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In 1895, the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière made the first public exhibition of the cinematograph in Paris. Only months later, in 1896, the Lumières’ cameramen arrived in Mexico and made the first exhibition of this invention to President Porfirio Díaz. Mexican cameramen learned the technique, conceptually assumed the new language and applied it, informing an interested audience of the events that were shaping the Mexican nation at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The films were shot in Mexico and capture details of the events that gave rise to, and developed, the social and political movement called the Mexican Revolution, extraordinary events that date back to 1932. These film testimonials that for the first time recorded and disseminated the radical social and political changes that took place during the Mexican revolution, were used to report news and to record the invasion of the North American army to Mexico. The films reflected real events and as such had a great influence on fictional films of the 1930s. The cinematograph demonstrated, with the Mexican cameramen in action, that it could be an effective information tool due to its immediacy, spectacular nature, and attachment to reality, although it could be, like any language, driven by bias towards a certain cause or person.

It is well known that photochemical film in its various formats (9.5, 16, 28 and 35mm) is physically and chemically unstable, decomposes and fades. For this reason, since its creation in 1960, the film archive of the National University of Mexico ("Filmoteca de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México") has carried out the mission of preserving and disseminating film documents, giving them a place and highlighting their value as unique historical documents.