Photo Credit: Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), one of the most enduring and influential film schools in Latin America. Founded in 1975 in Mexico City—with Luis Buñuel as its honorary president and filmmaker Carlos Velo as its founding director—the CCC has served as a vital space for cultivating filmmakers and shaping the aesthetics, politics, and narrative practices of Mexican cinema for half a century.
Established as a federal public institution, the CCC was born out of a national push to strengthen cinematic infrastructure and education. Since its inception, the school has operated as both a rigorous academic institution and a creative laboratory—a place where emerging voices could develop technical mastery and conceptual clarity while responding to the complex realities of Mexico and the region.
From its earliest generations, the CCC has trained filmmakers who have left a significant mark on both national and international cinema. Alumni such as Carlos Carrera (The Crime of Father Amaro), Everardo González (Devil’s Freedom), Rodrigo Prieto (Pedro Páramo), Tatiana Huezo (Prayers for the Stolen), and Michelle Garza Cervera (Huesera: The Bone Woman) exemplify the diversity of approaches and concerns that characterize the school’s output. From fiction to documentary, experimental to political cinema, CCC graduates have contributed to a deeper understanding of gender, identity, class, and memory on screen.
The CCC has also been a stronghold for short filmmaking, treating the form not simply as a pedagogical exercise but as an expressive medium in its own right. Many of Mexico’s leading directors began their careers with short films developed under the school’s intense, hands-on curriculum. Today, the CCC remains tuition-free, with an admissions process designed to identify creative potential across geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. In recent years, the school has expanded its outreach to diversify the film sector, including dedicated programs for Indigenous communities and courses held in states beyond Mexico City.
Its core program is a full-time curriculum that emphasizes both theory and craft. Students complete over 20 exercises and five short films—including two fiction projects, one documentary, and a graduation film. All instructors are working professionals who mentor students throughout the filmmaking process, supported by the school’s complete in-house production and post-production facilities.
The CCC also offers two-year specialized programs in screenwriting and audiovisual production, as well as continuing education for the general public. A flagship initiative—the First Feature Film Program (Fiction and Documentary), run in collaboration with the Mexican Film Institute—has allowed graduates in direction and cinematography to develop over 20 debut features, with third-year students collaborating in key production roles.
Fifty years on, the CCC is more than just a school. It is a reference point in Mexico’s film industry and a living archive of its cinematic evolution. Alumni are not only directors and cinematographers, but also studio heads, producers, programmers, and cultural workers in both the independent and institutional spheres—at home and abroad. The school has also been regularly included in lists of the world’s best film schools by The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Variety, and other leading industry publications.
In an era of media consolidation and economic uncertainty, the CCC continues to uphold a vision of cinema that is formally ambitious, politically engaged, and socially inclusive. Its legacy is not just in the films it has helped bring into the world, but in the communities it has nurtured—and the possibilities it has opened for generations to come.
¡Feliz aniversario, CCC! Here's to the next fifty.
