Grupo Nuevo Cine, the seed of mexican independent cinema

Gabriela Martínez @Gabmartivel

At the beginning of the sixties, a new generation of filmmakers, aspiring filmmakers, critics and directors of film clubs emerged who, inspired by André Bazin -founder of Cahiers du Cinéma-, made public their concern to revive the film industry in Mexico, by editing the first issue of the Nuevo Cine magazine. In April 1961, without any official support and with just three advertisers, the first of seven issues of the project was published; despite its short life, it sowed the seed that allowed the renewal of Mexican cinema.

In the first issue of the magazine was published a manifesto signed several months ago, in January 1961, by the members of Grupo Nuevo Cine: José de la Colina, Rafael Corkidi, Salvador Elizondo, JM García Ascot, Emilio García Riera, JL González de León, Heriberto Lafranchi, Carlos Monsiváis, Julio Pliego, Gabriel Ramírez, José María Sbert and Luis Vicens.

Jomí García Ascot, José Luis González de León, Luis Buñuel, Gabriel Ramírez, Armando Bartra y José de la Colina; abajo: Salvador Elizondo y Emilio García Riera.

The manifesto aimed to carry out a series of joint actions aimed at overcoming -as can be read in the first point of the manifesto- "the depressing state of Mexican cinema."

Since the end of the fifties, Mexican cinema was plunged into an economic and creative crisis, fostered by union obstacles that hindered the incursion of new talent. The origin of this impossibility was due mainly to the policy of closed doors established by the Union of Workers of Cinematographic Production (STPC) and the Union of Workers of the Cinematographic Industry (STIC); whose objective was to protect the work of industry professionals and avoid the inclusion of new artists, technicians and manuals.

That is how Grupo Nuevo Cine, influenced by the New French Wave and the need to renew the film industry, decided to start working publishing this magazine. The project was joined by personalities such as Carlos Fuentes, José Luis Cuevas and Vicente Rojo; even Manuel González Casanova, founder of the Film Library of the UNAM, would be part of Grupo Nuevo Cine.

In its fourth point the manifesto called for the creation of "a serious institute of film education that specifically dedicates itself to the training of new filmmakers", the creation of a film library and advocated the study and research of Mexican cinema in all its aspects. Thus, in 1962 the doors of the UNAM Film Library opened and a year later, the University Center for Cinematographic Studies of the UNAM (CUEC) was founded.

As Asier Aranzubia mentions in his article Nuevo Cine (1961-1962) and the birth of modern Mexican cinematographic culture, "Nuevo Cine will have the honor of introducing in the Mexico of the 1960s this new way of thinking and writing about films that since the mid-1950s rehearse, as is well known, André Bazin and his disciples in the Cahiers du cinema and that, in the end, will lead to the successful overcoming (in very different latitudes) of a dominated critical discourse for impressionism and lack of rigor "; thus allowing the birth of a cinematographic culture.

On the Empty Balcony by Jomí García Ascot (1961) was the only movie filmed during the rise of Grupo Nuevo Cine and therefore became its iconic film. Filmed with a budget of less than 50 thousand pesos, independently and in 16 mm, On the Empty Balcony addresses the memory and oblivion left in the Spanish exiles by the Spanish Civil War. María Luisa Elio, co-screenwriter of the film, took up biographical elements to write the script of this film that refers to the aesthetics of the New French Wave and synthesizes the independent and experimental spirit of the movement.

Nuevo Cine magazine publishes its seventh and last number in August 1962, after not finding an effective way to continue financing the project. Some of the founders of the Group decided to continue writing as Emilio García Riera and Gabriel Ramírez, who edited the weekly newsletter La semana en el cine, or Salvador Elizondo, who together with García Riera edited the cultural magazine Snob. Other members became prominent figures in the country's cultural life.

Despite its ephemeral existence, Grupo Nuevo Cine and its magazine sowed the idea that Mexican cinema could do something different. Thus, in 1964 the Union of Film Production Workers (STPC) convenes the First Experimental Film Contest that awarded works such as Rubén Gámez's The Secret Formula (1965) and En este pueblo no hay ladrones by Alberto Isaac (1965). In 1967 a second contest was organized that allowed the debut of filmmakers like Juan Ibáñez, Carlos Enrique Taboada and Sergio Véjar, who would develop their career in the following decades, during the years of the cinematographic opening, the second great epoch of Mexican cinema.