Moving pictures came to Bolivia in 1897, shown in the La Paz Municipal Theatre, but were not made in the country until 1904.
The first Bolivia movie, Retrato de Personajes Históricos y de Actualidad showed celebrities and government officials of the time.
However, it was not until 1912 when Luis Castillo and J. Goytisolo started the Vistas Locales series, showing real Bolivian people in their everyday life, that cinema started to begin.
From then until 1918, Bolivia cinema was slow to integrate into society, but this was mostly due to costs as it was too expensive for the majority of Bolivians. Short documentaries were the main viewing interest at the time.
Hollywood picked up Europe's slack during World War 1 and Pedro Sambarino from Italy set up Bolivia Films who were behind many of the productions of the 1920's.
1952 saw the Bolivian Instituto Cinematografico established which has preserved many Bolivia movies and documentaries as historical records. In 1992, the government sets up the National Council of Cine in order to monitor and grow local Bolivia movie initiatives.
From the country's first cinematic days, Bolivia movies have been linked closely to Bolivia politics. The constant political instability and changes are important to Bolivia to record, but too, most funding of the film industry comes from the government.
Bolivia's movies are recognizeable for their use of indigenous themes and although they are hardly distributed, Bolivian films have and do win awards.
