Cineteca Nacional México
Mexico's national film archive at Xoco, with ten screens, an open-air forum and a film library.
The Cineteca Nacional was created in 1974 to collect, preserve and screen Mexican and international film, and occupies the former Estudios Churubusco land at Xoco in the south of the city. A fire in March 1982 destroyed much of the original building and a large part of the collection; a replacement designed by Manuel Rocha Díaz opened in 1984. Between 2012 and 2014 Rojkind Arquitectos rebuilt the complex, adding new screens, a lattice canopy and landscaped gardens over the plaza.
The venue now has ten auditoriums together with an open-air forum used for free screenings, and it is complemented by two sister sites, Cineteca Nacional de las Artes and Cineteca Nacional Chapultepec. Programming mixes new art-house releases with retrospectives, restored classics and thematic cycles, and the annual Foro Internacional de Cine has run since the 1980s before touring the country through the Circuito Cineteca. The building also holds the archive vaults, a documentation centre, a digital video library and exhibition spaces.
Highlights
- Ten screens plus a free open-air forum in the gardens
- National film archive with vaults, documentation centre and digital library
- Annual Foro Internacional de Cine and touring Circuito Cineteca
- 2014 remodelling by Rojkind Arquitectos with its lattice canopy
