The Cinematic Tango explores the cultural politics of over sixty years of filmmaking in Argentina. From the 1940s when film was a successful studio product throughout Latin America to the 1980s post-dictatorship period when national cinema was utilised by the state as a public relations tool abroad, Tamara L. Falicov explores how national culture on film has been shaped, articulated and debated through the lens of state policy and the dynamics of the global film market. This volume provides in-depth analysis of Argentina's contemporary period of the 1990s under the Menem administration when financial incentives led to not only the production of commercial 'blockbusters' but also a period that afforded new opportunities to first-time directors, sparking a recent surge of low-budget, independent filmmaking that has come to be known as 'The New Argentine Cinema'.