UC San Diego

This thesis analyzes film production during the Echeverría sexenio (1970-1976) where Mexican cinema would undergo both an infrastructural as well as developmental change. The Echeverría sexenio followed one of the most traumatic moments in Mexico City's history where politicized thought would be violently repressed. As a result of political and cultural changes post the 1968 student movements many students would begin to experiment and create independent film under the newly developed cinematic schools. These would become the first attempts to revitalize the film industry as well as allow for the growth of new cineastes in Mexico. Mexico would come to reanalyze itself, as a creator of Mexican representation within a modernizing international public sphere. Mexico begins to develop itself internationally through independent cinema, which in turns becomes the opposite of its initial ambitions through its students. The independent aesthetic and content become appropriated by the state and become marketed as progress in national consciousness and international prestige. This outcome becomes problematized through the avenues in which independent cinema is distributed and screened for audiences. As independent cinema becomes increasingly capitalized upon, distribution becomes the main element in which film can truly be an independent form. Creating public spaces in which filmmakers and audiences could discuss the developments and goals of independent cinema become the main source of the sub-independent level that would eventually become overlooked by the main consumer markets but would remain within the academic and intellectual spheres. This in turn would develop an unbalanced representation of the independent