Creating an audience for the cinématographe: two Lumière agents in Mexico, 1896

The exhibition of cinematographic views in Mexico City and Guadalajara by Fernand Bon Bernard and Gabriel Veyre, Lumière agents active in Mexico between July 1896 and January 1897, is examined. Drawing on newspaper announcements and reports, the article charts the process by which the cinématographe became an established attraction in Mexico City's elite public sphere, and briefly discusses the exhibition of the device in Guadalajara. The discourse that circulated in newspapers wherein cinematographic views were associated with nineteenth-century engravings, photographs and lantern slide projections is also considered.