In 1959 a group of businessmen and important figures in the cultural world of Cartagena, headed by Victor Nieto, initiated contacts with the International Federation of Film Producers, FIAPF, through the Colombian Embassy in Paris, with the objective of organizing an international film festival, taking advantage of the comparative advantages offered by Cartagena, new headquarters of national tourist development, thanks to its historic fortresses and natural beauty.
Throughout the twentieth century Cartagena was a fundamental setting for the development of Colombian film and culture.  The city, aside from disputing with Bucaramanga the headquarters of the first film screening at the end of the 19th century, had an economic renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century that moved it forward from the prolonged demographic and economic prostration dating from the events of independence in the 19th century.
From very early on, with the concurrence of local businessmen, theaters were opened, at first primitive and uncomfortable, that later, with the passage of time, improved their capacity and influence in the framework of local urban sensibility.
Colombian film and Latin American film share one of the difficulties central to the development of the majority of national film production.  The absence of promotion and dissemination of filmmakers and their work, the knowledge and recognition of the audiences in their own countries, and the lack of a national market that allows the survival and expansion of national film as an industry, make the Film Festival a special setting.  It not only serves to face such problems common to the cinematography of the area in ways that have grown and achieved increasing success, but also to specially foster the industrial development of Colombian film. 
To this effect, the Festival, through its national and international screenings, through its stimulus to co production and production agreements, through its relationships with all the segments in the world of Colombian film (producers, filmmakers, actors, actresses, screen writers. Critics, film club members, communications media, etc.) and through the discussion of new film projects and audience formation tries to excel.
Because of its nature, defined in the 1970s, the Festival promotes cultural diversity by facilitating and screening works of Ibero-Latin American and Caribbean countries, by fostering the broadest reception and discussion of the works, stories, tendencies and products of the national film production of this part of the world that means the works in themselves as artistic representations of the identity of the participating countries.

Given the Festival’s selection criteria, each participating film constitutes a genuine message of identity, presenting through film narration, in which the basic values of the national and Latin American people are transmitted, and the social and daily life of the people and the nations represented, the appropriations of historical memory and the representations of contemporary life.
The International Film Festival of Cartagena screens Colombian and Ibero Latin American film in diverse formats, with the objective of trying to strengthen the national and Ibero Latin American film industry and to stimulate the knowledge of diversity and national cultural identities.
In the Festival approximately 150 audiovisual works will be presented: 40 feature films, 30 short films and 80 international videos, with the specific objectives of promoting and developing the film industry and allowing this important manifestations of film production the dissemination of the image as a contribution to brotherhood among peoples and the recognition of cultural and audiovisual diversity, the right to their own images and stories.  At the same time we have proposed the promotion of national and international distribution for Latin American film and, especially, for Colombian film.
THIS IS HOW THE CARTAGENA FILM FESTIVAL WAS BORN:

1959.  Contacts were made with the F.I.A.P.F. through the Colombian Ambassador in Paris.
1960.  Permission was obtained to hold the Festival and contracts with official film organs were initiated to invite their participation.
March.  The dates for the first Festival, from March 3rd to 10th were selected and the preparations were made.  The Teatro Cartagena was the headquarters.  The offices were installed in the lower level of the Cartagena Club.
The first board of directors was elected.  Fernando Díaz, president; Arnulfo de la Espriella, Mayor.  Daniel Lemaitre Diaz-Granados, Blanca Becerra de Román, Evelia Porto de Mejía, Víctor Nieto, Aurelio Martínez Canabal and José Barbieri.
1961.  From this year on, in March, the Festivals were held.
1970.  Due to the importance the event took on, a large number of people from Cartagena met to create the Civic Corporation for the festivals, electing as its first president Fernando Díaz and member of the board, as well as the above-mentioned members.
1971.  The Film Advertising Awards begin: Since Colombia did not have a feature film industry, advertising on film is really the beginning of those who later would go on to build it.
1976.  Under the initiative of Victor Nieto Jr. and counting on the support of the F.I.A.P.F., the Festival became oriented toward the screening of Latin American film and it received official permission to become competitive in this film area, being the first Festival in the world to highlight this film production.
1976.  The film Furtivos by the Spanish director, José Luis Borau received the award.  The following year the jury selected Cantata de Chile by the Cuban director Humberto Solás.
1981.  Since the growth and importance of our television was apparent and in Colombia there was no recognition award for its development, its programming and even less for its major personalities, directors, or script writers, the Festival decided to create the Catalina Indian awards in diverse categories and since then it is the most coveted award that is given annually by a jury made up of journalists covering entertainment.
1982.  The creation of FOCINE.  This entity joined forces with the Festival at our request and gave annual economic assistance that covered a large portion of the Festival’s expenses.
After FOCINE ceased to exist, contracts were made through the Division of Social Communication of the Communications Ministry and Colcultura, and later, through the Ministry of Culture.
1983.  Video makes its appearance in the world of technology and the Cartagena Festival is the first to screen it, not only in Colombia, but in all America.  Later other Festivals would include it.
1988.  Since then the Festival is comprised of:
- Ibero American awards
- Advertising on film awards
-Colombian television awards
Today the Cartagena Festival is one of the two that are held in Latin America and it is the oldest one of all, besides being the only one in the world authorized by the International Federation of Film Producers (FIAPF) to confer awards in the Ibero Latin American area.

47º FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE CARTAGEN GANADORES CONCURSOS REALIZADOS POR EL FESTIVAL:

Victor Nieto, A Hero

Tenacity, perseverance and strength are the characteristics that this man possesses, which over the years, has had his image engraved in the eyes of all Colombians, making the love of the seventh art contagious in this heroic city, showing that in Cartagena for the past 47 years the topic of conversation is not only the beach, the breeze and the ocean, but also the movies.  A short resumé of the life and work of Victor Nieto follows.
A life chapter by chapter.

My first employment, 1937, 1940

Radio News Program “Synthesis” September 1, 1939

The first luxury buses 1937-1982

Miramar Radio, December 15, 1950 through 1985

My relationship with the National Beauty Pageant, 1933-1934

My greatest work 1949-1950

More facets of Victor Nieto

 My First Job

After finishing high school in the Colegio La Salle of the Christian Brothers, I enrolled in the Instituto Comercial de Luis Delgado Paniza (without a doubt, the first institute of its kind in Cartagena) and there I learned how to be a business secretary,  along with typing, shorthand and Spanish.
After finishing there was a job opening for a secretary in the firm of Daniel Lemaitre and Company to work alongside of the manager who was a son on Daniel’s.
Without a doubt it was there that I learned what I know and have practiced throughout my prolonged existence.
I lasted three years in this job and I resigned to devote myself to the Radio News Program, Synthesis, that went on the air September 1, 1939 at noon, announcing the declaration of the Second World War.

•   Radio News Program Synthesis

It was Haroldo Calvo Núñez, my cousin, who invited me to found a radio news program in Emisora Fuentes, that at the moment had no information program since El correo del aire had been cancelled.
We hired the France Press news service that Lácides Orozco received by teletype, and so we learned of the beginning of the Second World War.
Orozco had a foreign news service, Haroldo, with his good tone of voice read the news; I had the responsibility of the local news and my father, Captain Nieto, the national news.
We transferred Synthesis, which became something more than simply reading the news, to become a journalistic organ that was on the air twice a day, 12 and 7 pm.
One day party politics came between us and Haroldo supported the candidacy of Alfonso López Pumarejo.  I was in favor of El Tiempo with Dr. Eduardo Santos.  In a very friendly way I resigned and found the doors of Emisora Fuentes open.  I understood that Synthesis was now an institution and I acquired the Voz del Litoral, a radio station from Barranquilla. 
I obtained permission from the Ministry of Communications and I transferred the equipment and inaugurated, on November 6, 1946, Radio Miramar, where we devoted ourselves to liberal and civic campaigns.

• The luxury buses

The driver of my friend Pedro Malabet was Florencio Padilla and he involved me in the automobile business where we became partners in the purchase of a vehicle that we rented in the Public Market for a few pesos a day from 5 am to 5 pm, time when I could use the vehicle to satisfy my passion for automobiles.
One day Florencio went to the Chocó and sold me his part in this first car.
In the offices of Lemaitre and company I made friends with the star salesman of the ford Agency who traded by first car for a much better one and so, from trade to trade, buying cars on credit without tires, I founded what became known as the Luxury Service, of 21-28, that had some 25 automobiles affiliated as well as a gas station on one side of the main entrance to Cartagena, where you can now see only the wall and the Clock Tower.

•   Miramar Radio

The radio station they sold in Barranquilla was called La Voz del Litoral, owned by a Mr. Meléndez, who had been appointed consul in a foreign country and he was preparing to leave; I got an interview with him through a friend and I arranged an interview.  He asked for five thousand pesos, and I told him I had three, but he fell in love with my car and I gave it to him to cover the balance.
The next day, with Antonio Fernández, a radio technician, we brought the transmitter in a truck and installed it on a corner in Crespo, next to the old and now defunct Club Guanipa.
I got permission from the Ministry of Communications and we inaugurated the station from the Radio Theater we build in the living room of the home of Rafael Méndez on Arzobispado Street.  This act was carried out at 11 am on November 9, 1939, without speeches, but with all the friends of the time.  Synthesis now had its own house.
I installed 200 chairs in that space, the same ones that were used in the open air theaters of the city.  At 8 o’clock every night we held contests with the presentation of national and foreign entertainers.

• My relationship with the National Beauty Pageant

I don’t know why, that in the National Beauty pageant, it isn’t registered that the first contest, in 1933, organized with the motive of the festivities for the inauguration of the new maritime wharf, was the idea of my father, Captain Pablo E. Nieto, who returned from the war with Perú and was stationed in Cartagena.  The board that organized the festivities, presided by Oscar Gómez, delegated the organization of this first contest to him.
The election of beauty queens began in Bucaramanga where Capi Nieto had the help and support of Alejandro Galvis Galvis and his newspaper, Vanguardia Liberal.

• My greatest work

In 1960 I founded the International Film Festival of Cartagena in the company of other illustrious people from Cartagena, which marked my life, has been the thread of the soul of my existence, and has given institutional continuity to the event.  Today it is the oldest Festival in Latin America and an axis for the defense and dissemination of Ibero Latin American film.
The affinity of people from Cartagena for the movies is not gratuitous.  Cartagena is the best city for filmmakers.  It has been the Mecca of film since approximately 40 movies have been filmed in this corral of walls and corners.  All of this has taken place because it is a beautiful city and because I, “Don V,” as they call me affectionately, have been tenacious in my efforts and, against wind and tide, comings and goings, I am firmly organizing the Festival.

• More facets of Victor Nieto
• As a journalist in El Universal of Cartagena.  He also wrote in El Espectador and El Tiempo of Bogotá.
• He stood out as a councilman from his city, representative to the House, and assistant for international film meetings.
• He is currently the Director of the Film Festival.

Gabriel García Márquez and film

Gabo’s relationship to film goes hand in hand with his love for literature, being more faithful to the latter.
The first flirtations materialized as film criticism that he published in the newspaper El Espectador, at the beginning of the 1950s, becoming one of the pioneers of this activity in Latin America.
In his travels through Europe as a correspondent for the above-mentioned newspaper he came across the Centro Experimentale Di Cinematografía in Rome where he decided to become a filmmaker.  It was the age of new realism and he received classes from the selfsame Cesare Zavattini, one of the fathers of this movement and he had as fellow classmates those who would be his partners in the creation of the Foundation for New Latin American Film, Fernando Birri, Julio García Espinosa and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.
With this group of friends García Márquez began his film career.  In Colombia he participated in the collective madness headed by Álvaro Cepeda and Luis Vicens, and ended up filming La langosta azul.  Fed by all the new realism possible, he arrived in México and tried his luck as a screen writer.  He saw from the Italian school that the secret of film could be in screen writing.  He developed several plots and worked as a screen writer for recognized filmmakers in this country during the decade of the 1970s; but contrary to what one might think, he did not dig deeply into his work in film.  Although without putting aside his interest in screen writing, the Colombian author preferred to continue cultivating literature and journalism.
Parallel to his literary achievements, his searching relationship with film was transferred to the small screen.  With Spanish Television he produced film for television, his Amores difíciles (Difficult Loves) series, as a way of destroying the myth that film and television are incompatible.  Years later, the screenplays of these films have been transformed again to become the written stories they were initially and are published under the name Doce cuentos peregrinos.

The integration with the multiple identities of Latin American film, the opportunity and the proximity of a high level film school for Latinos and his teacher’s desire to reveal and make understandable the techniques that allow a good screenplay to blossom, besides his literary works, are the contributions that can be distilled from the uneasy relationship between Gabo and film.