You cannot build rocket ships from bamboo Kidlat Tahimik and Third Cinema

by Fabian Tietke

In 1969 Argentinian filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino wrote in the introduction to their seminal manifesto „Towards a Third Cinema“: „Just a short time ago it would have seemed like a Quixotic adventure in the colonialized, neocolonialized, or even the imperialist nations themselves to make any attempt to create films of decolonization that turned their back on or actively opposed the System. “ In their manifesto Solanas and Getino outline a possible future cinema of decolonization based on the experiences with a newly flourishing militant cinema in Latin America. Yet, in spite of all the promising signs identified by Solanas and Getino for films that openly criticize imperialism no longer being Quixotic endeavours, each and every one of Kidlat Tahimik's films proved to be just that: Quixotic. weiter lesen