Mexican film
The Mexican film is an art form in Mexico , with the first moving pictures with the Kinetoscope in January 1895, then by Cinématographe took in August 1896 began. As a result, an own Mexican silent film production developed , but it is not well documented and most of the films have not survived. Mexico helped make the transition to talkies , and the film industry grew and grew in importance. At this time there were also the first internationally known stars from Mexico such as the actress Dolores del Río , who also shot in the United States of America. From the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1950s, Mexican films experienced its “golden age”. Among other things, Luis Buñuel made films such as Die Vergessenen ( Los Olvidados ) during this time , which were internationally successful, both with audiences and at festivals. Other directors and actors also achieved similar successes. With the end of this era began a long period in which rather cheap productions with a thematic focus on action , violence and eroticism dominated and international successes failed to materialize. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new Mexican film came out, with high-quality films such as Bittersweet Chocolate ( Como agua para chocolate ) from 1992, which was one of the most successful foreign films in the United States Year, was able to build on earlier successes. The trend towards high quality Mexican films that could attract international interest continued. After the turn of the millennium, Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También - Lust for Life ( Y Tu Mamá También ) were able to win international prizes and an equally foreign-language audience. Mexican filmmakers also established themselves internationally. For example, Guillermo del Toro , Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu were able to gain a foothold as directors in Hollywood.
By 1902 there were around 300 cinemas in Mexico. For a long time there were mostly small venues, it was not until the 1990s that the cinema landscape in Mexico changed fundamentally and more and more large chains with multiplex cinemas appeared on the market, which also made cinema tickets more expensive and changed the composition of the audience. In 2001 there were around 2,000 canvases across Mexico. 45% of them belonged to the company Ramírez Cinemas , 25% belonged to the second major market player Cinemex .
There are a few film festivals in Mexico every year , none of which are accredited by the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films . The most important film festival in Mexico is the week-long Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara with an international jury, which has been held in the city of Guadalajara in March since 1986 . The Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo in Mexico City has been organized by Cinemex since 2004 and is one of the most important film festivals in Latin America and has an international jury. Various institutions such as the Cineteca Nacional , which acts as a film archive to preserve the films and preserve them for the future, and the Filmoteca de la UNAM in Mexico City have committed themselves to safeguarding and documenting films in Mexico . The Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas awards the Mexican film prize Premio Ariel , the award of which was suspended between 1958 and 1971.
Historical development
Silent film era (1896–1931)
First film screenings in Mexico
During the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz in the 1890s, Mexico was an economically prosperous country that kept up with North America and Europe and was politically stable. After the demonstration of moving images became increasingly popular in Europe and the United States, it wasn't long before the technology reached Mexico and was enthusiastically received by the local population. In January 1895, the kinetoscope developed by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson , chief engineer at Thomas Alva Edison , reached Mexico, making it possible for the first time to show moving images in that country. The kinetoscope was presented to the public in a press screening. However, it could not prevail due to recurring operational disruptions and the fact that the viewer had to look through a viewing column. In August 1896, the French businessman leading Gabriel Veyre together with Claude Ferdinand Bon Bernard the cinematograph of brothers Lumiere into Mexico. The first thing they did was show the president and his family the moving images. As a result, they showed an enthusiastic audience small films that had previously been shown in Paris and, like the films on the Kinetoscope, told funny and everyday occurrences. In December 1896 the number of films shown increased, so that the programs of the screenings became more varied. Gabriel Veyre also made his first short films in Mexico. General Díaz, for example, walks through Chapultepec Park , which first showed the Mexican head of state in a film.
In addition to the two most widely used devices, a few others were used in Mexico City, although they did not become as popular. These included the Praxinoskop , the Cicloscosmorama and the Aristografo . The latter was an invention of the Mexican Luis Adrián Lavie and enabled a first three-dimensional film showing with special glasses .
First Mexican films and increasing number of cinemas
The actual Mexican film goes back to Salvador Toscano Barragán , who in 1897 was the first Mexican to open a cinema and himself made small films of everyday life. In 1898 he made the first fictional film in Mexico called Don Juan Tenorio . This was a one-reeler starring popular actor Paco Gavilanes . As a result, Toscano repeatedly acquired technically better projectors and new films from France, thereby helping to ensure that new developments were also reflected in Mexico. By the turn of the century, cinema had established itself in Mexico, even if it was not yet as popular as theater, and audiences mostly saw programs of short humorous films and reports from distant countries. In 1900, the French import Die Passion Christi, the first feature film to include three roles, was shown in Mexico .
In the period that followed, the number of cinemas continued to grow. In 1902 there were already around 300 cinemas in Mexico. Even the largest cigarette manufacturer in the country, El buen Tono , opened its own cinema in the company building and instead of charging admission, let in people who had a certain number of packets of cigarettes. Another major cinema operator was Enrique Rosas , who quickly overtook Toscano from 1905 onwards with the audience. First he showed films such as Un drama en los aires and Un carbonero en el baño , then films he made himself and advertised as Mexican. He also showed footage of last weekend's bullfighting and events in Mexico City, both of which enjoyed great popularity with audiences for bringing parts of their everyday lives to the screen. A competition developed between the two cinema owners, which also had an impact on the number of films shown. In 1905 over 200 short films were shown in the Mexican capital, including important works such as The Journey to the Moon by Georges Méliès . In addition, Salvador Toscano showed his first fictional work, as well as other in-house productions, which he also directed. The opening of new cinemas in Mexico City in 1906 further enlivened the competition that fueled the introduction of increasingly up-to-date projectors. At the beginning of the year there were three cinemas in Mexico City; by the end of 1906 there were 16.
But not only in the capital, the cinema began to reach more and more audiences, films were shown in the other provinces and in the countryside as well. For example, Jorge Stahl from Guadalajara acquired a kinetoscope at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904 , which could project films onto screens and with which he then traveled through the country and shown films in rented theaters.
Growing popularity
The increasing popularity of the film, especially in Mexico City, is attributed to the increasing population with a large number of newcomers from rural regions who came to the city due to increasing industrialization and infrastructural development. The majority of the moviegoers were members of the proletariat . The government hardly noticed the influence of the cinema on this class and did not attach any importance to it. Hundreds of projectionists who had borrowed their projectors from companies traveled across the country, bringing the new technology to smaller villages as well. The major American and French producers also began to sell their films to an increasing number of screeners. Pathé Frères , for example, opened its own office in Mexico City to organize and carry out sales more directly. Despite having their own agencies in Mexico, most of the film companies in France and the United States also sold films to Jorge A. Alcande , who then distributed them in Mexico himself. Only the Pathé office in Mexico entered direct competition with Alcande and subsequently reduced its prices. The Mexican won the price war, but the French parent company decided to only distribute its films in Mexico through its own subsidiary.
With a view to the coming centenary of the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence in 1910 , Felipe de Jesús Haro produced the film El grito de Dolores ( The Scream of Dolores ), in which Haro himself played the revolutionary Miguel Hidalgo . It was the first Mexican film based on a script specially written for it . The film was criticized in various film reviews mainly because of its anachronisms , with the appearance of gendarmes with modern Colts , who brought the revolutionary mass to order, was emphasized. This was interpreted as a concession to the regime of Porfirio Díaz, although it is no longer possible to understand whether this was done as an ingratiation to or under pressure from the government. Nevertheless, French films were still dominant at the time, while Virginia Fábregas, a great and popular Mexican actress, and Leopoldo Beristain and Roberto Soto established their own Mexican humor, which was expressed in short skits , in the theaters . These developments then found their way onto the big screen with a delay.
In 1909, 200 people were killed in a fire at the Flores Cinema in Acapulco . In the days that followed, the majority of the visitors stayed away from the cinemas in Mexico City. Before the Mexican Revolution , many of the Mexican films, especially the documentary ones, had a propaganda background and depicted appearances and events around Díaz. The centenary of the Mexican declaration of independence from Spain was celebrated with parades, balls, receptions and other events. Enrique Rosas and Salvador Toscano, among others, were among the Mexican filmmakers who captured these events on celluloid. In doing so, they portrayed an ideal that did not correspond to the actual social circumstances that were to lead to the revolution. On the occasion of the anniversary, the second longer Mexican film was shown in 1910. El suplicio de Cuauhtémoc ( The Torture of Cuauhtémoc ) was produced by the short-term Mexican film company Unión Cinematográfica . Little more is known about him than that he picked up a new interest in the pre-Columbian culture of Mexico.
Revolutionary film
The dominance of French films and also of international actors who toured Mexico was only broken by the civil war. In the first months of the war the film played no major role, but in 1912 filmmakers increasingly began to capture the events and present them in cinemas. The first recordings in the form of a newsreel are known from this year . These recordings were also made by American filmmakers who followed the events in their neighboring country. So Pancho Villa became a star of the war, who even signed a contract with the Mutual Film Corporation for 25,000 US dollars. For this he allowed film recordings during his war campaigns. At the same time, European newsreels were also very popular with the public.
In addition, many films such as Les Misérables or The Divine Comedy were shown, which were intended to entertain the audience and thus distract them from the events. However, there were also films that had revolution and civil war on the subject. The Salón Rojo cinema in Mexico City, for example, showed the film La revolución en Chihuahua ( The Revolution in Chihuahua ), which showed the struggle of the troops of the Francisco Madero government against the insurgents led by Pascual Orozco in the north of the country. The Teatro Hidalgo , also located in the capital, ran La revolución en Veracruz , which addressed the suffering of the war.
The fight between Emiliano Zapata , Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa against Victoriano Huerta , who had seized power in February 1913, was also filmed. This is how a 3000-meter long documentary was created under the title Sangre hermana ( Blood of the Brothers ), which accompanied the supporters of Zapata in the state of Morelos . This revolutionary-oriented film premiered on February 14, 1914 and was well received by the public. After the outbreak of World War I in Europe, the cinemas in Mexico City showed not only the Mexican war events but also images from the European battlefields, but the Mexican civil war remained the dominant theme. The films shown brought the revolutionaries closer to the audience and generated empathy for them . Despite the war, foreign entertainment films continued to attract great interest. The Italian film Cabiria found an enthusiastic Mexican audience in 1916, and Charles Chaplin was shown in Mexico for the first time in the same year .
"Golden Age" of Mexican silent films
The Mexican film industry underwent an important development during the Mexican Civil War. On September 15, 1916, o los libertadores de México ( 1810 or the Liberators of Mexico ), shot in Yucatán , premiered the first Mexican feature film with a running time of over an hour. The actor and the founder of the production company México-Lux , Manuel de la Bandera , attempted to found a drama school in the same year , but it failed. Only a year later, President Venustiano Carranza decided to set up a film school under the roof of the National School of Theater , which he entrusted Bandera to lead.
Another production company of this time was Azteca Films , which was co-founded by the actress Mimí Derba and released the film En defensa propia ( In Self-Defense ) in 1917 . The first film over an hour in length was La luz, tríptico de la vida moderna ( The Light, Triptych of Modern Life ) produced by México-Lux . The film was a remake of the Italian film Il Fuoco , in which Pina played Menichelli , with the plot moved to locations in Mexico. It was the first Mexican film to use cinematic stylistic devices such as close-ups and tracking shots . As a result, several other Italian films were adapted. Overall, the period between 1915 and 1923 is often referred to as the "golden age of Mexican silent films". While the number of films made was not nearly as high as in France or the United States, for example, Mexican production was the largest in Latin America. New production companies were founded, but they were concentrated in the capital and the surrounding regions. The location of the studios in the city also limited their size. In 1919 the company Roses, Alva, y Cá was founded , which in the same year published La banda del automóvil gris ( The gang of the gray automobile ), the most outstanding film of this era.
The demise of the Mexican silent film
At the beginning of the 1920s, the number of films produced decreased despite the construction of larger studio premises. At that time, Mexican film did not attract any foreign interest. He was exclusively focused on the domestic market. In addition, the Mexican film missed the development of its own identity and was largely limited to the adaptation of European films and even mimicked the Italian divas with actresses like Mimí Derba and Emma Padilla . Under Education Minister José Vasconcelos , who promoted the various art forms to consolidate the ideals of the revolution, support for film was withdrawn because he saw no directors or other filmmakers in the field of film who could demonstrate qualities similar to those of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco in the fine arts. In addition, the competition from Hollywood, where between 500 and 700 films were produced annually in the 1920s, also hit the Mexican film industry. American companies such as First National Pictures , Paramount Pictures , Fox and Universal had their own offices in Mexico City, through which sales in Mexico were organized. In 1928, 90 percent of the films shown in Mexico were American productions.
While Mexican films were not competitive, some actors such as Ramón Novarro and Dolores del Río managed to establish themselves in the United States and gain international recognition. Dolores del Río did not make a Mexican film until 1943. Other actors ventured into Hollywood because the domestic film industry, although attractive compared to other Latin American film industries, could not offer them attractive roles and films. The most important Mexican films of this time were made by Miguel Contreras Torres , who had fought in the revolution before his directorial career. In the late 1920s, more and more actors appeared in Torres' films, who had their share in the rise of Mexican film up to the "Golden Age". The silent film in Mexico was slowly coming to an end. In the 1930s, the sound film took its place.
The beginning of talkies in Mexico (1931–1934)
First attempts at sound film and Hollywood sound films in Mexico
The first public screening of film and sound took place in Mexico in June 1912 by an assistant to Léon Gaumont at the Theatro Colón . The French film pioneer wanted to test his chronophone , which was supposed to synchronize the film with a gramophone , in Mexico before using it in Paris. The attempt failed, however, because the sound and picture were not synchronized. The device remained in the cinema and was used again in 1927 for an unsuccessful attempt.
The sound film found its way into Mexico in the late 1920s in the form of American and European films. The first sound film shown in Mexico was The Jazz Singer and premiered on July 6, 1929. The sound film was received with skepticism by the nationalists in Mexico, but also in other Latin American countries, and viewed as a powerful tool of the United States for peaceful penetration into the country. Above all, they feared that the English language could differentiate itself from Spanish in this way. There was even a campaign initiated by El Universal and picked up by other newspapers and magazines calling for the government to ban American films altogether. The only magazine that criticized this position was the monthly Continental , although financial reasons may also have been the deciding factor, since American film distributors regularly placed advertisements in this magazine.
Talking about talkies caused many European actors to leave Hollywood because their English was insufficient to make films. On the other hand, Dolores del Río and Lupe Vélez, two Mexican stars in Hollywood, succeeded in switching to talkies without any major problems. They were used in English films and not in the numerous Spanish Hollywood productions for the Latin American market that the large production companies shot in order to gain better access, especially to the Mexican market, and to break a ban on English-language films. Between 1930 and 1938, 113 Hollywood films were made in Spanish, which, however, did not achieve the desired success with the audience, as did dubbing that did not meet with great audience approval. The reason for the lack of acceptance of these films was mainly due to the Spanish spoken in them, which mixed different accents from countries such as Cuba , Argentina , Chile , Spain and Mexico, which sounded irritating to the audience. In addition, the Mexican viewers wanted to see their US stars and not their replacement in the versions specially produced for the Latin American market.
Development in Mexico, regeneration of the national film industry
In the 1920s, the Mexican film industry was uncompetitive and produced only a very small number of films. The only remaining filmmakers were film pioneer Jorge Stahl , who owned his own studio, and Miguel Contreras Torres . Both were able to attract more attention after the talkies reached Mexico in the early 1930s. Hollywood's failure with Spanish-language films prompted Mexico to make another attempt at producing films that would be successful in the international Spanish-speaking market. While that goal was missed, the effort made benefited directors and actors who had the opportunity to try their hand at what helped the rise of Mexico's film industry in the late 1930s and its heyday in the 1940s. The first sound film to be produced in Mexico was Santa , a remake of the 1918 silent film, in 1931 , and it marked the resurgence of Mexican cinema. To produce this film, Juan de la Cruz Alarcón , Carlos Noriega Hope and Gustavo Sáenz de Sicilia founded the Compañia Nacional Productora de Películas studio . The director Antonio Moreno was a Spaniard from Hollywood, while the leading actress Lupita Tovar was a Mexican returnee to Hollywood.
The Soviet director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , who arrived in Mexico with Grigori Alexandrow and Eduard Tisse in 1930 after being in the United States after being in the United States following restrictions and interference by the management of Paramount Studios, had a major influence on the further development of Mexican film Had given up film project. He was inspired by Diego Rivera during his stay in Moscow in 1927 for Mexican history and even then had an interest in traveling to Mexico. He now brought his knowledge of the latest production technology, especially in the field of sound, with him and exchanged ideas with Mexican filmmakers. While traveling through the country, he made his own recordings. Many were in favor of his epic work Que viva Mexico! thought, which he could not complete due to conflicts with his financier Upton Sinclair , because of which he left Mexico. There are therefore only a few adaptations of this material by other filmmakers. Even if Eisenstein couldn't complete the film, his work in Mexico had a huge impact on Mexican filmmakers. Although film production did not increase significantly at this time, only six films appeared in 1932, Arcady Boytler and Fernando de Fuentes made their debuts, with two directors who subsequently contributed to the rise of the Mexican film industry to be seen in the cinema for the first time were.
In 1933 the recovery of the Mexican film industry became apparent when 21 films were already being produced in Mexico. In addition to Compañia Nacional Productora de Películas , Jorge Stahls México Films and Industrial Cinematográfica also produced films, which broadened the economic base of the industry. The films included La mujer del puerto ( The Woman from the Port ), El prisionero trece ( Prisoner 13 ) and El compadre Mendoza ( The Godfather Mendoza ), which also showed an upward trend in terms of content and technology. The development is particularly evident in El compadre Mendoza . Although it received no international attention at the time of its publication, in later years, like its director de Fuentes, it received positive reception from international criticism. The film was also of great thematic importance for Mexico, as it addressed the disillusionment with the corrupted ideals of the revolution. As a result of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río's assumption of the office of president in 1934, there were two films depicting his socialist program. The film Redes ( Netze ) was the first feature film since 1920 to be financed by the government. The second film was Janitzio , which made reference to an Indian story in its plot.
The Rise of the Mexican Film Industry (1935-1945)
Government engagement
The upward trend in Mexican film at the beginning of the 1930s stabilized over the course of the decade and the Mexican film industry managed to position itself more solidly. At the same time, a strong culture of strikes had developed under the Cárdenas del Río government , which manifested itself in the film industry with the establishment of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Cinematográfica de Mexico union , which led to better working conditions in film production. The film industry's financial and technical resources also improved, allowing the number of films produced in Mexico to increase and then stabilize. While only two films were produced in 1931, the number rose to 75 in 1938, which is its peak for the time being.
In addition, the state became increasingly involved in the film industry because it recognized the medium of film as a way of conveying national values. For example, he subsidized the newly founded production company Cinematográfico Latino Americana , which began work in 1935 and was equipped with the best technology at the time. The studio's first film was Vámonos con Pancho Villa ( Let's Go With Poncho Villa ), released in 1935, directed by Fernando de Fuentes. In the film, de Fuentes staged the great Mexican theme of the revolution as a disruptive event that overwhelmed its uncomprehending participants. In doing so, he also highlighted the dichotomy between the ideals of the revolution and its chaotic, contradicting appearance. The state supported the shoot by providing a complete train , a regiment of regular troops, artillery , uniforms, horses and other military material. After the film, which cost a million pesos, the studio would have had to file for bankruptcy if the government hadn't stepped in for that sum and thus ensured the continued existence of the company. Despite this state involvement, the Mexican film industry remained largely in private hands and did not develop as it did in Italy, the German Empire, the Soviet Union and Japan, where the film industry was increasingly centralized and politically controlled under the respective ruling regimes.
International establishment and stabilization of industrial development
1936 marked an important year in the history of Mexican film because Fernando de Fuentes with Allá en el Rancho Grande ( Back on the big yard produced) the first internationally successful film from Mexico. At the same time, the film is considered to be one of the most successful Latin American films of all time. It was the director's most popular film and marked a turning point in the orientation of the Mexican film industry. He showed the filmmakers, who mainly adapted Hollywood's Spanish-language films in their own works, that only an originally Mexican cinema could be popular in Latin America. De Fuentes was referring to the Hollywood Western , but captured typical Mexican images and moods in his film. In addition, he did not copy the American cowboy , but referred to the Mexican charros . Such films were still an exception at this point in time. The majority of the production were sentimental family melodramas such as Juan Orols Madre querida ( Beloved Mother ), which were popular in Mexico, but could hardly inspire audiences beyond Mexico. But this changed in the sequence, as de Fuentes Allá en el Rancho Grande , the Genre Comedia ranchera had established. Mexican country life with singing charros and the urban counterpart in the milieu of bars and nightclubs subsequently became the defining themes of Mexican films. With these films, the mariachis also achieved greater fame and, for example, with Tito Guízar , this genre also had its stars, who became popular beyond the borders of Mexico.
The changes in Mexican film can be traced back to the fact that in 1937 half of the films produced dealt with Mexican themes and elements. This year turned Boris Maicon with Novillero ( The new bullfighter ) the first color film in Mexico. In addition, director Alejandro Galindo and actor Jorge Negrete , who would both become popular and successful people in Mexican film production, made their screen debuts. Furthermore, in 1937, Adela Sequeyro was directed by a woman for the first time. Despite this positive development, the Mexican film industry was not attractive enough for Mexican stars active in Hollywood to return to the domestic film industry. This had mainly to do with the financial resources, since Hollywood invested more in films, while producers in Mexico wanted to make as much profit as possible with as few resources as possible. The fact that the development of the film industry was not yet sustainable was shown by the large fluctuations in the number of productions, which dropped by 20 films from 1938 to 1939, and the studio structure, in which many companies had to give up after just one film. Because of these problems, Argentina, Mexico's biggest competitor in the Latin American film market, overtook Mexico in film production.
After Francisco Franco emerged victorious from the civil war in Spain , thousands of Spaniards who had supported the republic fled to Mexico. Among them were filmmakers such as Luis Alcoriza , Angel Garasa , Emilia Guiú , José Baviera and Emilio Tuero , who were to have a great influence on Mexican film and thus contributed to its heyday after the end of the Second World War.
Development during World War II
During the Second World War , Mexico was able to expand its position as one of the leading film industries in Latin America and, towards the end of the war, even put itself at the forefront of Latin American film production. Mexico was allied with the United States and supported it industrially. In return, the Mexican film industry benefited from technical, material and financial support from the US Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs , headed by Nelson Rockefeller . The Argentine film industry lost ground to the Mexican one due to the fact that celluloid was scarce and Mexico was given preferential delivery. In 1941, 47 films were made in Argentina and 38 in Mexico. By 1945 the ratio of 23 to 83 films had reversed and the Mexican film industry had gained a major lead over the second largest Latin American film industry.
Another positive factor was that European and American film production concentrated predominantly on films with a propaganda background, while Mexican films were not influenced by this and thus became more attractive for the Latin American audience compared to the otherwise strong European and above all American competition. In addition, there was a globally unique institution with the Banco Cinematográfico , founded privately in 1942 , which was solely intended to finance the production and distribution of Mexican films and was nationalized in 1947. This bank made it possible to move away from the previously widespread practice of financing films by selling land. The production of films rose so strongly that the three existing studios did not offer enough space and filmmakers sometimes had to wait three weeks before they could make their films. That's why the American industrialist Harry Wright built a new 92,000 square meter studio site in Churubusco . As a result, increased investments were made in the film industry and thus the basis for a large number of productions was laid. The rise of the Mexican film industry and its heyday was not based solely on these economic factors, but was also due to the fact that at that time a large number of talented directors and filmmakers lived in Mexico and the star system had consolidated.
In 1940 Mario Moreno appeared in his first feature- length film Ahí está el detalle ( There is the detail ), which was internationally successful and which had an outstanding feature, especially with the use of colloquial language, because most of the films of the time used very high-quality Spanish . As a result, he became one of the most popular actors in Mexico. This success was largely attributed to his appearance as the first popular actor. Like all Latin American film production, Mexican film production increasingly turned to Pan-American themes and subjects during the World War . In 1941, for example, Miguel Contreras Torres directed and published the film Simón Bolívar after the life of the freedom fighter Simón Bolívar , who was generally very popular in Latin America. In the same year ¡Ay, qué tiempos, señor don Simón! ( Oh, what time, Mr. Don Simón! ), A very musical film with a nostalgic image of Mexico, was shown and grossed 137,000 Pesos in the first three weeks, which made it the most successful Mexican film at the time. One of the more entertaining films that hit the box office this year was ¡Ay Jalisco no te rayes! ( Oh, Jalisco, don't back down! ). With this film Jorge Negrete celebrated his first big success. Overall, the Mexican film production of 1941 achieved attention and audience approval throughout Latin America and thus contributed to the establishment of Mexican film and the subsequent successes. Although many films remained in these genres and topics in the following years, a powerful star system had established itself around actors like Mario Moreno and actresses like Sara García and María Félix . In addition, more and more good actors and directors such as Pedro Infante and Emilio Fernández grew , who further strengthened the Mexican film industry.
In 1942 Dolores del Río returned to Mexico after 28 Hollywood films and a failed relationship with Orson Welles , where she made the film Flor silvestre ( Field Flower ) together with Emilio Fernández in 1943 . In 1943 another star returned to Mexico with Lupe Vélez . As a director, Fernández was seen as the most important exponent of the influence Eisenstein brought to Mexico. In addition to the typical genres and themes for Mexican films such as melodramas and revolutionary films, there were also some films that fell out of these schemes. So corresponded Julio Bracho film Distinto amanecer ( Another sunrise ) from 1943 stylistically more like the film noir . In 1944, one film in particular stood out from the 74 productions. La baracca ( The Barracks ) by Roberto Gavaldón referred to Spain before Franco and was a film in which a particularly large number of Spanish exiles were involved.
The Golden Age (1945–1950)
Heyday (1945-1949)
The development of Mexican film and the film industry from the mid-1930s onwards was the basis for the success of the Golden Age, the beginning of which some authors also place in 1935. During the Second World War, the Mexican film industry was expanded, and a large number of exiles and Mexican directors and actresses increasingly produced high-quality films that were increasingly successful beyond Mexico, especially in Latin America. After the end of the war, Mexico experienced an overall boom phase, while the Mexican film industry experienced its golden age in which successful films were produced which, like filmmakers, enjoyed great international recognition.
During this time, actors such as María Félix , Cantinflas , Dolores del Río and Jorge Negrete reached a peak of their international popularity. This was the first time that a group of actors and actresses was created who could compete with the stars from Hollywood, at least in the Spanish-speaking world. They contributed in good part to the strength of the Mexican film industry during those years. This development was also taken into account in 1946 with the establishment of the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas , which was supposed to award the national Ariel film prize at an annual gala . The success of the Mexican films and actors did not decrease even after the end of the Second World War. The fame of the actor Pedro Infante rose even more. One of the most successful Mexican directors of the Golden Age was Emilio Fernández , who showed his 1943 film Maria Candelaria , in which Dolores del Río starred, at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1946 and the Locarno International Film Festival in 1947 and won several awards won at both festivals.
This star system also led to a concentration on actors and directors while at the same time neglecting the stories told in film production. Luis Buñuel found this situation when he came to Mexico from the United States in 1946 at the instigation of producer Óscar Dancigers . He had worked in the United States since 1938 for the Museum of Modern Art and in Spanish-language Hollywood production. Buñuel's first Mexican film was En el viejo Tampico ( Big Casino ), in which, alongside Jorge Negrete, the Argentine actress Libertad Lamarque , who was a big star in Argentina and was able to build on this status in Mexico. Despite the two big stars, the film flopped, so it took Buñuel two years before he could make a film again. Overall, the time in Mexico was the most productive period in his life, during which he made twenty films. In 1949 Buñuel became a Mexican citizen and shot El gran calavera ( The big bon vivant ), which was successful and thus gave the director the freedom for his next projects. In 1950 he shot his masterpiece The Forgotten , in which he told a story about the violence in Mexico and which therefore met with criticism in Mexico. Internationally, however, the film was very successful and Luis Buñuel won the award for best director at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1951 . He subsequently made other films such as Susanna ( Susanna - Daughter of Vice ), El ( Er ), Abismos de pasión ( Abysses of Passion ) and Ensayo de un crimen ( The criminal life of Archibaldo de la Cruz ). Many Mexican filmmakers were proud to have such a renowned director as Luis Buñuel working in their country, but only a few emulated his style.
Under the government of Manuel Ávila Camacho , a law was passed in February 1946 that exempted the film industry from income tax retrospectively for the last five years . Ultimately, however, the law did not come into force until 1949, after Camacho's presidency ended. Politicians' interest in film was also evident in Enamorada ( Woman in Love ) in 1946, as it made direct reference to Miguel Alemán Valdés . The following year, Emilio Fernández released another outstanding film, Río Escondido ( Invisible River ) , which dealt with the Mexican Revolution. In addition to María Félix, Pedro Armendáriz played in him , who achieved a status comparable to John Wayne in America and was also able to celebrate successes in Hollywood. The cameraman Gabriel Figueroa was also involved in Río Escondido , and has received several international awards for his work in Mexico, but also in Hollywood. Some films of this time also addressed social and political realities. The films ¡Esquina bajan! ( Corner, get out! ) And Una familia de tantas ( An average family ), both of which were shown in cinemas in 1948. The first dealt with unionized bus drivers, the second was a portrait of a family under the tyrannical power of the father.
Beginning of decline (beginning of the 1950s)
The end of the golden age of Mexican cinema at the beginning of the 1950s had various reasons. On the one hand, the American film industry regained its old strength in Mexico after it had to produce a large number of propaganda films due to the war and thus lost its appeal for foreign audiences, while at the same time the Mexican film industry was withdrawn from the support of the United States . On the other hand, there were also national reasons. In this era, for example, Mexican actors earned twice as much as their Argentinian or Spanish colleagues, and other employees in film production had also earned high wages through their union organization. Production costs rose and could only be reduced by shortening the shooting time from an average of five to three weeks or even less, which led to compromises in quality.
Another factor was the influence of the American businessman William O. Jenkins , who had settled in Puebla and, together with Mexican business partners, had taken over 80 percent of the cinemas in Mexico by 1949. Through this market power, he also gained influence on film production. He also had an influence on the financing options and the support of politicians and other entrepreneurs, so that he enjoyed backing in his activities. This resulted in the production of ever more formulaic films that were filmed as if on an assembly line. So the artistic claim was more and more subordinated to the commercial sector. These films were nicknamed churros by the audience . These films were often melodramas that in brothels were located in seedier neighborhood or playing in families or film comedies , in which about Cantinflas , Tin Tan and Adalberto Martínez Resortes occurred. These films were nothing new. The subject of prostitution, for example, had been a recurring theme in Mexican films since the silent film era, but such films were now being produced in larger numbers. The formulaic nature of the films was partly due to the fact that it was hardly possible for young directors to be employed in film production because the union defended the interests of the established directors. The Mexican film missed the impetus that young talents with innovations would otherwise repeatedly introduce into the industry.
Intermediate period (1950–1989)
Decline (1950s)
The problems of Mexican cinema at the end of the Golden Age in the late 1940s were exacerbated by competition from television, which aired in Mexico on July 26, 1950. In the first few years, televisions were rather unusual, but until the mid-1950s they increasingly became a normal part of home furnishings. Although television first helped to offer Mexican films a further possibility of distribution, which also reinforced the myth of the Golden Age, because viewers got to see films of that time with the stars of the era more often, in the end it competed with the Cinema for the audience.
In order to promote high-quality films , Eduardo Garduño , the newly appointed director of Banco Cinematográfico under the newly elected President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines , pursued various measures that were grouped under the name Plan Garduño. The plan was to break the power of the film distributors who, with their monopoly, promoted the production of films according to the prevailing schemes. So he founded six companies to provide more screening and distribution opportunities for Mexican films. Another component of the plan was the limitation of the number of imported films to 150 per year, as well as the assumption of part of the production costs. However, the plan was flawed, controversial, and ultimately failed. For example, there were strikes against the studios and a dispute between Jorge Negrete and Mario Moreno over the chairmanship of the Asociación Nacional de Actores . Still, there was an increasing government interest in film from its production, through its distribution, to its showing.
One attempt to assert oneself against television was also to offer films that technically and morally did not meet the standards of television. For example, color films were shot for cinema films or the CinemaScope process was used. In addition, during the conservative period under the government of President Ruiz Cortines, female nudity could increasingly be presented on the screen , if only adults were allowed to view. This was also due to the fact that the newly emerging middle class was no longer so conservative and no longer felt obliged to the old sexual morality. This led to an increasing number of films of this genre, called cabaretera , which were set in nightclubs and dealt with the fate of the girls who performed there. In these films, a new kind of music that had a higher erotic charisma was used with dances such as mambo and cha-cha-cha . As a result, some Cuban actors such as Rosa Carmina and Ninón also shot Seville in Mexico and became extremely popular. The latter starred in Sensualidad ( Sensuality ) in 1950, which was an adaptation of Josef von Sternberg's film The Blue Angel from 1930. Films with a claim like Alejandro Galindo's Esüaldas mojadas ( Wetbacks ), shot in 1953 and not shown until 1955 , which wanted to convince his viewers not to emigrate to the USA, were in the minority. In addition, despite the abundance of women who played in such films, there was only one woman who could make a career behind the camera at that time. Matilde Landeta primarily wrote screenplays in the 1930s before assisting major directors and then making three films in which she tested a profeminist position that was not common in either the Mexican film industry or society.
Overall, the quantity of films produced did not decrease in the course of the 1950s, there were around 100 per year, but there was a clear decrease in quality. This was due, for example, to the fact that Luis Buñuel, the most important international representative of high-quality films in Mexico, was increasingly shooting abroad, such as in France. Emilio Fernández , however, was boycotted by the producers. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the audience's interest in the churros decreased significantly. During this time, some of the most important Mexican studios such as Azteca Films and Tepeyac had to cease operations. In addition, after the success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, another traditionally important audience for Mexican films fell away.
By the end of the 1950s, a range of films and genres had developed that were varied over and over again, and thus made up the majority of Mexican film production. In addition to comedies, melodramas and music or dance films, this also included exploitation films that adapted horror films and westerns from Hollywood and superhero films in which masked cowboys or wrestlers fought against villains and monsters. One of the most successful actors in the wrestler films was El Santo , who had also gained notoriety as a wrestler. For example, he played the leading role in the film Santo contra el cerébro diabólico ( Santo against the devilish brain ), which grossed 125,000 pesos at the premiere despite poor acting performance. Overall, El Santo was the leading actor in 21 films of these years.
The decline of the Mexican film industry was also evident in the suspension of the award of the Premio Ariel in 1958, which was to last until it was again awarded in 1972. The industry had to struggle with high fees, collapsing international markets and falling audience figures overall. One attempt to counter this was to make co-productions with various Latin American countries such as Colombia , Puerto Rico and Guatemala . An example of this is Los expatriados ( The Emigrants ) from 1963, which was produced together with Puerto Rico. In it, the story of Puerto Rican immigrants in New York was told, with stylistic recourse to musical elements such as in West Side Story from 1961.
Counter-Movement and Reforms (1960s)
As a counterpoint to the many low-quality films that were produced for the mass market, the Grupo Nuevo was formed , made up of young directors, scriptwriters and film critics such as Salvador Elizondo , Carlos Monsiváis and Paul Leduc . It emerged from a series of conferences in 1960 in which Luis Buñuel , Luis Alcoriza and José Luis Cuevas participated, even if they did not belong to the group. This group emulated the Nouvelle Vague movement from France and spread their ideas for a modern Mexican film in a magazine named after their group, as well as with publications in important newspapers and magazines such as México en la cultura and Novedades . At the same time, a film club was established at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México , which formed the nucleus for the first national film school, the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos , founded in 1963 . These efforts resulted in the founding of the Concurso de Cine Experimental in 1965 , a film festival that was supposed to promote innovative films. These associations and film clubs were the only opportunity for young, but also for established filmmakers, to come into contact with new international trends in film. In 1963, Carmen Toscano founded Mexico's first national film archive under the name Cinemateca de México , which was based on private contributions and at first did not have a permanent spatial arrangement.
While mainstream films lost a lot of their quality on average, these developments resulted in some filmmakers who stood out in terms of quality and found recognition. Luis Alcoriza , a confidante of Buñuel, shot Los jóvenes ( The Youth ) around 1960 , which deals with the popular topic of rebellious youth, but was rated one step higher than the other films of this type. Another was García Ascot , whose The 1961 film En el balcón vacío ( On the empty balcony ) addressed the trauma of fleeing the Spanish civil war. Distribution in Mexico was officially refused, funding came from friends, but the film was well received internationally. In addition, in the early 1960s Luis Buñuel shot his last major films with Viridiana and El ángel exterminador ( Der Würgeengel ) in Mexico, before turning only in Europe from 1965 onwards. His films served filmmakers who were interested in quality and film critics as models and inspiration, as they differed from the otherwise formulaic Mexican films and, with their psychological, documentary, religious and surrealist motifs, also opposed neorealism .
These developments in Mexico, however, lagged behind those in the other Latin American countries, where the New Latin American Film developed as a political art form emancipating from the United States with a center in Cuba . While New Latin American Film primarily dealt with the political and social problems of the 1960s, this conflict only occurred in a minority of the films published in Mexico. During the troubled times around the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, 1968, Mexican film, like all culture and society as a whole, was subjected to repression and restrictions.
Beginning regeneration (1970–1976)
It was not until Luis Echeverría took over the presidency in 1970 that the repression of the media diminished, and culture as a whole, but especially the film industry, was promoted by the state. In doing so, he made the promotion of ailing industry a nationally important project, which he integrated into his political agenda. The president's brother Rodolfo Echeverría , who was also an actor himself, was appointed the new director of Banco Cinematográfico. He was pursuing a new plan to strengthen the Mexican film industry. With Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica (CONACINE), Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica de Trabajadores de Estado I. (CONACITE I.) and Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica de Trabajadores de Estado II. (CONACITE II.), Three state-owned film production companies were founded, as well as several former private studios State taken over. In addition, the film school Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica and the Cineteca Nacional were established. The regulations were adapted so that local productions got more playing time in the cinemas. In addition, President Echeverría stated that the focus should be placed on aesthetic and qualitative aspects of the films instead of purely commercial interests.
In the 1970s, the film experienced a small renaissance in Mexico. Although the reforms under Echeverría were in part perceived as the corruption of directors, actors and authors who were active in the protest movement, there were only a few who could not and would not come to terms with him. The Mexican film industry consolidated, directors were able to continue their careers and new ones entered production. The directors making their debut in particular were better prepared thanks to the newly created training opportunities. In addition to films like Santo vs. la hija de Frankenstein ( Santo versus Frankenstein's Daughter ) by Miguel M. Delgado from 1971 and the usual comedies and melodramas also became more ambitious films such as Felipe Cazal's El jardín de tía Isabel ( The Garden of Aunt Isabel ), Gustavo Alatristes QRR (Quién resulta responsible) ( Who is responsible? ) and Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo ( The Mole ). In 1973 Alejandro Galindo released El juicio de Martín Cortés ( The Trial of Martín Cortés ), a film that dealt with racism in Mexico and was received negatively by both critics and viewers.
In addition, some state films were produced such as Historia der PRI ( History of the PRI ), which was dedicated to the history of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional , and Cartas del Japón ( Letters from Japan ), which is about a Mexican engineering student in Japan. Overall, the number of state-produced films rose steadily in the first half of the 1970s, while privately financed or bank-financed productions decreased. The negative development of private film production could already be seen from the beginning of the 1960s, but it continued to intensify during this time. The reasons for this were varied and are linked to the increasing profit orientation of the producers, rising costs and the declining average quality, as well as increasing corruption in the film industry.
Setbacks (1976–1982)
The overall short epoch of artistic recovery with the simultaneous further decline of the industry, in which more new directors were able to make films and the quality of the film also slightly consolidated, did not last long. José López Portillo , who became president on December 1, 1976, appointed his sister Margarita López Portillo as director of all film studios and radio stations. It almost completely wiped out state film funding. It dissolved the Banco Cinematográfico, which had previously been one of the most important tools for supporting the film industry, and in 1979 it stopped supporting the state film studios CONACITE I. and CONACITE II. The basis of the filmmakers who stood for high quality cinema was thus lost. Overall, a strengthening of the private sector was pursued, which is why the great commitment of the state in the film industry was almost completely stopped. However, this only met with occasional harsher criticism from the filmmakers because they did not want to raise the remaining bureaucracy against them and also hoped for further government contracts, as Margarita López Portillo wanted to continue state film productions.
Despite the setbacks for the claims of the films, because a particularly large number of committed left-wing filmmakers were primarily dependent on government contracts, the financial situation of the Mexican film industry recovered after 1977. The cost of privately produced films, adjusted for inflation, fell by 39 percent; even by 60 percent, as more actors were employed and their wages fell. At the same time, private investments and investments from abroad increased, as did the number of co-productions. As a result, the number of films produced increased. Many of these films related to traditional genres such as melodrama, but also took up sodcore pornography and current affairs to attract visitors. Examples of films from this period that were aimed more at an international audience are Guyana, The Crime of the Century from 1979 and Hostages from 1980, both of which were directed by René Cardona Jr. and with international casts American actors like Stuart Whitman and Joseph Cotten . Hostages was loosely based on the history of the Tehran hostage situation . Overall, the Mexican studios discovered the growing market for Spanish language films in the United States. One of the independent filmmakers was Jaime Humberto Hermosillo , who released his tenth film María de mi corazón ( Maria, my love ) in 1982 , based on a novel by Gabriel García Márquez .
As a result of the economic collapse in 1982, state film production was cut back even further, as, according to Margarita López Portillo, there was no sufficiently large audience for the quality cinema. This withdrew more and more to the film clubs of the universities and young directors. Another great artistic loss was the fire in the Cineteca Nacional in March 1982, in which 6,000 rolls of film, two cinemas, the library, photos and other documents were destroyed and six people died. One of the reasons for the fire was failure to work on fire protection. Despite the generally poor economic situation, around 100 films were still made in 1982, which is why the number of employees could be kept stable. Portillo's reign was described by Gabriel Figueroa at an awards ceremony as the worst for Mexican film, and Tomás Pérez-Turrent criticized the quality of the film as being at the lowest level in several decades.
Slow beginning of the ascent (1982-1989)
After the change of government in November 1982, the national film industry was revived under President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado , which should improve the quality of film production. In view of the economic crisis, however, these measures did not have a particularly high priority. Some reforms of the film legislation were discussed, which should give the Mexican filmmakers, who were trained in state institutions, better access to the industry and should generally strengthen the higher quality Mexican film. The establishment of a Ministry of Culture was also considered, under whose roof film policy should also be coordinated. Despite these considerations, there was no change in the law under Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado's presidency.
In 1983 the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía was set up and Alberto Isaac took over as director. This newly established institution was instrumental in the renewal and resurgence of the Mexican film industry, even if its work was not free from controversy. Under the umbrella of the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, the two state production companies Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica and Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica de Trabajadores de Estado II , the production companies Churubusco-Atzteca and Estudio América , the state distribution organizations, the documentary film center and the state film schools were combined. Especially the occupation with Isaac aroused hope because instead of the usual bureaucrats who received such posts, a man who himself came from the film industry was given the director's post. But after a year he gave up the post to be able to make films again. Alberto Isaac was also involved in the organization of the third competition for experimental cinema in 1985, in which, among others, Diego López Rivera with Crónica da familia (Chronicle of a Family) and Alberto Córtez with Amor a la vuelta de la esquina (Love just around the corner ) participated and raised awareness of their talent.
Overall, the Mexican film industry began to develop slowly and positively from 1982 onwards. State film production rose again, if not to the same high level as before, and the state also supported independent filmmakers financially in their productions. Examples of positive independent productions are Nocaut ( Knockout ) by José Luis García Agraz , which tells the story of a boxer who murders his dealing promoter, and Vidas errantes (Wandering Lives) by Juan de la Riva , both published in 1982 . In 1984 the Cineteca Nacional was reopened. Her holdings were now housed in a fire-proof manner and there were four cinema halls available to her.
The following year, for the first time in a long time, there were several films that could appeal to an international audience. Paul Leduc turned Frida Kahlo - Long Live Life ( Frida, naturaleza viva , 1986), in which the life of the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo with Ofelia Medina was filmed as the lead actress. The non-linear narrative style and the work with the image, which often replaced the dialogue, were positively highlighted by the critics. The film Doña Herlinda y su hijo (Doña Herlinda and her son) by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo , also from 1985, deals with the story of a gay man who is forced into a marriage with a woman as a facade by his mother. This film was seen as a commentary on moral standards in Mexico and also garnered international attention. Despite these positive developments in quality, there were still poorly produced films such as Lola la trailera (Lola, the trucker) by Raúl Fernández , who still had a budget of $ 150,000 in the US 2.5 million and in Mexico one million Grossed dollars.
The influence of television on the production of movies also increased. The film El maleficio 2 (The Curse 2) was based on a popular telenovela and alongside the well-known actor Ernesto Alonso , the television actress Lucía Méndez played . In addition to Méndez, María Elena Velasco and Roberto Gómez Bolaños also made it from television to the big screen. After a few rather mediocre films in the first half of the 1980s, director Arturo Ripstein also managed to deliver another film in 1986 with El imperio de la fortuna (The Realm of Happiness) that reflected his talent. In the film he treated like a man's money that corrupts those around him. Another innovative and creative Mexican director of the 1980s was Felipe Cazal , who in 1987 released the film La furia de un dios (The Fury of a God) , based on Albert Camu's work Caligula . Cazal put the story of the obsessive Roman emperor into the business world, in which a businessman strives for dominance economically and in his sex life. In addition to Fernando Balzaretti , the Spanish actress Assumpta Serna played the main female role because the film was co-produced by Spanish television.
With directors like Felipe Cazal, Arturo Ripstein and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, a higher quality re-established itself in the film industry in the second half of the 1980s. Mexican films were again received abroad as artistic and interesting. They also dealt increasingly with current social and political issues such as terrorism , environmental pollution and the economic crisis. A film that did this in a special way is Días deficiles (Difficult Days) by director Alejandro Pelayo from 1987. In addition to these qualitative developments, which despite everything only appealed to a small part of the Mexican population, there was also one towards the end of the decade significant change in the organization of Mexican film. In 1989 the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, which until then was subordinate to the Secretaría de Gobernación, was subordinated to the Secretaría de Educación Pública . Thus the influence of the Ministry of the Interior, which often influenced films politically or tried to do so, fell away.
In addition to these higher quality films, over 200 B-movies were shot in the 1980s about drug transport, some of which featured extreme depictions of violence and light pornography. In addition, the slightly positive artistic development was not reflected in the number of visitors. In fact, from the early 1980s to 1987, Mexican films lost 45 percent of Mexican viewers and 50 percent of viewers in the US market, which is important for financing the Mexican film industry.
New Mexican Film (since 1990)
Beginning and establishment (1990s)
At the beginning of the 1990s, an era began that is known as the New Mexican Cinema , in which the quality of Mexican films increased significantly again and was also able to celebrate international success as a result. In addition, Mexican directors, actors and other personalities of the film increasingly managed to gain international attention and to operate successfully outside of Mexico. One of the internationally best-known actresses is Salma Hayek , who first appeared in a telenovela and later in several US cinema films such as Desperado , From Dusk Till Dawn and Wild Wild West . Her success in Hollywood gave her the opportunity to work herself as a producer and director. Hayek was the first Mexican actress since Dolores del Río , Lupe Vélez and Katy Jurado to establish herself as a star in Hollywood. The 1990s also saw the first ever more successful appearances of female directors. After Matilde Landeta and Adela Sequeyro drew attention to themselves in the late 1980s , they were followed by Mariá Novaro , Marisa Sistach and Dana Rotberg in the following years .
In the 1990s the interest of the Mexican middle class in high-quality films slowly increased, which further propelled and supported the renaissance of Mexican film. This development was fueled by Jorge Fons' 1989 film Rojo amanecer (Red Dawn) , in which the middle-class couple, played by María Rojo and Héctor Bonilla , and their extended family are all around danger and fear in a small apartment to experience the Tlatelolco massacre . This film was the first to deal with this part of Mexican history in a committed manner, despite the necessary government approval. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía also changed its funding policy, so it stopped its own studio production due to union pressure and only acted as a co-producer for private production companies. This institution thus followed the political line of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari , who strengthened the private sector and reduced state economic commitment.
During this time, some films were made that were of high quality, attractive and also internationally successful. 1990 turned about Jaime Humberto Hermosillo with La tarea (the task) , an innovative sex comedy with José Alonso and María Rojo, who was one of the anerkanntesten Mexican actresses in the sequence in the lead roles. In the following year Nicolás Echevarría finished the film Cabeza de Vaca , which told the story of the Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca with a view to the 1992 anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus . At 1,300,000 US dollars in production, it was an above-average film by Mexican standards, and featured a variety of impressive visual effects. Internationally, the film received mostly positive reviews and was shown at the 1991 International Film Festival . Another successful film was Como agua para chocolate (Bittersweet chocolate), the film adaptation of a successful novel by Alfonso Arau in 1992 with Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi in the leading roles. It was commercially successful outside of Mexico, particularly in the United States, where it was the most commercially successful foreign film by 1997, with revenues of $ 21,665,500. In the same year, Guillermo del Toro released his first feature film with the horror film Cronos . At that time, Como aguapara chocolate and Cronos were the two most expensive productions in Mexican film history. Overall, 1991 and 1992 saw the largest number of high-quality Mexican films in a long time. Between 1989 and 1993, the Mexican film industry was the most dynamic in Latin America. However, there were still problems in the area of distribution, as the big cinema groups were particularly fixated on showing Hollywood blockbusters and Mexican films often had a hard time finding their niche.
This quality level steadied itself in the following years. In 1994, the established director Jorge Fons shot El Callejón de los Milagros (The Street of Miracles) based on a novel by the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz . The story of Cairo's neighbors during World War II has been carried over to Mexico in the 1990s by Fons. The dramatic and sometimes humorous portrayal of the lives of these neighbors is staged from different perspectives. The cast of the film included recognized and popular Mexican actors such as Ernesto Gómez Cruz , Margarita Sanz , Delia Casanova , Daniel Giménez Cacho, and Claudio Obregón . In addition, Salma Hayek made her first appearance in a Mexican film, which was highly praised by the critics. The success of such films on the international market was largely dependent on the regional distributors and their commitment, for example in promoting. For example, the comedy Santitos by Alejandro Sprigall was received very positively at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival , but hardly found an audience in American cinemas due to a failed distribution policy.
The most successful film of 1998, the lowest number since the early 1930s with only eleven productions, was Sexo, pudor y lagrimas (Sex, Shame and Tears) by Antonio Serrano , who directed a relationship drama with comedic means. The film was shown in cinemas for a total of 27 consecutive weeks. Another film that enjoyed international audiences and good reviews was Luis Estrada's La ley de Herod (Herod's Law) in 1999. This film, starring Damián Alcázar and Pedro Armendáriz Jr., dealt with the subject of corruption in Mexico and caused heated controversy due to the naming of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional , although the film was set in the 1950s. The first planned performances did not take place for various reasons, which was perceived as a new form of censorship. After criticism from numerous filmmakers that he had given in to pressure from party officials and sabotaged the screening of the film, the director of the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía , Eduardo Amarena , relinquished the rights to the film so that Estrada was solely responsible for the performance. The film reached large audiences in Mexico and was also shown in the United States and Europe, where however it was unable to achieve the thematic influence as in its country of origin. In part, the film was seen as a contribution to the decline of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which, however, overrated its influence.
The success of Mexican filmmakers was not limited to the domestic film industry. Sun turned Luis Mandoki , after he had shot four films in Mexico in the 1980s, in Hollywood. His films there include When a Man Loves a Woman from 1994 and Message in a Bottle from 1999. He was one of the first representatives of the new generation of Mexican film outside of Mexico. This made him one of the pioneers of several other Mexican directors.
The development of Mexican film was supported by government action. In addition to the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía , the government set up the Fondo para la Producción Cinematográfica de Calidad (FOPROCINE) film support fund in January 1998 , which had the express aim of supporting high-quality films. The fund received an endowment of 135 million pesos and supported a total of 37 films. The increase in film production from eleven films in 1998 to 28 in 2000 was also due to this funding. In 2001 the FOPROCINE funds were used up. It was replaced by the Fund Fondo de Inversión y Estímulos al Cine (FIDECINE), which was set up at the instigation of the Congress of the Union of Mexico and personalities from the film industry. Its orientation was more commercial; distributors, cinema owners and other people from the film industry were involved in the selection of the film projects to be funded, but not filmmakers. In addition to this type of funding, there were also more and more coproductions with the USA and Spain.
Growing international influence (2000s and 2010s)
The positive trend and international success of Mexican films continued into the new millennium, even if it fluctuated significantly in terms of the number of films produced annually. 21 films were shot in 2001, 14 in 2002 and then again 29 in 2003. The number of screenings of Mexican productions in cinemas rose to up to ten percent in a few years due to improved film funding, with an average of around around six percent. Mexico's many political and social problems have been dealt with in numerous films, some of which have also been internationally successful at the box office, critics and festivals. In 2000 there were 15 mostly state-produced or co-produced films. The most successful, however, was the privately financed debut film by Alejandro González Iñárritu Amores Perros . The film won two prizes at the 53rd Cannes International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year. The British Film Institute even honored Amores perros with a book in the series BFI Modern Classics . Based on the script by Guillermo Arriaga , the film deals with love, hate and dreams of the future in Mexican society in three storylines . One of the main roles was played by Gael García Bernal , who subsequently made other successful and well-known films, and Emilio Echevarría played another .
In Amores Perros followed by two more Mexican films that international success had. The first was the youth film Y Tu Mamá También ( And your mother too ) from 2001, directed by Alfonso Cuarón . The film, which deals with the lack of perspective of Mexican youth and their moral compass, was nominated for the best original screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards. The film also won numerous international awards. Carlos Carrera's melodrama El crimen del padre Amaro ( The Temptation of Padre Amaro ) starring Gael García Bernal and Ana Claudia Talancón was nominated for this year's Oscar for best foreign language film . The film, which deals with the corruption of a young priest who takes money from the drug mafia, starts a relationship with his housekeeper, and then forces her to have an abortion, in the course of which she dies, met with heavy criticism from the Catholic Church, but found large numbers Viewers, making it the most financially successful Mexican film of all time.
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Due to the improved situation of the film industry, the Vicente Fox Quesada government thought about reducing the funding and at least partially privatizing the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía . The 2004 budget proposed the cancellation of funds for the institute, the state drama school and the Churubusco studio, but the Congress rejected these proposals, so the facilities remained in place. Vicente Fox Quesada wanted to contribute to the overall savings volume by canceling the funds, but they would only have amounted to ten million US dollars. He also pursued a policy of the free market and generally wanted to reduce state economic activity and subsidies. However, critics argued that apart from the American and Indian film industries, no other film industry in the world could survive without government support, and also argued that Mexican film was particularly important to the country's cultural identity. But there were also voices like the film producer Rosa Bosch , who emphasized that the internationally successful films such as Amores perros were privately financed, and Guillermo del Toro said that he considered state funding to be outdated.
In the wake of the success of Mexican films, some directors made it to Hollywood and shot internationally successful and well-known films there. After the horror film The Devil's Backbone , which was not particularly successful in the Spanish Civil War , Guillermo del Toro moved to Hollywood. There he shot Blade II in 2002 and Hellboy in 2005. Alejandro González Iñárritu shot Babel in 2006 , which was an American, French and Mexican co-production and premiered at the 59th Cannes International Film Festival . After Y Tu Mamá También, Alfonso Cuarón shot the third part of the Harry Potter series in 2004 with the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban . In 2006 he followed up with Children of Men . Another Mexican successful in Hollywood was cinematographer Guillermo Navarro , who won the 2007 Academy Awards for Best Cinematography for his work in del Toro 's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth . In the first half of the second decade of the 21st century, Mexican filmmakers continued to establish themselves as a major creative force in Hollywood. Most evident in this was its success at the Oscars. With Cuarón 2014 for Gravity , which was also awarded for Best Editing, and Gonzáles Iñárritu 2015 for Birdman , who was also awarded for this film for the cut and together with other authors for Best Original Screenplay, and in 2016 for The Revenant was the Director's Oscar for three consecutive years to Mexicans. In addition, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki received the Oscar for best cinematography for each of these three films . Overall, the creative influence of Mexicans in contemporary Hollywood cinema is emphasized again and again, and reference is made to other creative people such as screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga , the actors Diego Luna and Demián Bichir and the director Patricia Riggen .
In addition to the movement of Mexican filmmakers to Hollywood, there was also the reverse route. For example, Luis Mandoki started filming in Mexico again in 2004. And after living and working in the United States for some time , Alfonso Arau returned that same year and shot the film Zapata: El sueño de un héroe ( Zapata: The Hero's Dream ), which had a production cost of ten million US dollars funded by private investors is the most expensive Mexican film. The success of Mexican filmmakers in Hollywood is seen as a loss to the national film industry. The situation is described as a talent drain .
Festivals
There are a few film festivals in Mexico every year , none of which are accredited by the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films . The most important film festival in Mexico is the week-long Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara in the city of Guadalajara in western Mexico, which takes place in March. It has existed since 1986 and has a focus on Mexican and Latin American film, showing feature films , documentaries , short films and children's films. An international jury awards the competition prize in various categories. The film screenings also take place in different places in the city under the open sky. The Guadalajara Film Festival played an important role in Mexican film, especially in the late 1980s, as it supported and re-initiated the careers of filmmakers such as Arturo Ripstein , María Félix and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo .
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The Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneol in Mexico City has been run by Cinemex , one of the two major cinema operators, since 2004. It is one of the most important film festivals in Latin America and has an international jury. It shows films in the documentary, feature films, retrospective and global developments sections , some of which are world premieres. Another festival in Mexico City is the Pantalla de Cristal Festival , which has been held since 1999. Around 200 digital films, short films, documentaries, music videos and commercials will be shown there within a week . There is also the Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de la Ciudad de México , which has been held since 2005.
Since 1997 the Expresión en Corto International Film Festival has been held in the cities of San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato in the last week of July . It is state funded and is open to viewers without an entrance fee. The competition categories are short film, documentary short film, documentary film and debut film by a Mexican director. In addition to the competition, each year a host country can present itself comprehensively and discussion events are offered. A special offer of the Expresión en Corto International Film Festival are horror films in cemeteries or in the museum near the mummies of Guanajuato . The Festival Internacional de Cine de Monterrey has been held in Monterrey since 2000 . The competition includes feature and short films from Mexico, Latin America and the rest of the world. Films on certain social topics are also shown. In addition, each festival in Monterrey has a guest country presenting its film tradition. The Festival Internacional De Cine Independiente y Video Oaxaca in Oaxaca de Juárez is a four-day festival in November that specializes in independent films . There are also a few other film festivals such as the Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia in Morelia , the Riveria Maya Underground Film Festival in Playa del Carmen and the Cancun International Film Festival in Cancun .
Cinemas
Cinemas were established in Mexico early on. In 1902 there were around 300 theaters in the country, plus traveling projectionists. Over the years, these smaller cinemas established themselves and remained in existence for a long time, even though they were technically and structurally obsolete for a long time. It was not until the 1990s that the cinema landscape in Mexico changed fundamentally, which was also accompanied by a change in the audience. The funds of the state-operated or subsidized cinemas were continuously reduced by the government, which resulted in a loss of quality of the venues. As a result, they were mostly closed or privatized. They were increasingly being replaced by multiplex cinemas , which, in addition to pure cinema operations, also included other offers such as sushi bars or coffee shops and security services . The prices for going to the cinema rose with this development. Before this development, around six tickets could be purchased with the daily wage; in 2004 the average daily wage was just enough for one ticket. In 2001 there were around 2,000 canvases across the country. Forty-five percent of them belonged to the Ramírez Cinemas company , which owned 55 film palaces, 41 multiplexes, 28 two-screen and six single-screen cinemas. In total, its cinemas had 198,000 seats. The second major player in the market was Cinemex , which with 325 screens and 60,000 seats comprised 25 percent of the market and has its focus in Mexico City . Other cinema companies in Mexico include Cinemark , Cinemas Lumiere , Multicinemas , MMCinemas and Cinemastar .
Institutions
There are various institutions in Mexico that deal with film, its history and funding. The oldest institution of this kind is the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas, founded on July 3, 1946 in Mexico City . The academy promotes the film and research about it. It also awards the Mexican film prize Premio Ariel , the award of which was suspended between 1958 and 1971. Another important institution is the Cineteca Nacional , also located in the capital , which, as a film archive, tries to preserve the films and preserve them for the future. It also organizes film series and festivals to provide insights into various aspects of national and international film. The Filmoteca de la UNAM , an institution of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, has similar goals . It contains, among other things, the version of the film Los olivados by Luis Buñuel , which was included in the UNESCO list of world heritage documents . There are also such facilities outside of the Mexican capital. One example is the Centro de Investigación y Enseñanza Cinematográfica in Guadalajara , which is dedicated to research on film.
The Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía was founded in 1983 to bring together under one roof all government organizations, companies and institutions that dealt with film and its promotion. It includes, among other things, its own studio and the national film school. At the time of its founding, the studio capacities were significantly larger, and the institute also included sales companies.
Scientific reception
Institutionalized documentation and research into film in Mexico began early. As early as 1942, the Secretariat for Public Education founded the first cinematheque in Mexico with the aim of collecting and preserving all films produced in the country. Two years later, in 1944, the film journalist José María Sánchez García prepared the first comprehensive chronological account of Mexican film, which he published as a series of articles in the Novedades newspaper . The first film encyclopaedias with a focus on national films followed in the 1950s. In the 1960s, film scholars began to write about Mexican film, and their works are still present in Mexican film studies and have had a strong impact on it. The first articles were published by Emilio García Riera , who is considered the leading Mexican film historian, and who later wrote the seventeen-volume book series Historia documental del cine , in which the Mexican films between 1929 and 1976 are comprehensively reviewed and discussed. Riera also found that the era of silent films in Mexico is poorly documented, as most of the films from the period between 1897 and 1920 have been lost. Another important work in Mexican film studies is La aventura del cine mexicano by Jorge Ayala Blanco , published in 1968 . Blanco let other books follow, the titles of which were borrowed from the next letter of the alphabet. For example, La búsqueda del cine mexicano appeared in 1974 and La condición del cine mexicano in 1986 . The books by Jorge Ayala Blanco are characterized by a more polemical and free style in contrast to the strictly scientific publications of Emilio García Riera. The most detailed processing of the silent film era was carried out by Luis Reyes de la Maza , who mainly relied on contemporary newspapers and magazines. He published Cine y sociedad en México in two volumes, the first covering the years 1896 to 1920 and the second volume from 1920 to 1924.
While the works of Emilio Garciá Riera, Jorge Avala Blanco and Luis Reyes de la Maza deal on a large scale with the history of Mexican film and its epochs, there are also a large number of publications that deal with individual aspects. For example, the Mexican film historian Eduardo de la Vega published various biographical works such as those on Juan Orol and Raúl de Anda . There is also the book series Testimonios del cine mexicano , in which prominent film personalities gave information about their work in interviews. There are also numerous popular biographies on the stars of Mexican cinema such as Dolores del Río . In 1990 an exhibition was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City , which celebrated the Mexican national cinema and on the occasion of which an issue of the culture magazine Artes de México was published, in which a review of the Mexican film was made. The magazine presented numerous iconographic still images from Mexican film history. In addition, directors, screenwriters and film critics had their say in a survey on which film moments they consider the most important. The abundance of Spanish-language publications even led Eduardo de la Vega to say that Mexican films are among the best documented in the world. However, this statement cannot be verified by statistics or similar information.
In addition to the many publications in Spanish, there is a growing number of English publications. One of the earliest works of this kind was Carl J. Mora's book Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society , first published in 1982, which is a chronological representation of the development of Mexican cinema. Since the 1990s, when Mexican films aroused worldwide interest, there have been a large number of other English-language publications. For example , the book Mexican Cinema , published by the British Film Institute , was published in 1996 and the book Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Films and Filmmakers in 1999 , in which both American and Mexican film scholars examine aspects of Mexican film history in individual essays. In addition, works about individual Mexican directors and actors, as well as other individual aspects of Mexican film, have also been published in English.
literature
- Carl J. Mora: Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896-2004 . McFarland & Co Inc, Jefferson NC 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2083-4 .
- David R. Maciel, Joanne Hershfield: Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers. Sr Books, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8420-2682-6 .
- Andrea Noble: Mexican National Cinema. Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 978-0-415-23010-0 .
- Zuzana M. Pick: Constructing the Image of the Mexican Revolution: Cinema and the Archive. University of Texas Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-292-72108-1 .
- Doyle Greene: Mexploitation Cinema: A Critical History of Mexican Vampire, Wrestler, Ape-Man and Similar Films, 1957-1977. Mcfarland & Co Inc, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2201-2 .
- Leslie Bethell: A cultural history of Latin America: literature, music, and the visual arts in the 19th and 20th centuries . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, ISBN 0-521-62626-9 .
- Thomas Koebner , Fabienne Liptay (ed.): Film Concepts 15 - The Young Mexicans . edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86916-025-2 .
Web links
- Homepage of the Cineteca Nacional
- Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia
- Online editions of the Mexican Film Bulletin
1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014
- From the first feature film with a playing time of over an hour in 1916.
Individual evidence
- ^ Carl J. Mora: "Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896-2004." McFarland & Co Inc, Jefferson NC 2005. S, 3.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 4.
- ↑ Leslie Bethell: A cultural history of Latin America: literature, music, and the visual arts in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998. p. 455.
- ^ A b David R. Maciel, Joanne Hershfield: "Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers." Sr Books, 1999. p. 5.
- ↑ Ella Shohat, Robert Stam: “Multiculturalism, postcoloniality, and transnational media.” Rutgers University Press, 2003, p. 109.
- ^ Mora, p. 5.
- ^ Bethell, p. 456.
- ↑ Mora, pp. 6 and 7.
- ^ Mora, p. 7.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 9.
- ^ Mora, p. 10.
- ^ Mora, p. 11.
- ↑ a b c Mora, p. 13.
- ^ Bethell, p. 459.
- ↑ Mora, p. 14.
- ↑ Mora, p. 15.
- ^ Mora, p. 17.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 18.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 19.
- ^ Bethell, p. 462.
- ^ Maciel, Hershfield, p. 2.
- ↑ Mora, p. 25.
- ↑ Mora, p. 27.
- ↑ Mora, p. 29.
- ↑ a b c Mora, p. 30.
- ↑ Mora, p. 31.
- ↑ Mora, p. 28.
- ↑ Mora, p. 33.
- ↑ Mora, p. 35.
- ↑ Mora, p. 37.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 41.
- ^ A b Andrea Noble: "Mexican National Cinema." Taylor & Francis, 2005. p. 14.
- ↑ Mora, p. 44.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 43.
- ↑ a b Bethell, p. 467.
- ^ Mora, p. 45.
- ^ Mora, p. 47.
- ↑ Mora, p. 48.
- ↑ Mora, p. 49.
- ↑ Mora, p. 50.
- ↑ a b c d Noble, p. 15.
- ↑ a b c d Noble, p. 16.
- ↑ Mora, p. 67.
- ↑ Bethell, p. 471.
- ^ Mora, p. 54.
- ↑ Mora, p. 53.
- ^ Mora, p. 57.
- ^ Bethell, p. 472.
- ^ Mora, p. 59.
- ↑ Mora, p. 61.
- ^ Mora, p. 63.
- ^ Mora, p. 76.
- ↑ Mora, p. 94.
- ↑ Mora, p. 96.
- ↑ Mora, p. 77.
- ^ Mora, p. 78.
- ^ Mora, p. 82.
- ↑ a b c Mora, p. 85.
- ↑ a b c Noble, p. 17.
- ^ Noble, p. 16.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 101.
- ^ Bethell, p. 475.
- ^ Mora, p. 86.
- ^ Bethell, p. 476.
- ↑ Mora, p. 105.
- ↑ a b Noble, p. 18.
- ^ Mora, p. 103.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 106.
- ↑ Bethell, p. 483.
- ↑ Mora, p. 108.
- ↑ Mora, p. 110.
- ^ Mora, p. 111.
- ↑ Bethell, pp. 486-487.
- ↑ a b Noble, p. 19.
- ↑ a b Bethell, pp. 492-493.
- ↑ a b Noble, p. 20.
- ^ Mora, p. 133.
- ^ Mora, p. 122.
- ^ Mora, p. 123.
- ↑ a b c Noble, p. 21.
- ^ Mora, p. 140.
- ↑ Mora, p. 141.
- ^ Mora, p. 142.
- ↑ Mora, p. 148.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 150.
- ^ Mora, p. 153.
- ^ Mora, p. 156.
- ^ Mora, p. 158.
- ^ Mora, p. 159.
- ↑ Mora, p. 167.
- ^ Mora, p. 173.
- ↑ Mora, p. 175.
- ↑ Bethell, p. 516.
- ^ Mora, p. 187.
- ^ Mora, p. 190.
- ^ Mora, p. 198.
- ↑ Mora, p. 216.
- ↑ Mora, p. 201.
- ↑ Mora, p. 203.
- ↑ Bethell, p. 517.
- ^ Mora, pp. 226 and 227.
- ^ Mora, p. 231.
- ^ Noble, p. 22.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 237.
- ^ Mora, p. 249.
- ↑ a b c Mora, p. 251.
- ^ Mora, p. 238.
- ^ Noble, p. 22.
- ^ Mora, p. 249.
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 254.
- ^ Mora, p. 256.
- ↑ a b Rafa Fernandez De Castro: "Best of the best. These Hollywood Mexican immigrants are pushing the boundaries of American cinema", published on fusion.net on August 15, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2016.
- ^ Mora, p. 219.
- ↑ Ioan Grillo: "How Mexicans became Hollywood's best directors", published on globalpost.net on February 22, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2016.
- ↑ FIAPF: Information about the accredited film festivals at FIAPF on fiapf.org . Retrieved November 17, 2016.
- ↑ Description on monterreyfilmfestival.com, accessed on September 4, 2010 ( Memento from August 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Bethell, p. 456
- ↑ a b Mora, p. 235.
- ↑ a b Noble, p. 4.
- ↑ a b Mora, pp. 3 and 4.
- ^ Noble, pp. 4 and 5.
- ↑ a b Noble, p. 5.
- ^ Noble, p. 2.
- ^ Noble, p. 3.
