Past, present, and future of Central American cinema at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

Abstract

Abstract: Throughout their history, film festivals have formed a circuit in which not only a series of films are exhibited, but also obtain distribution agreements and gain prestige, both for their directors and for the countries or geographical areas in which they are produced. TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) is nowadays considered one of the most influential, especially because of the distribution agreements it has achieved for independent films and the important promotion it provides for Oscar nominations or awards. In this research, we analyze the twelve Central American films selected by this festival throughout its history. In the 1980s, and mainly as part of a retrospective of Latin American cinema, it screened films committed to revolutionary movements. In the 2010s, however, the emergence of two renowned authors on the festival circuit such as Julio Hernández Cordón and Jayro Bustamante has offered a different image of Central American cinema, whose future growth seems guaranteed thanks to the films that are already helping to produce some of these festivals, such as San Sebastián.