Cineteca Nacional

Cineteca Nacional is a film museum, archive, research institute, and publishing house in the Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico City. The complex holds eight screening rooms of different sizes, several exhibition galleries, a specialized library with books and periodicals, and a garden with outdoor seating areas.

The institute was founded in 1974 to collect and preserve Mexican and foreign films. A fire in 1982 destroyed the original building and prompted a reconstruction that opened in 1984 at a different location in Coyoacán.

Weekend family outings often bring parents and children to matinee screenings that introduce national and international filmmaking to a broad audience. The venue also hosts regular meetings with directors, lectures, and discussion panels that draw an engaged crowd of film students and cinema lovers.

Most screenings take place in the evening, though some sessions begin in the afternoon. The main entrance leads to an open courtyard where visitors can orient themselves toward the screening rooms, library, or exhibition spaces.

Some rooms are furnished with original seating from old Mexican cinemas, restored to recreate the theater experience of past decades. Parts of the collection include early silent films from before 1920, rescued through specialized restoration programs.