ONGOING PROJECTS

Ther Archive is presently involved in several projects of its own:

1. Research and preparation of a book about Guillermo Indio Calles (1891-1958), Mexican film pioneer.  His family, of Mexican-Tarahumara descent, migrated to Arizona in 1901.  After a time of hard work and discrimination in the Morenci area, he moved to California and started anew, as an actor in the recently founded Hollywood.  He appeared in several Lubin films, playing Indians, and then had a lasting contract with the Vitagraph Company, mainly appearing in William Duncan's serials and later being an assistant director to David H. Smith.  Calles quitted Vitagraph when asked to relinquish his Mexican nationality in order to get a full-time position as a film director. After that, he directed a movie in Mexico and then, back in Hollywood, appeared in a number of independently produced films, of which very few are known.  He was cast in several occasions for films directed by Robert N. Bradbury and produced by Anthony Xydias, and also took part in some Neal Hart's movies. Finally, in 1926, he became an independent producer and director of nationalistic films, which aimed to improve the image of Mexico, Mexicans and Indians (outrageously stereotyped by many Hollywood productions). With the advent of sound, Calles moved to Mexico, where he became a pioneer in the rising film industry.  Later in his life, Calles started an itinerant theatre and cinema show, and continued to appear in movies, Mexican and foreign (shot in Mexican studios and locations).
2. Also in progress is the preparation of a volume about the performing arts (particularly Mexican cinema) as transmitters of nationalistic sentiments and values among Mexican people in the United States during the period between 1915-1932. 
3. A comprehensive study on the rise of the Mexican film industry in the 1930s.  During the silent era, Mexican movies were produced by individuals and small companies, and there was not what could be called a film industry in the country.  With the advent of sound, and Mexico being one of the only three countries in the world which had locally developed, fully operating sound systems (the other being the United States and Germany), a movie industry was born, which soon became the leader in production of Spanish-language films.
4. Digitizing of documents and images from special collections.

Presently, the Archive has small participation in projects started and directed by independent researchers, such as:

1. Research on the life and career of multitalented Mexican engineer Gabriel García Moreno (1898-1943), a prolific inventor who got a considerable number of U.S. patents related to film technology; he was a producer, writer and director of silent films in his native country, worked for a decade in Culver City and Hollywood, and was founder of a film studio and laboratory in Mexico.  This project has been planned and developed by  Mexican film historian and author, Esperanza Vázquez Bernal, who has already made the editorial restoration of two of García Moreno's films.  Her husband, Mtro. Federico Dávalos Orozco, also a researcher, has participation in the project.
2. A documentary about the Calderón family, the only Mexican group in having interests in all fields related to the film industry: film studios and laboratories, production, distribution (in Mexico and the United States), exhibition (In Mexico and the United States).  The Calderóns also had an important role in lobbying with the Federal Government to get better conditions for the film industry in the 1930s and 1940s.  They were the most influential family in the history of Mexican cinema, and innovators in the field of film genres.  The documentary will be a personal vision of the family by one of its youngest members:  award-winner film editor Viviana García-Besné, who started the project with her husband, Alistair Tremps.

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