Verónica Cortínez, director of the UCLA Center for Southern Cone Studies in the UCLA International Institute and professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, has been awarded the Premio Municipal de Literatura, the oldest and most prestigious literary prize in Chile. Her two-volume book — co-authored with Manfred Engelbert of the Georg-August Universität Göttingen — “Evolución en libertad: El cine chileno de fines de los sesenta” (“Evolution in Liberty: Chilean Cinema of the Late 1960s,” Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2014) won the award in the essay category.
A social, cultural and aesthetic history of a brilliant moment in Chilean cinematic tradition, “Evolución en libertad” sheds light on a national film tradition that is frequently overlooked due to its relative absence from the international market. The book explores the films of a stellar group of directors working in the late 1960s (Alejo Álvarez, Germán Becker, Álvaro Covacevich, Aldo Francia, Patricio Kaulen, Miguel Littin, Raúl Ruiz and Helvio Soto), whose work reflects a shared sense of “Chilean-ness” — the product of a long gestation of Chilean popular culture.
The Premio Municipal de Literatura is awarded by the government of the city of Santiago in different genres of literature, including poetry, drama, the novel and the essay. Among the famed Chilean writers to have won the Premio are the poets Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra.
This story has been adapted from the original published by the UCLA International Institute.
