Constanza Burucúa is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where she teaches different courses on film. She is author of Confronting the 'Dirty War' in Argentine Cinema, 1983-1993. Her research focuses on Latin American cinemas, history, gender, and identity. She is committed to the production of documentary films.

Carolina Sitnisky is Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Southern California, USA. Her research focuses on connections between cultural politics and historical readings in twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American cinema and literature. She is co-editor with Gabriela Copertari of the volume El estado de las cosas: cine latinoamericano del nuevo mileno.

1. Introduction: Forms of the Precarious in the Cinemas of the Americas (Constanza Burucúa and Carolina Sitnisky).- 2. Beyond Documentary?: Archives, Absences, and Rethinking Mexican "Nonfiction" Film, c.1935-1955 (David M. J. Wood).- 3. Precarious Images: Media and Historicity in Pablo Larraín's No (James Cisneros).- 4. The Future's Reverse: Dystopia and Precarity in Adirley Queirós's Cinema (Cláudia Mesquita).- 5. The Never-Ending Movie: Precariousness and Self-Reflexivity in Contemporary Argentine Cinema (Beatriz Urraca).- 6. Narrating Precariousness in Cuba beyond Havana and the ICAIC: The Case of Televisión Serrana's Ariagna Fajardo and ¿A dónde vamos? (Michelle Leigh Farrell).- 7. Precariousness in Contemporary Venezuelan Filmmaking: Pelo malo and Brecha en el silencio (María Mercedes Vázquez Vázquez).- 8. The Politics of Precariousness and Resiliencein Contemporary Colombian Films (María Helena Rueda).- 9. Portfolio Careers and a New Common Cause: the Conditions for Screen Workers in Peru (Sarah Barrow).- 10. Rethinking Contemporary Ecuadorian Cinema (Carolina Sitnisky).- 11. Bolivian Indigenous Film and the Aesthetics of the Precarious (Gabriela Zamorano Villarreal).- 12. Indigenous Canadian Cinemas: Negotiating the Precarious (Christopher Gittings).- 13. Showcasing the Precarious: Paraguayan Images in the Film Festival Circuit (Constanza Burucúa).- 14. Pantelion: Neoliberalism and Media in the Age of Precarization (Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado).

Historically, cinema in the Americas has been signed by a state of precariousness. Notwithstanding the growing accessibility to video and digital technologies, access to the material means of film production is still limited, affecting the spheres of production, distribution, and reception. Equally, questions about the precarious can be traced in cultural and archival policies, film legislations, as well as in thematic and aesthetic choices. While conventional definitions of the precarious have been associated with notions of scarcity and insecurity, this volume looks at precariousness from a non-monolithic angle, exploring its productivity and potential for original, critical approaches, with the aim of providing new readings to the variedly rich and complex cinemas of the Americas.