"Viewers in Latin America have access to about 9,756 screens. On average,there are 210 commercial releases per year. Depending on the country, between 5 and 130 national films are produced a year, primarily as a direct result of the national support received by the governments of the region over various decades. During the first decade of the 21st Century, Latin American countries produced 2,400 feature films (see Figure 8), with growth throughout each decade (on average 350 films were produced per year between 2005 and 2011). This is a sharp increase from the 1980s, when on average 230 films were produced annually or the 1990s with 90 films per year (Getino, 2005). Film production in Latin America increased partly as a direct result of the public policies developed to support the field (with the exceptions of Paraguay and a few Central American countries). These policies have been present in most of the subcontinent since the 1930s (mainly in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru). The subsequent decades saw further support in the form of subsidies, tax incentives,soft loans, prizes for quality and screen quotas (there were even state producers, state distributors and state exhibitors, mainly in Mexico from the 1940s to 1970s and in Brazil in the 1970s). In the early 1990s, most countries in the region experienced a drastic reduction in public support, affecting the national film sectors negatively. Nevertheless, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a re-emergence of public policies favorable to the film sector, mainly in relation to production. The three major film-producing countries, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico,resumed their growth. During the 2000s, most Latin American countries implemented national legislation supporting the film sector. Argentina and Brazil returned to maximum production peaks with over 100 films produced annually, surpassing records set in the earlier “golden years”. Mexico also increased film production, but the country is only just reaching the number of films produced during its golden years (between 1940 and 1980), which was also about 100 annually. Other Latin American countries showed more modest increases in the number of films produced. Due to new national film policies in some of these countries, they have begun regular production of films for the first time in their history."