"This is a key reference text that should have a prominent place in the library of anyone interested in Latin American cinema.... Highly synthetic essays dedicated to individual films carefully situate each work in both historical and cinematic terms. In the best of cases, this method models an alternative writing of national film history through individual essays on outstanding films contextualized within their maker's career and the contemporaneous profile of national film culture.... An ambitious and valuable volume."

—Julianne Burton-Carvajal, Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

Originally issued in hardcover in 1996 by Garland Publishing, this important reference work is now available in paperback for a wider audience. A distinguished team of contributors has compiled entries on 140 significant South American feature films from the silent era until 1994. The entries discuss each film's subject matter, critical reception, and social and political contexts, as well as its production, distribution, and exhibition history, including technical credits. The entries are grouped by country and arranged chronologically. Both fiction and documentary films (some no longer in existence) are included, as well as extensive title, name, and subject indexes and glossaries of film and foreign terms.