Iluminace 2025, 37(3):49-56 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1824

Por un cine cachinero: Reappropriation as a Survival Strategy in Contemporary Experimental Cinema from Guayaquil

Libertad Gills ORCID...
University of Leeds, United Kingdom ✉

The video essay Por un cine cachinero, based on the manifesto of the same title published in the book Guayaquil en ruinas (“Guayaquil in Ruins,” Guayaquil Analógico, 2023), brings together films made in Guayaquil on analog film or made by reappropriating archives. The aim is to recontextualize these works within the local framework of “cachinería,” the name of popular second-hand markets. What would a film theory inspired by the cachinería look like? This video essay considers reappropriation in experimental cinema in Guayaquil as a practice that resignifies international found footage tendencies or fashions as well as local DIY traditions of reemployment and recycling. In a crisis of rising living costs, cachinería becomes a survival strategy for experimental filmmakers.

Keywords: found footage, Ecuadorian cinema, experimental film, Latin American cinema, analog filmmaking

Received: May 1, 2025; Revised: October 14, 2025; Accepted: December 3, 2025; Published: February 3, 2026  Show citation

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Gills, L. (2025). Por un cine cachinero: Reappropriation as a Survival Strategy in Contemporary Experimental Cinema from Guayaquil. Iluminace, 37(3), 49-56. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1824
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