Latin American and Spanish Video on the Internet:
a Guide to Web Resources

Scope of this Guide

Despite the proliferation of videos on the Internet, finding Latin American and Spanish videos still remains a challenge. This guide brings together a selection of quality web resources that provide access to freely available videos, representing the great variety and diversity of Latin American and Spanish video production on the Internet.

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Cultural Institutions

Casa de America

Official web site of the Casa de América, a Spanish institution that promotes the knowledge and interest in Latin America by organizing activities and providing access to its resources. Part of its audiovisual resources are available via Casa de America Virtual, including lectures by film directors, symposia, and conferences.

Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. Archivo Audiovisual

The Audiovisual Archive of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art offers access to a selection of documentaries and animated films focusing on Pre-Columbian cultures. All the videos are produced by the museum.

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Digital Video Libraries, Archives & Portals

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Videoteca

This is the most comprehensive Hispanic digital library. Its goal is to preserve and make accessible the hispanic cultural heritage available in various formats (mainly texts, images and videos). Regarding videos, it provides access to a valuable collection mainly focused on literary topics such as interviews, poetic readings, and theatrical representations. Its unique Biblioteca de Signos (Library of Signs) should also be noted. It contains a collection of videos designed especially for the hearing-impaired.

Cinemateca Virtual de Chile

This virtual library provides access to Chilean heritage audiovisual materials available on the Internet. Includes a great variety of videos ranging from short films and feature films such as the Chilean classic El húsar de la muerte (1925) to television programs. Created by Arcoiris TV and the National Council of Culture and the Arts.

Internet Archive

Extensive online archive that provides open access to a vast variety of materials in digital form including a Moving Image Archive. Of special interest is its Open Source Movies Collection which is browsable by subject and language (including languages spoken in Latin America and Caribbean). Archive users and community members contribute to the archive by uploading videos.

Cinevivo

Argentine portal devoted to independent films. Features a collection of short films in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles submitted by video creators. It also offers current news and information on film festivals.

Nuestro Chile.cl: El Sitio del Patrimonio Cultural Chileno - Biblioteca Video

Developed by the Corporation for Chilean Cultural Heritage, this award-winning web site includes videos on Chilean heritage. Unlike the Cinema Virtual de Chile, it only features documentaries and a selection of shorts presented at Huellas Digitales, a festival specialized in short-form documentaries.

Created by the Cuban Film Institute (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica - ICAIC), this web site showcases a video collection of interviews with worldwide figures from the political left. Its goal is to become a filmic memory of contemporary revolutionary thought. Currently, only a few interviews are available.

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Film Studies Schools

Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica - Cortos en Línea

This film school, located in Argentina, has created a section, Cortos en Línea, on its web site, which contains a small yet interesting selection of works directed by students and alumni.

Escuela de Cine de Chile - Videos

The Film School of Chile offers a brief selection of works by its students.

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NGO's and Associations

Promoted by the Kine Foundation in Argentina and UNICEF, this project encourage young adults to express themselves by creating short documentaries that explore topics related to their interests and reality. This web site provides access to an archive, organized by topic and province, of all of the videos created since 2005 as part of this initiative.

Biblioteca Ser Indígena - Videos

Developed by the Chilean NGO, Comunidad Ser Indígena, this video collection offers a variety of documentaries focusing on historical and contemporary culture of the native peoples in Chile.

Red Nacional de Vídeo Popular en Chile

The National Network of Popular Videos is an association of community groups in Chile that promotes the creation of videos by various social groups allowing them to develop their own ways of communicating about their lives through film. This web site gathers videos conceived and created by various communities such as young adults, women, labor workers, etc.

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Short Films

Specialized Web Sites

Hurluberlu Films

Features a highly selective collection of international short films from directors, production houses and specialist distributors. Videos are streamed and available with high quality image definition. Every video is accompanied by English subtitles. Currently, it includes videos from Argentina, Brazil, and Spain.

Solocortos.com

One of the main web sites devoted to disseminating videos mainly created in Latin America and Spain. This Argentine web resource allows you to showcase your videos after a selection process. Free registration is required to view the videos.

Tucorto.net

Aims to promote Spanish short films by developing a web site where video creators can upload their videos. It also presents current news and information on festivals, competitions, and trends on Spanish short films.

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Festivals

En.piezas. Concurso de Cortos

Funded by Obra Social Caja Madrid in 2005, the festival's web site only includes a selection of videos presented in the current year and an archive of those submitted in previous years whose length is less than three minutes. Optimized for Internet Explorer.

Fotogramas en Corto

Created by the cinema magazine, Fotogramas, this festival accepts short films produced in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles. Shorts are available streamed or downloaded, and they are searchable via its Sala de Proyección. This site also includes an archive with the shorts presented in previous years. Optimized for Internet Explorer.

Ingenio400.com: IV Centenario de El Quijote

Festival created as part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the publication of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha. Videos accepted to the festival were inspired by this novel. All the works are downloadable from this web site and and are categorized as: short films, video art, or net-art.

Media that Matters Film Festival

This international festival focuses on short films about social issues. Films are browsable by topic (such as environment, human rights and immigration) or searchable in an archive including all the films selected each year. Information about each short and about how to take action regarding the issues represented in the films are included. Films set in Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Nicaragua are currently available.

Movil Film Fest

Launched in 2007, this festival specializes in short films made with cell phones. Each short has a maximum duration of one minute. Videos can be watched from the festival's web site or downloaded to a cell phone.

Nontzefilm. Concurso de Cortometrajes

Sponsored by the cultural web portal Nontzeberri.com and with the support of the Bilbao Fantastic Film Festival (Basque Country, Spain), this web site features Spanish and Latin American videos submitted to the festival's current edition. Access the 1st edition and 2nd edition.

Notodofilmfest

One of the most pretigious short-film festivals on the Internet. Most of the shorts are in Spanish, although recently works in English have been accepted. This web site allows you to download or view all of the short films selected to compete in the festival since its inception. Members of the jury present their own films. It hosts some other interesting short films projects such as Diminutos del Calvario, initiated in Mexico and created by Juan Carlos Rulfo. To be included in this project a film must be less than one minute in length and filmed as a sequence shot.Interface available in English and Spanish.

Yahoo! Festival de Cortometraje

Festival created by Yahoo! and Telemundo in conjuction with the Miami Film Festival. This competition enables Hispanic filmmakers to showcase their independently produced work. Videos in both Spanish and English are accepted.

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Web 2.0.

Videoblogs

Concurso Intel de Videoblogs

Film festival created in Mexico, which specializes in original videos available in videoblogs. For the first competition (2006), videos of videoblog creators from Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and Chile were selected. Each participant can submit up to five videos originally created for a specific videoblog. This web site only provides access to the works selected by the jury.

En Video

This award-winning videoblog is configured as a personal diary constructed of videos created by Venezuelan Juan Luis Casañas. Features videos that experiment with various film techniques.

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YouTube Channels

Showcases works created by a group of students of CAAV, a center of audiovisual art located in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Cortometrajes

YouTube channel devoted to promoting Latin American and Spanish short films in any genre, preferably in Spanish or in any other language with English subtitles, and that are created with minimum cinematographic criteria. Only the works that fulfill these requirements are selected to be included on this channel.

Cortos Dominicanos

Features shorts directed by Dominican film makers, in any genre, preferably with English subtitles, and that are created with minimum cinematographic criteria. Only the works that fulfill these requirements are selected to be included on this channel.

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