Mexicans in Nicaragua: Revolution and propaganda in Sandinista documentaries of the University Center for Cinematographic Studies (CUEC-UNAM)

Abstract

Film production played a decisive role in the Nicaraguan Revolution. During the preparation of the 1979 Ofensiva Final (Final Offensive), the Sandinistas clearly understood the need to produce audio-visual documents that would serve as testimony and political propaganda of this historic moment. To do so, they sought the support of internationalist filmmakers among whom a group of Mexicans were most prominent. This article focuses on materials on the Sandinista Revolution preserved at the film archive of the University Center for Cinematographic Studies (CUEC) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). It analyses them in relation to the role of left-wing film internationalism in political documentary in Latin America and builds an ‘other’ history of a Mexican film institution that in the 1970s was uniquely politicized as a result of the 1968 Mexican student movement and, later, the influence of Latin American exiles. As a particular case study, this article rescues one of the key figures of Mexican internationalism during the Sandinista Revolution, Adrián Carrasco Zanini Molina, and the role of Mexican filmmakers in the creation of institutions dedicated to film production in Nicaragua such as the Nicaraguan Film Institute (INCINE).