Mexico’s national museum of cinema filmmaking and identity

Abstract

Mexico has a long history of filmmaking, from the silent era to the present, with some particularly prolific periods that have been stimulated by state sponsorship and international recognition. Appreciation ofthe results that began in the 1940s, when Mexican films won prizes at European festivals such as Cannes, has continued more recently with the success of directors such as Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, 2001/ And Your Mother, Too), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores perros, 2000/Love’s a Bitch;Babel, 2006) and Guillermo del Toro (Ellaberinto del fauno, 2006/Pan’s Labyrinth). The National Museum of Cinema seeksto broaden Mexico’s collective knowledge about its national film history, but first I’dlike to provide a little bit of it here.