image works from across Latin America and its diasporas, spanning practices from the early twentieth century to contemporary film and video. The programme explored diverse approaches including abstraction, surrealism, found footage, underground and countercultural cinema, political filmmaking, queer and feminist practices, experimental documentary and material approaches to film.

The project challenged conventional histories of experimental cinema by foregrounding artists, movements and practices frequently excluded from dominant Euro-American accounts of the avant-garde. Rather than presenting Latin American experimental film as a single tradition, it traced a complex network of aesthetic, political and cultural exchanges across different countries, historical periods and media.

Piazza and Lerner also co-edited the accompanying bilingual publication, Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America / Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine Experimental en América Latina, published by the University of California Press in 2017. Bringing together new scholarship, archival documents and historical texts, the publication provides an important resource for the study of Latin American experimental and artists’ moving-image practices.