By Alfredo Suppia
Over the last twenty years or so, the digital turn in filmmaking amplified and catalysed the spectacular drive and “sensuous elaboration” through the ascending sophistication of CGI (Computer Graphics Imagery).[1] Yet the more stunning the blockbusters’ visuals became, the more accessible and viable was the development of “spectacular” amateur and independent films. The popularisation of pro-consumer digital technology has encouraged the “marriage” of seemingly irreconcilable duos, such as genre film and home movies, handheld cameras and stunning visuals, science fiction/fantasy and shoestring budget films, and so forth. Furthermore, with the valuable help of home video technology and the internet, some researchers have been (re)discovering intriguing amateurish, radically popular and independent filmmaking in the most recondite locations around the world.
The science fiction and fantasy (SF&F) film genre seems to be particularly viable for the present analysis in the role of an “earmark”, inasmuch as it appears as a “mode of representation” which runs across a range of varied strata in Latin American audiovisual production—from shoestring-budget popular and local independent video/film to some occasional bigger-budget productions. All in all, it is worth noting that Latin American SF&F has been appearing in remarkable low-budget independent films, subverting the concept according to which SF&F is “big business” or a “foreign affair”, and even challenging the idea of science fiction as synonym with special effects.[2]
SF&F in Latin-American literature and film: some general notes
Frequently, Latin American SF&F resides on the borderlines between various genres, permeating a number of non-naturalistic types of narratives. A great number of SF&F films embrace parody by means of comedy or experimental works. Concepts such as hybridity, multiculturalism, transculturalism, syncretism, and non-Western narrative strategies and approaches have been instrumental to dealing with SF&F in Latin American cinema; a film production which demonstrates that impurity might be one – that is, if there is just one – distinctive production trait of this genre on the continent.
In most Latin American countries, SF&F fiction, both in literature and cinema, tends to be underrated, neglected or simply overlooked by critics and scholars. In Brazil, for instance, SF&F suffers from historical prejudices held by the academic milieu, editorial markets and audiovisual industries. For instance, Mary Elizabeth Ginway suggests that the invisibility of Brazilian science fiction literature could be ascribed to the overrating of the realist novel in Brazil.[3] According to Ginway, Brazilian science fiction still suffers from elitist cultural attitudes that prevail in Brazil; the idea that a “Third World” country could not genuinely produce such a genre.[4]
Nevertheless, Latin American SF&F does exist, although it is seldom detected by most film critics, scholars, historians, and perhaps, even by major audiences. This panorama could be due to limited film budgets, and the lack of consistent film industries in Latin America (understanding “industry” in its most orthodox sense). In summary, the alleged “invisibility” of Latin American SF&F film might be partially, if not entirely, explained by historical instability affecting the Latin American film industry. Thus, cultural biases have sided with infrastructural issues in the preclusion of Latin American SF&F cinema. An exception, however, might be found in Argentine and Mexican film and literature. In these countries, SF&F appears to have developed differently in comparison to other Latin American nations, such as Brazil. The shape of the Argentine and Mexican film industries (past and present) may also account for the more consistent presence of SF&F on their screens. In any case, a more systematic and organic body of film criticism and academic work dedicated to Latin American science fiction film has yet to be constructed.[5]
Some fragmentary information on isolated science fiction films and TV series produced in Latin America can be found in a few encyclopedias and companions to SF&F.[6] Phil Hardy’s The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, for instance, is a reliable source which does not completely “turn its back” on Latin American SF&F film.[7] This work, however, only lists a “handful” of films from the Southern hemisphere in contrast to the massive number of American or European productions listed. This is understandable given the scenario put forth by the international film industry. Cinematic equivalents to what are perceived to be the paradigms for science fiction cinema – e.g. Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) – are much scarcer in Latin American film production. However, films like Alberto Pieralisi’s O Quinto Poder / The Fifth Power (1962), an early SF&F film from Brazil; Mario Soffici’s El Extraño Caso del Hombre y la Bestia / The Strange Case of the Man and the Beast (1951), Eliseo Subiela’s Hombre Mirando al Sudeste / Man Facing Southeast (1986) and Gustavo Mosquera’s Moebius (1996), three SF&F feature films from Argentina; Felipe Cazals’s El Año de la Peste / The Year of Plague (1978), Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (1993) and Rodrigo Ordoñez’s Depositários (2010) from Mexico; Alejandro Brugués’s Juan de los Muertos / Juan of the Dead (2011) from Cuba, and the Mexican-American production Sleep Dealer (2008), directed by Alex Rivera, are undoubtedly eloquent representatives of Latin American SF&F cinema from various time periods and contexts. Furthermore, SF&F film parodies have multiplied across the continent ever since the 1930s, when Latin American filmmakers began venturing more widely into the genre, e.g. Miguel M. Delgado’s El Supersábio / The Superwise (1948) from Mexico, or Victor Lima’s Os Cosmonautas / The Cosmonauts (1962) from Brazil. Notes on the roots of the melting pot which is Latin American SF are explored in Rachel Haywood-Ferreira’s articles,[8] whereas one of the most reliable and insightful overviews of Latin American SF cinema is put forth in Mariano Paz’ article “South of the Future”.[9] This work provides a valuable introductory panorama addressing the aesthetics, production issues and political subtexts in Latin American SF films: particularly those from Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.[10]
SF&F in the Brazilian film landscape: notes on a bibliography and a filmography
The relationship between SF&F literature and film in Brazil is rather fragile, with no SF&F literature being systematically or consistently adapted to film. Recent surveys, such as Laura Cánepa’s PhD thesis, have demonstrated that the Brazilian film industry has been flirting with SF&F narratives since the mid-1930s and 1940s, a moment at which certain directors started adding supernatural motifs to musical comedies or film parodies.[11] Employing a historical outlook, Cánepa closely examines manifestations of the horror genre in Brazilian movies made between 1937 and 2007. It is one of the few works, if not the only, which provides an in-depth academic investigation of the Brazilian horror film. Despite the fact that most Brazilian film scholarship dismisses or completely overlooks SF&F films, Cánepa remarks that horror has been a rather popular film genre in Brazilian media as a whole, often explored by radio and TV shows as well as comic books and pulp fiction.[12] In the 1950s, producers and filmmakers, who had been influenced by Hitchcock’s classic Rebecca (1940), invested in the creation of dark melodramas marked by a supernatural atmosphere and strong female roles. But only from the mid-1960s onwards was the horror film genre able to deepen its roots in Brazilian cinema, with the figure of José Mojica Marins.[13]
For several critics and researchers, Mojica’s À Meia-Noite Levarei sua Alma/ At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) is a key-film in Brazilian horror cinema. However, echoing Cánepa, Primati remarks that, throughout the three decades preceding Mojica’s impacting film, horror had already appeared in several Brazilian productions, almost always in a timid and incipient manner.[14] According to Primati, Brazilian horror film production actually consists of nearly 150 titles spanning over approximately 70 years. Cánepa suggests that the exploitation horror film cycle (from approximately 1975 to 1982), along with Walter Hugo Khouri’s fantasy films, also had key-roles in the development and consolidation of a Brazilian horror cinema.[15]
Brazilian science fiction cinema perhaps suffers from even more disinterest and contempt than the horror genre on the part of film critics and scholars. However, pioneering SF tropes in Brazilian cinema can be found in films like Alberto Pieralisi’s The Fifth Power, as well as some comedies, e.g. Watson Macedo’s Carnaval em Marte / Carnival on Mars (1955) and Victor Lima’s The Cosmonauts.
Some examples of contemporary Brazilian cinema have reassessed science fiction through the revival of the spiritualist film, such as Wagner de Assis’s Nosso Lar / Our Home (2010), and Gerson Sanginitto’s Área Q / Area Q (2011). The spiritual city in Our Home is very much modelled on Brazilian modern architecture (works by Oscar Niemeyer, for instance) and science fiction iconography, with its utopian atmosphere and “cutting-edge” technology. Área Q draws on well-known UFO stories, also incorporating popular science fiction motifs and icons in its mixture of detective story and melodrama. Recent spiritualist films like Our Home and Área Q – both commercial releases targeted at broader audiences – have apparently been attempting to “domesticate” SF&F iconography in favour of religious indoctrination and the quest for box office success.
In general, contemporary SF&F cinema in Brazil is marked by a new generation of directors that includes Paulo Biscaia Filho, Luiz Bolognesi, Kléber Mendonça Filho, Carlos Canela, Santiago Dellape, Rodrigo Aragão, Joel Caetano and Rodrigo Brandão, among others, as well as the return of some film veterans such as José Mojica Marins, Ivan Cardoso, Fauzi Mansur and Jorge Furtado. Overlaps between horror and SF have multiplied in recent Brazilian zombie movies, such as Rodrigo Aragão’s Mangue Negro / Black Swamp (2008). An independent director from the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, Rodrigo Aragão also directed two other feature-length horror-SF schlock films, A Noite do Chupacabras / The Night of the Chupacabras (2011), which draws upon the popular worldwide legend of a blood-sucking alien creature, and Mar Negro / Black Sea (2013). Recently, in 2013, Luiz Bolognesi’s Uma História de Amor e Fúria / Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury won the Annecy Film Festival’s award for best movie. Considered as the “Oscar for animation,” this award is expected to increase the visibility of Brazilian SF&F cinema and encourage investments on SF&F film production. Another spiritualist motif embedded in SF&F iconography, Rio 2096 is the saga of a native Brazilian hero who is granted immortality, enabling him to witness the history of Brazil while fighting for the people against powerful oppressors, always in search of the reincarnation of his beloved Janaína – once again, a spiritualist motif embedded in SF&F iconography.
The short film production has also provided some unique and thought-provoking pieces of SF&F in Latin America. For instance, Jorge Furtado’s Barbosa (1988) is one of the most creative examples of Brazilian SF cinema. This short film mixes found footage and science fiction in a time travel tale about a man who wants to change the past, reverting Brazil’s defeat to Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup. Other examples of intense SF&F short films with low budgets and limited resources are represented by a number of Latin American films, such as Andrés Barrientos and Carlos Andrés Reyes’s En Agosto (2008) from Colombia. This film is a beautiful animation about time paradox that also embeds Native American motifs in a futurist dystopia, somehow antecedent to Bolognesi’s Rio 2096. Young, Latin American filmmakers based in the US and Europe also account for some interesting contributions, such as Marcus Alqueres from Brazil, with his short film The Flying Man (2013). All this “science fiction from the south” (echoing the words of American filmmaker Alex Rivera) has somehow had the potential to reinvigorate world SF&F cinema and the global film industry, as one can see in cases such as Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006), Gravity (2013), Neil Blomkamp’s short Alive in Joburg, (2005) and his feature films District 9 (2009) and Elysium (2013), as well as in Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer (2008) among others.
Accordingly, some low budget Latin American SF&F films have been opening doors for young Latin American filmmakers in the global audiovisual industry. For instance, Federico Álvarez’s Panic Attack! / Ataque de Pánico (2009), a Uruguayan low budget short disaster movie which re-enacted mechanised alien invasion in the peaceful city landscape of Montevideo, demonstrated what a skillful filmmaker can do with pro-consumer digital technology. Panic Attack! also helped Álvarez to sign a contract with an American studio to direct the remake of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. Such fictional geopolitical dislocation – Uruguay under attack, a giant flying saucer over Johannesburg or cyberpunk adventures in Tijuana – meets a previously unattended demand for the genre, a feeling explained by Alex Rivera in his interview to Dennis Lim, in The New York Times:
Science fiction in the past has always looked at Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo (…) We’ve never seen São Paulo, or Jakarta, or México City. We’ve never seen the future of the rest of the world, which happens to be where the majority of humanity lives.[16]
“Waves” rather than “Trees”
Cases of successful ascending careers and “new blood” injected by unorthodox approaches to the SF&F genre must be tracked in the deeper strata of audiovisual production: the most radically popular, independent and amateur filmmaking. This attitude echoes Dudley Andrew’s proposals on alternate approaches to contemporary world cinema, liberated from the orthodox methods of putative classical film historiography and theorisation.[17] In “An Atlas of World Cinema”, Andrew draws on Franco Moretti’s Atlas of the European novel 1800-1900 to suggest a new model for world cinema studies, based on the logic of the geographic atlas: a collection of maps, each one focusing on a particular value or aspect. Furthermore, the author proposes the metaphor of “waves” in lieu of the traditional “genealogical trees” often used to describe national cinemas. Under the sign of the “waves” rather than the “trees”, film analysis and research could overcome its usual static character, encompassing hybridity and the multiple and mutual influences which national cinemas have exerted on each other since the early times of film history. According to Andrew,
To use Franco Moretti’s analogy, national cinema studies have by and large been genealogical trees, one tree per country (2006: 67). Their elaborate root and branch structures are seldom shown as intermingled. A ‘world systems’ approach, on the other hand, demands a different analogy, that of ‘waves’ which roll through adjacent cultures whose proximity to one another promotes propagation that not even triangulation can adequately measure. Moretti’s term attracts one of the world cinema’s best examples: for the New Wave that buoyed French film in 1959 rolled around the world, affecting in different ways and under dissimilar circumstances the cinema lives of Britain, Japan, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary and later Taiwan. As we know, its so-called original undulation in Paris owed much to the Hollywood films that came ashore behind the Normandy invasion of 1944, literally rejuvenating a tired French culture. The New Wave passed first through youth fads in fashion, design and the novel before cresting at Cannes in 1959 where its effects were patently international.[18]
Amidst Andrew’s proposals, one kind of mapping in particular stands out: the topographical map. “[T]opographical maps represent the struggle to represent depth, that which is hidden.”[19] Andrew cites the Nollywood phenomenon to illustrate his idea of topographical mapping: approaches to non-Western and radically popular film production and markets, which are usually overlooked by the most reputable Western scholarship.
Topographical Mapping: the case of Brazilian “Fringe Cinema”
In Brazil, an attempt at a topographical mapping of the Brazilian audiovisual production, with particular focus on “lower levels” or even “subterranean” areas,[20] has been put forth by a research group interested in local and regional filmographies that circulate outside the “legitimate” or institutional audiovisual production, distribution and exhibition apparatuses. This group called these films “fringe cinema” (cinema de bordas), an essentially heterogeneous and heteroglossic subject of study.[21]
In an attempt to define this “fringe cinema,” Marcius Freire identifies some convergences between this contemporary audiovisual production and the naïf in the arts, addressing the possibility of a “naïf cinema.”[22] But the fact is that, all in all, “fringe cinema” has been a label attached by film researchers to an essentially amateur and independent audiovisual production from Brazil, marked by a handful of common characteristics, such as: (1) shoestring budget, (2) a communitarian or even a familial mode of production, (3) non-professional actors and filmmakers, some of them with no formal education, (4) a strong “narrative drive”, i.e. a passion for telling stories, and (5) an intense intertextuality and dialogue with well-established film genres, such as the horror or science fiction. This communitarian mode of production observed in the Brazilian “fringe cinema”, halfway through the private and public spheres, had been already discussed by authors such as Ryan Shand in his approach to amateur cinema as a whole.[23] Shand’s proposal of theorisation upon a “communitary mode” aims to overcome the limitations of previous approaches to the amateur film phenomenon.[24] The most interesting fact here, however, is that numerous Brazilian films or videos under the label of “fringe cinema” (cinema de bordas) are also horror and/or science fiction pieces. To name just a few: Rodrigo Aragão’s Black Swamp and The Night of the Chupacabras, Rodrigo Brandão’s Age of the Dead (Era dos Mortos, 2007) and Joel Caetano’s Encosto (2013).
Final remarks
The most important thing that might be drawn from Andrew’s methodological proposals, along with academic investigations of film phenomena such as “fringe cinema” (cinema de bordas), is that the SF&F genre seems to be pervasive throughout all levels and strata of audiovisual production. Therefore, an accurate and inclusive approach to SF&F film, particularly Latin American SF&F cinema, must take into account two axes: a horizontal one characterised by the mutual and constant “waves” that overlap, shake or contaminate multiple filmographies, authors, oeuvres and national cinemas; and a vertical one marked by constant exchanges and, sometimes, dialogue and interaction between the most prominent, visible strata of film production (film industry, television, and also the auteur cinema circuit) and the deepest levels, that of radically independent, amateur filmmaking, films made in the most remote locations for communitarian and even family audiences, e.g. the home movies or amateur films hardly detected by media coverage, film critics or film scholarship.
It is important to highlight that commercial success in Brazilian cinema as a whole is a controversial, relative value, and rarely comes in tandem with positive critique. Most titles mentioned in this work have had fragile performances in terms of box office, and a number of films have circulated out of the mainstream film circuit. However, more recent productions have won relevant international awards (such as Bolognesi’s A Story of Love and Fury) and, amidst the SF&F film panorama, a subgenre in particular deserves further attention: the spiritualist film. In both big budget and low budget/guerrilla productions, these films explore the popularity of Kardecism/Spiritism in Brazil, a Christian doctrine imported from France in the late 19th Century. Glauber Filho and Joe Pimentel’s Bezerra de Menezes: O Diário de um Espírito / Bezerra de Menezes: The Journal of a Spirit (2008), Daniel Filho’s Chico Xavier (2010) and Wagner de Assis’s Nosso Lar / Our Home (2010) are good representatives of this film trend which lies ambiguously in between factual naturalism and fantasy, with good performances in terms of box office – Bezerra de Menezes, a modest independent production, had a very successful commercial career, whereas Chico Xavier and Nosso Lar were big budget products released as national blockbusters – targeted at huge audiences, these two films had 4 and 3.4 million spectators respectively. A story of Brazilian SF&F film is yet to be written, and this would certainly help more focused accounts of speculative fiction in contemporary Brazilian cinema. Therefore, the future of Brazilian SF&F film can hardly be foreseen with accuracy at this point, but the emergence of young skilful filmmakers, as well as the increase of international co-productions and film-television partnerships, have all been favouring a broader diversity in terms of film genre – including SF&F.
For further research on the rarefied, though persistent, Brazilian SF&F cinema, the following literature is recommended. Suppia 2008 offers a brief overview of Brazilian science fiction cinema from the early apparitions of the genre to recent film production. Ginway and Suppia 2012 examine science fiction motifs in films by Brazilian director Jorge Furtado. Based on their examination of the science fiction tropes, possible influences and narrative strategies, particularly in the time travel tale Barbosa (1988), and more recent feature length films like Saneamento Básico / Basic Sanitation (2007) and Meu Tio Matou um Cara / My Uncle Killed a Guy (2004), the authors suggest that SF imagery is recurrent in Furtado’s films. Finally, Suppia 2013 provides a substantial survey of science fiction in Brazilian cinema, with a comprehensive critical history of feature-length Brazilian SF films, as well as a broad panorama of short Brazilian SF film. Also, Suppia compares Brazilian SF film production to other Latin American countries’, and scrutinises ideas concerning the preclusion of the SF genre in the Brazilian audiovisual industry.
[1]Barry Keith Grant, “Sensuous Elaboration: Reason and the Visible in Science Fiction Film”, in Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Annette Kuhn (London and New York: Verso, 1999), p. 16 et passim.
[2] Adam Roberts, Science Fiction (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 152-153.
[3] Mary Elizabeth Ginway, Ficção Científica Brasileira: Mitos culturais e nacionalidade no país do futuro (São Paulo: Devir, 2005).
[4] Ibid., p. 27.
[5] An introductory annotated bibliography on Latin American science fiction cinema is put forth by Alfredo Suppia, “Science Fiction Film,” in Oxford Bibliographies – Latin American Studies, ed. Ben Vinson, 3a ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), v. 1, pp. 1-14.DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0152.<http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0152.xml> [Accessed 22/09/14].
[6]See for instancePeter Nicholls, John Clute, and Barry Langford, eds. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. <http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/> [Accessed 22/09/14].
[7]Phil Hardy, ed. The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction (New York: Overlook Press, 2005).
[8] See Rachel Haywood-Ferreira, “By Burro and by Beagle: Geographical Journeys through Time in Latin American Science Fiction” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 18.2 (2007): pp. 166-86 and “The First Wave: Latin American Science Fiction Discovers Its Roots” Science Fiction Studies, 34.3 (2007): pp. 432-62.
[9]Mariano Paz, “South of the Future: An overview of Latin American science fiction cinema” Science Fiction Film and Television, Vol. 1, issue 1 (Spring 2008): pp. 81-103.
[10] A variety of approached to Latin American Science fiction are provided in a selection of essays approaching sequential art, literary and audiovisual works, see Elizabeth Ginway and Andrew Brown, eds. Latin American Science Fiction: Theory and Practice (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
[11]Laura Cánepa, “Medo de quê? – uma história do horror nos filmes brasileiros.” PhD diss., (State University of Campinas – Unicamp, 2008).
[12]Ibid. In addition, according to Cánepa, from the 1930s and through the 1950s, there were a significant number of Brazilian parodies made on Universal Studio’s monster films.
[13] See André Barcinski and Ivan Finotti Maldito: A vida e o cinema de José Mojica Marins, o Zé do Caixão (São Paulo: Editora 34, 1998). For further discussion of the role and impact of José Mojica Marins’s popular genre films in the context of Brazilian film criticism, and his ‘marginality’ as an artistic reaction, see Dolores Tierney, “José Mojica Martins and the Cultural Politics of Marginality in ‘Third World’ Film Criticism,” in Latsploitation, Exploitation Cinemas, and Latin America, eds. Victoria Ruétalo and Dolores Tierney (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 115-28.
[14]Quoted in Eugênio Puppo. Horror no Cinema Brasileiro. (Sao Paulo, Brazil: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2009).
[15]Laura Cánepa, “Medo de quê? – uma história do horror nos filmes brasileiros.” PhD diss., (State University of Campinas – Unicamp, 2008).
[16]Dennis Lim. “At the Border Between Politics and Thrills” The New York Times, 15 March 2009. <www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/movies/15denn.html> [Accessed 22/09/14].
[17] Dudley Andrew, “An Atlas of World Cinema,” in Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film, eds. Stephanie Dennison and Song Hwee Lim, 19-29 (London: Wallflower, 2006).
[18] Ibid., pp. 21-22.
[19] Ibid., p. 26.
[20] Ibid., pp. 25-26
[21] See Bernadette Lyra and Gelson Santana, eds. Cinema de bordas 1 (São Paulo: A Lápis, 2006) and Gelson Santana, ed. Cinema de bordas 2 (São Paulo: A Lápis, 2008).
[22]Marcius Freire, “Introdução: Nas cercanias da arte cinematográfica,” in Cinema de bordas 2, ed. Gelson Santana (São Paulo: A Lápis, 2008), pp. 12-13.
[23] Tristan Shand, “Theorizing Amateur Cinema: Limitations and Possibilities,” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists Vol. 8 (2008).
[24] Ibid., p. 53.
Notes on Contributor
Alfredo Suppia is Professor of Film studies in the Film Department (DECINE) at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). He is author of several articles and chapters on Brazilian cinema and science fiction film, as well as the books The Replicant Metropolis: Constructing a dialogue between Metropolis and Blade Runner (A Metrópole Replicante: Construindo um dialogo entre Metropolis e Blade Runner. Juiz de Fora: Ed. UFJF, 2011) and Rarefied Atmosphere: Science fiction in the Brazilian cinema (Atmosfera Rarefeita: A ficção científica no cinema brasileiro. São Paulo: Devir, 2013).
Bibliography
Andrew, Dudley. “An atlas of world cinema.” In Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film, edited by Stephanie Dennison and Song Hwee Lim, 19-29. London: Wallflower, 2006.
Barcinski, André, and Ivan Finotti. Maldito: A vida e o cinema de José Mojica Marins, o Zé do Caixão. São Paulo: Editora 34, 1998.
Cánepa, Laura. “Medo de quê? – uma história do horror nos filmes brasileiros”. PhD diss., State University of Campinas – Unicamp, 2008.
Freire, Marcius. “Introdução: Nas cercanias da arte cinematográfica”. In Cinema de bordas 2, edited by Gelson Santana, 4-13. São Paulo: A Lápis, 2008.
Ginway, M. Elizabeth, and Alfredo Suppia. “Science Fiction and Metafiction in the Cinematic Works of Brazilian Director Jorge Furtado”. In Latin American Science Fiction: Theory and Practice, edited by M. Elizabeth Ginway and J. Andrew Brown, 203-224. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Ginway, M. Elizabeth. Ficção Científica Brasileira: Mitos culturais e nacionalidade no país do futuro. São Paulo: Devir, 2005.
Grant, Barry Keith. “Sensuous Elaboration: Reason and the Visible in Science Fiction Film.” In Alien Zone II: The spaces of science fiction cinema, edited by Annette Kuhn, 16-30. London/New York: Verso, 1999.
Hardy, Phil (ed.). The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction. New York: Overlook Press, 2005.
Lim, Dennis. “At the Border Between Politics and Thrills.” The New York Times, March 15 2009. <www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/movies/15denn.html> [Accessed 22/06/14].
Lyra, Bernadette and Gelson Santana (eds.). Cinema de bordas. São Paulo: A Lápis, 2006.
Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900. London: Verso, 1999.
Nicholls, Peter; Clute, John; Langford, Barry (eds.). Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. <http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/> [Accessed 22/08/14].
Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction. London: Routledge, 2000.
Shand, Ryan. “Theorizing Amateur Cinema: Limitations and Possibilities.” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 8, 2 (2008): 36-60.
Suppia, Alfredo. 2014. Science Fiction Film. In: Ben Vinson ed., Oxford Bibliographies – Latin American Studies. 3 ed. New York: Oxford University Press, v. 1, p. 1-14. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0152. <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0152.xml> [Accessed 22/08/14].
Suppia, Alfredo. Atmosfera Rarefeita: A Ficção Científica no Cinema Brasileiro. São Paulo, Devir, 2013.
Suppia, Alfredo. “Science Fiction in the Brazilian Cinema: A Brief Overview”. Film International 32, vol. 6, n. 2 (2006): 6-13.
Tierney, Dolores. “José Mojica Martins and the Cultural Politics of Marginality in ‘Third World’ Film Criticism”. In Latsploitation, exploitation cinemas, and Latin America, edited by Victoria Ruétalo and Dolores Tierney, 115-128. New York: Routledge, 2009.