Culture

On 5 October 1988, the dictator Augusto Pinochet submitted his continuation in power to a plebiscite designed to legitimise his regime. The Chilean citizenry, after fifteen years without elections, responded with historic turnout and a result that opened the door to democracy. The military regime had made the 1980 Constitution its framework for institutionalisation. The twenty-seventh transitional provision established that, at the end of the presidential term, the Military Junta would propose a single candidate for a new eight-year mandate, … Read more

Mafalda turns 62 in 2026 while political humour dissolves into algorithms. In September 1964, the Argentine magazine “Primera Plana” published the first strip of a six-year-old girl who hated soup and asked uncomfortable questions. Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, known as Quino, born in Mendoza in 1932, had spent years selling drawings without much success. That character became one of the most influential critical voices in Latin American culture. The strip was born in a context of military dictatorships, the Cold … Read more

Frostpunk is a strategy and social management video game developed by the Polish studio “11 bit studios”, released in 2018 for PC and a year later for consoles. Set in a new global glaciation that caused the collapse of civilizations, the player takes on the role of leader of a group of refugees trying to survive in the last city on Earth, New London. The game’s premise transcends simple city-building: it is a social management simulation where every political decision … Read more

Ten years ago, in 2016, the song “No hay tanto pan”, composed by Silvia Pérez Cruz for the film “Cerca de tu casa”, was released. The film deals with evictions following the 2008 financial crisis. Today, just a few days after Maricarmen’s eviction, at a time when the housing crisis is becoming increasingly unsustainable, the song continues to describe a reality that remains unchanged. The song’s message encapsulates the indignation at a system that profits from the basic need for … Read more

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire for thirteen seconds against a peaceful protest against the US invasion of Cambodia at Kent State University. The so-called Kent State massacre resulted in four students dead and nine others injured. The massacre took place under the presidency of Richard Nixon and triggered a wave of student strikes that forced the closure of hundreds of universities across the country. Popular outrage was immediate, and the social and artistic response was … Read more

In October 2020, in the midst of social and political upheaval, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” was released, a film that quickly garnered critical acclaim and received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Director Aaron Sorkin took up a project that Steven Spielberg had conceived more than a decade earlier and built a gripping allegory about justice and dissent in a divided United States. The film, featuring Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Rylance and … Read more

The Argentine economic crisis of 2001, the result of two decades of savage neoliberalism, left the country in ruins. The industrial fabric was dismantled and public companies were privatized. The financial “corralito” froze bank accounts, capital flight exceeded 40 billion dollars, and factories closed their doors in a succession of mass layoffs that impoverished the population. In this context of crisis and political corruption, a wave of solidarity also emerged, in which workers from different factories and companies decided to … Read more

– I – Really, I live in dark times! Innocent words are foolish. An unfurrowed brow Indicates apathy. He who laughs Just hasn’t yet received The terrible news. What times are these, in which A conversation about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many misdeeds! He who quietly crosses the street Is probably no longer within reach of his friends Who are in need? It’s true: I earn my living But believe me: that’s only … Read more

In 2020, against a backdrop of health crisis and growing social inequality, the independent studio “Pixel Pushers Union 512” released Tonight We Riot. This video game, described by its creators as «an unapologetically socialist game», offers a revolutionary fantasy in which the working class organises to overthrow the capitalist system. The work, presented as a side‑scrolling “beat ’em up” with pixel art aesthetics, emerged as a response to the saturation of conservative narratives in the gaming industry. Its arrival on … Read more

When a society does not want to see the wound, the best thing is to film the pus. Mathieu Kassovitz, at only 27 years old, did that in 1995: he took a black-and-white camera and went into the heart of the Parisian “banlieues” to give viewers an uncomfortable image, that of a France that did not recognise itself in its own outskirts. The film was not born from an aesthetic whim, but from the outrage over the death of Makomé … Read more