A cinema industry without spectators: Theorizing about the public for the New Latin American Cinema in the sixties

Thorough studies on the New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s have mostly focused on issues such as ideology (a militant cinema), aesthetics (a cinema of poverty) and form (an imperfect cinema). However, a reflection upon the audience developed by the filmmakers has been strangely overlooked. This article aims to theorize on the public, thus rescuing one of the most under-researched aspects of this cinema. Through a critical reading of some texts such as manifestos, interviews and films, this work explores how this movement conceived of the public and the originality this perspective has brought to film history. The spectator was defined as an actor committed to the political changes that Cuban revolution inspired in the region, a spectator who was closer to the conflicts of his/her own historical time than to the comfort of the cinema seat.