The Foundation of New Latin American Cinema has celebrated its 40th anniversary. The milestone coincides with the Havana International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, a context that emphasizes its founding spirit: to articulate, from the diversity of the continent, a shared cinematic project.

Since its creation, the FNLC has been conceived as a private, non-profit cultural entity dedicated to promoting the development of cinema in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its essential purpose has been to contribute to regional integration, foster a unique audiovisual landscape, and support efforts to consolidate the cultural identity of our peoples.

The history of the FNLC is rooted in the pivotal meetings in Viña del Mar in 1967, where filmmakers from across the continent first debated the urgent need for a cinema that engaged with Latin American realities.

From that impetus emerged the Latin American Center for New Cinema, the precursor to the Latin American Filmmakers Committee, which was officially established in Caracas in 1974. During this same process, the idea also took root to create an institution that would support a future film school, inspired by Fernando Birri's pedagogical project, which would eventually become the now influential EICTV (International Film and Television School).

In April 1985, the Latin American Center for New Cinema decided to formalize this continental dream by creating the Foundation for New Latin American Cinema, and on December 4 of that same year, during the VII Latin American Film Festival, the FNLC's founding charter was signed at Casa de las Américas.

Its founding president was the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, who undertook the mission of promoting this organization as a platform for integration, professional growth, and cultural preservation for the regional audiovisual industry.

Based at Quinta Santa Bárbara in Havana, the FNLC has worked for four decades as a space for encounter, remembrance, and the promotion of Latin American and Caribbean cinema. Its 40 years confirm the enduring relevance of a project born to strengthen shared cultural identity and to defend, through the art of filmmaking, the deepest aspirations of our peoples.

In the context of the Festival, its anniversary reaffirms the importance of looking to history to understand how much progress has been made and how much remains to be done in building our own audiovisual identity.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff