Jennifer Alpert, “Finding Belonging at Home: Cinematic Utopias of Jewish Integration in Argentina,” in conversation with Eitan Kensky

This talk investigates the cultural work Argentinean popular cinema performs in the aftermath of two unresolved terrorist attacks (against the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Argentinean Jewish Mutual Association in 1994) in a country that has stigmatized its Jewish people and considers them foreign. I sketch out the conventions of a growing group of films, such as Sol de otoño (Eduardo Mignona, 1996), Valentín (Alejandro Agresti, 2002), Anita (Marcos Carnevale, 2009), El último traje (Pablo Solarz, 2017), and Mazel tov (Adrián Suar, 2025), which constitute a “Jewish turn” that moves previously peripheral, stereotyped characters to the center. In a national context that has historical ties to Nazism, these nuanced narratives provide an affective space of inclusion for this marginalized population. Interpersonal bonds ameliorate the characters’ pain and present inclusion as a form of justice through acceptance in romantic pairings, the kindness of strangers, or as part of new and existing families as they challenge the “outsider” discourse to redefine Argentinean national identity as multicultural.

Sponsored by the Research Institute of CCSRE.