Some time after being invented by the Lumiere brothers, the cinema was introduced to the Canary Islands and arrived by way of an inventions operator who was in charge of presenting the cinematograph with the added marvel of being able to project its images.

Some Canary people have become artists and the first movie totally filmed in the Canary Islands, although not produced by any of the islands was named Canary Soul (Alma Canaria) (1945) and was filmed in Tenerife.

In reality there has not been a market interest for locally developing the cinema industry. Others have taken advantage of the excellent insular conditions for filming which is the case of films that have gone down in history such as 'Moby Dick' (1956), partially filmed in waters of Gran Canaria, or the well remembered “A Million Years Ago” (Hace un millón de años) (1966).

The short fiction documentary has become more popular than the movies due to the fact that it costs less. In this modality is where Javier Fernández Caldas became famous ('El Último Latido', and 'Frágil', 1993), he is also the author of a movie called “The Island of Hell” (La isla del Infierno).

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, another documentary producer, was nominated for a Hollywood Oscar for his work “Handcuffed” (Esposados) (1996), which won another forty national and international prizes.