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Cinema of Mexico | |
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No. of screens | 5,303 (2012)[1] |
• Per capita | 4.6 per 100,000 (2012)[1] |
Main distributors | Paramount Int'L 20.3% Warner Bros Int'L 16.2% Fox (Disney) Int'L 14.6%[2] |
Produced feature films (2011)[3] | |
Fictional | 51 (69.9%) |
Animated | 6 (8.2%) |
Documentary | 16 (21.9%) |
Number of admissions (2012)[4] | |
Total | 228,000,000 |
• Per capita | 2.0 |
National films | 10,900,000 (4.79%) |
Gross box office (2012)[4] | |
Total | $779 million |
National films | $36 million (4.62%) |
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Mexican cinema dates to the late nineteenth century during the rule of President Porfirio Díaz. Seeing a demonstration of short films in 1896, Díaz immediately saw the importance of documenting his presidency in order to present an ideal image of it.[citation needed] With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Mexican and foreign makers of silent films seized the opportunity to document its leaders and events. From 1915 onward, Mexican cinema focused on narrative film.[5]
During the Golden Age of Mexican cinema from 1936 to 1956, Mexico all but dominated the Latin American film industry.
In 2019, Roma became the first Mexican film and fourth Latin American film to win the Oscar for best foreign language film. Roma also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards.
Emilio "El Indio" Fernández was rumored to be the model for the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. According to the legend, in 1928 MGM's art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Motion Picture Academy members, was tasked with creating the Academy Award trophy. In need of a model for his statuette, Gibbons was introduced by his future wife, actress Dolores del Río, to Fernández. Reportedly, Fernández had to be persuaded to pose nude for what is today known as the "Oscar".[6][7]