Mexican cinema went through various periods of flux and renewal, one of these was in the 1960s. There were major events that occurred throughout that decade that changed cinema and filmmaking dramatically. One these was the formation of the Grupo nuevo cine [New Cinema Group]. This was a collective of filmmakers, critics, theorists and aficionados interested in moving Mexican film out of the old traditional model into a new, more independent one. That is to pull it from the stranglehold of the carefully controlled (and sexist) film unions and studio system, which was very much under government control in terms of funding and distribution. To clarify, they weren’t against organised labour, what those who were filmmmakers were concerned with was that they should be allowed to participate in it on an equal footing. This new grouping formed in 1961. They set up a film journal, a film society, and experimental film awards. All of these were short lived, but nonetheless highly influential in their scope. At this time the new film school was set up and through the screenings and journal articles they created a canon of films, that is just being challenged in any significant way in recent years. Creating a canon in this way reconfigured what was considered important and worthy of study, moving away from a fixed nationalist discourse, albeit towards another more contestatory one. What they did is valuable and should be studied further and can be done with the aid of this resource: http://www.cinelatinoamericano.cult.cu/biblioteca/fondo.aspx?cod=2385
Their activities were short lived, but had a considerable impact on later generations of critics and filmmakers that is still in evidence. They led the way in the move from an industrial, studio-based style of filmmaking to the independent and privatized model that can be seen today.