Example niche film dissertation topic 2:

Perspectives of youth in Latin American cinema in the 21st century. Although the voices of men and women were prevalent in Latin American cinema, this century the voices of youth are becoming louder. This thesis examines the changes that allowed the voice of youth to develop in Latin American film, and adopts two films as case studies. The first, Viva Cuba! (Malberti, 2005) reviews whether its message is primarily, as many critics have suggested, an apolitical ‘road movie’, or whether it is in fact a film that focuses more on the significant issues of migration and cross-cultural experiences in Cuba. The second case study, XXY (Puenzo, 2007), concerns the reality of post-dictatorial Argentina, in which open discussions about gender identity are more easily facilitated. Suggested initial topic reading:

• Farhi, A. (2005) Una cuestiόn de representaciόn: Los jόvenes en el cine argentine 1983-1994. Buenos Aires: Libros del Rojas.
• Podalsky, L. (2007) ‘the politics of disaffected youth and contemporary Latin American’, in T. Shary and A. Siebel (eds), Youth culture in global cinema. Austin TX, University of Texas Press, pp. 109-130.
• Rocha, C. (2012) ‘Introduction: Children in Hispanic cinema’, Studies in Hispanic Cinema, Vol. 8(2), pp. 123-130.