If nostalgia signals the impossibility of a return to origins, queer nostalgia is the salvaging of a symbolic past. The filmmakers featured here borrow an alternative origin from Hollywood stars; these figures are also a site for mining, appropriation, and excess, forming private and collective mythologies that work against linear conceptions of time or history. This program proposes a new constellation of Latin/o-American fascination with Hollywood glamour, starlets, and performative extravagance: Ecuadorian artist Eduardo Solá Franco’s recreation of Hollywood’s Herculean heroes and mythological fantasies; José Rodríguez Soltero’s classic LUPE; Teo Hernandez’s homage to Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lupe Vélez, and Marlene Dietrich, replete with campy nods to the star system; and a raunchy and provocative interpretation of Olga Guillot, “the Queen of the Bolero,” in Horacio Vallereggio’s A OLGA.

Teo Hernandez ESTRELLAS DEL AYER (Mexico/France, 1969, 9 min, Super-8mm-to-digital)
Eduardo Solá Franco ENCUENTROS IMPOSIBLES (Ecuador/Spain, 1959, 7.5 min, 8mm-to-digital, silent)
Horacio Vallereggio A OLGA (Argentina, 1975, 7 min, Super-8mm-to-digital)
José Rodríguez Soltero LUPE (USA, 1966, 49 min, 16mm)
Total running time: ca. 80 min.