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The Latin American Mockumentary: The Case of Colombian Filmmaker

Rivera-Morales, Carlos Omar (2024) The Latin American Mockumentary: The Case of Colombian Filmmaker. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This dissertation offers a novel approach to the mockumentary—a fiction film that at first glance appears to be a documentary and is also called mock-documentary and fake documentary among other names—by exploring the works of Colombian filmmaker Luis Ospina (1949-2019), one of a handful of Latin American filmmakers to make mockumentaries. In the case of Luis Ospina’s works and Colombia’s internal armed conflict (1964 to the present), the mockumentary unearths memories of trauma and decenters documentary narratives on the “truth” of poverty through what I call “mockumentary confabulation.” Mockumentary confabulation constructs stories that blur the past and the present, the virtual and the actual. In this “blurring” of true and not-necessarily-true timelines and memories emerge stories that suggest an alternative account of the past and the present behind the so-called only “truthful” narration. Such stories are created and sustained by a community of forgers who are part of the storytelling and filmmaking process. The community of forgers consists of “real characters” or social actors who are transformed in a passage from a before to an after. The community of forgers has one foot in the real and another in the imaginary, undergoing transformations depending on the story told. Mockumentary confabulation, then, is not divorced from the real but is very much constitutive of it. Instead, mockumentary confabulation immerses viewers in the interplay of the real and the imaginary, the crystallization of the actual and the virtual where the two become indiscernible. No single narrative in such a situation takes precedence over the other as a result, allowing for other stories to materialize.

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Details

Item Type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Rivera-Morales, Carlos Omarcor20@pitt.educor20
ETD Committee:
TitleMemberEmail AddressPitt UsernameORCID
Committee CoChairLamana, Gonzalolamana@pitt.edu
Committee CoChairMajumdar, Neepanmajumda@pitt.du
Committee MemberClift, Robertrobertclift@pitt.edu
Committee MemberSotomayor-Miletti, Aurea Mariaams389@pitt.edu
Date: 27 August 2024
Date Type: Publication
Defense Date: 19 April 2024
Approval Date: 27 August 2024
Submission Date: 15 July 2024
Access Restriction: 2 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 2 years.
Number of Pages: 171
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Schools and Programs: Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Hispanic Languages and Literatures
Degree: PhD - Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis Type: Doctoral Dissertation
Refereed: Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords: Mockumentary, Latin America, Cinema, Confabulation, Documentary
Date Deposited: 27 Aug 2024 13:27
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2024 13:27
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46764

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