In Latin America the film industry in general has undergone many hardships. These hardships are caused by several factors, including economic state of the nation, foreign cinema, government instability, and the lack of audience to view what films actually make it to exhibition. Brazil's film industry is of particular interest because today it stands as the nation in the third world with the largest cinema audience outside Asia, (Bruce p.27).
The overall success of the industry can be attributed largely to the fact that Brazil has had no revolution like those in its counterpart nations of Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia, or Venezuela. This has allowed cultural stability and an insistence from the government to create a national cinema. The influence of the Brazilian government in the promotion of a national film industry began in the early 1900's when the first exhibition hall opened in Rio de Janeiro. Up until 1957 many government run organizations tried to provide means for stability and development of the industry by implanting laws governing taxation of imports, quotas, awards, and subsidies. .
Though all of these ideas promoting national cinema were good steps towards a stronger film industry, many failed to actually stimulate film production. For example, the tax on imports was not closely monitored and during the period 1954-1957, 70 percent of foreign films were exchanged at the official rate, which was much lower than the free market rate. With this happening foreign distributors were providing direct competition to Brazilian distributors who didn't have the financial backing that international organizations had.
Throughout the sixties and seventies the INC (Instituto Nacional do Cinema-another organization setting up a support system for the financing of nationally made films), succeeded in stimulating the film industry using awards and quotas. Altering a previous Resolution the INC determined that twelve films/year would be awarded a fixed rate of what was 300 times the minimum wage.
