Volume 24, No. 1 83 Post Script The Training of indigenous videomakers by The mexican sTaTe: negoTiaTion, poliTics and media Dr. José M. raMos roDríguez Dr. antoni Castells-talens Mexico, a country with a rich tradi- tion in ilmmaking, only saw indigenous ilms bloom at the end of the 20th century. Before then, indigenous peoples had been mere subjects of (mostly anthropological) documentaries. A set of nationalistic cultural policies had given ancient Aztec and Maya civilizations a golden role in the official narration of the Mexican nation, but con- temporary indigenous peoples were being marginalized, their cultures attacked, and their languages persecuted by the state. In the 1980s, however, the government began implementing new media policies that included indigenous participation. Progressively, indigenous languages and voices entered radio stations and short videos through governmental programs. It was these programs that often inspired many indigenous videomakers to work in- dependently and ind alternative forms to produce and distribute their work. While the radio stations grew steadily and became important in the regions in which they operated, the governmental video program did not seem to ind its place in indigenous communities. The federal gov- ernment program paused the participatory indigenous video policy until the beginning of the 21st century, when it began training videomakers again in indigenous areas. In 2009, the government invited the authors to conduct a seminar with Maya videomakers in the Yucatan Peninsula. Unlike in the previous workshops that the producers had received, the goal was not to learn production or editing skills, but to relect on the meaning of identity and on the relevance of indigenous video in today's Maya society. This paper is a result of the seminar's discussions. Based on their observations, the authors aim at answering the following question: To what extent is the federal government fostering cultural preservation and the vital- ization of local cultures and to what extent is it promoting assimilation of indigenous cultural activists into mainstream society? The question was answered (1) by analyzing governmental, indigenous-video policies, and (2) by relecting on the work and views of the Maya seminar participants. During the seminar, the exhibition of videos was limited. Although the content of some vid- eos is discussed by the authors, it is beyond the scope of this article to conduct a formal content analysis. It would be useful for further research to consider analyzing the content of state sponsored videos realized by indigenous videomakers. This paper is organized in three sec- tions. The irst section sets the theoretical ground to understand some of the debates