Film screening and programming in Tampico and Ciudad Madero-Mexico: A retrospective look

Abstract

This work is part of the international research project “Screen Culture: Between ideology, political economy and experience. A study on the social role of film exhibitions and their consumption and their interaction with modernity and urbanization”. Inspired by the theoretical perspective of the New Cinema History, it provides a description and discussion of the exhibition and programming of films in 1952 in Tampico, Mexico, a port town located on the Northeastern state of Tamaulipas. The study presents a case study outside of Europe and the United States that allows us to contrast the social, cultural and economic factors that influence the programming of films and the location of movie theaters in a particular city. It is based on archival research as well as on the review of movie listings published weekly in 1952 in the local newspaper El Sol de Tampico. Both the historical presence of Hollywood films in the city as well as the boom in the exhibition of national films during this particular year of the golden age of Mexican cinema are discussed.