Female Agency in Films Made by Latin American Women

María Helena Rueda is a Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Smith College, USA. Her publications focus on contemporary Latin American literature and film, particularly from Colombia, Chile, and Peru.Vania Barraza is a Professor of Spanish at the University of Memphis, USA. Her publications focus on the literature and culture of Latin America, particularly Chile, with an emphasis on film, gender, and sexuality studies.

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Female Agency in Latin American Films: Women Autonomy and Empowerment Over the Patriarchal Gaze.- Part One: Agency, Perception, and the Female Gaze.- Chapter 2: Perturbed Genders in Lucrecia Martel.- Chapter 3: Memory, Disability and Space in Mafifa (Daniela Muñoz Barroso 2021).- Chapter 4: Intimate Documentaries Made by Women in Colombia: Beyond the Patriarchal Gaze.- Part Two: Queering the Gaze: Politics, Sexualities, and Female Desire.- Chapter 5: A Journey with an Expiration Date: Notes on Amnesia Letal’s Film Travesía Travesti.- Chapter 6: Reimagining the Sexual Subject: Feminist Politics and Visual Pleasure in Contemporary Argentine Cinema.- Chapter 7: Intersexuality, Polyamory, and Lesbianism in Women’s Filmmaking: Patricia Ortega’s Yo, Imposible (2018) and Ruth Caudeli’s Petit Mal (2022).- Part Three: Motherhood / Girlhood.- Chapter 8: Creating A Feminist Gaze?: Motherhood and Identity in Recent Costa Rican Cinema.- Chapter 9: Motherhood, Disappearance, and Agency in Mexican Films Made by Women: Sin señas particulares (Fernanda Valadez 2020) and La civil (Teodora Mihai 2021).- Chapter 10: “Para verte mejor”: Gaze and Aesthetics in Chilean Bildungsfilms.- Part Four: Female Affect: Care, Bonding, and Community.- Chapter 11: The Balance between Care and Self-affirmation: Disability and the Family in Latin American Film.- Chapter 12: Necronarratives, Ethics of Care, and Female Bonding in 21st Century Puerto Rican Cinema: Perfume de gardenias (2021) and La pecera (2023).- Chapter 13: Kitchen Conversation and Photographic Memory: A Focus on Female-Centered Narratives of Lineage and Liberation in Brazilian Film.- Part Five: Intersectionality, Decolonization, and Subjectivities.- Chapter 14: Making Home: Feminist Activism in Two Peruvian Audiovisual Projects.- Chapter 15: Mexican Female Filmmakers: Shifting the Representation of Indigenous Women.- Chapter 16: Pathbreakers of Peruvian Fiction Cinema.