In May of 1896 the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers arrived at Spain, and in the following months several French operators filmed the first documentary cortometrajes. The first Spanish in rolling with the cinematograph was Eduardo Jimeno with Exit of mass of twelve of the Pillar of Zaragoza (1897). The first one films argumental must to Fructuoso Gelabert (Fight in a coffee, 1897).

Nevertheless, the beginning of the argumental fiction cinema, that it already demanded of basic an industrial infrastructure, put of relief which would be the continuous problem of the Spanish cinematographic production: the disparity between the abundant creative potential and the weakness of the industry. In spite of everything, before the I World war (1914-1918) they existed in the country more than thousand rooms of exhibition and one twenty of producers. During the warlike conflict they took place in Spain more than 200 films. When finishing the war, the European industry recovered, moving to the Spanish, who entered a period of crisis.

In the Spanish cinema there will be isolated personalities, without sufficient continuity that it makes possible a competitive production on international scale and protects the national market of the increasing American colonization.

The pioneering experimenters, like Second of Chomón, that was a great innovator in the animation cinema, were themselves forced to work in Italy or France. The national production began to be based on the literary tradition (Don Juan Tenorio, 1908, of Ricardo de Baños), on the costumbrismo folkloric (Malvaloca, 1927, of Benito Perojo) or bullfighting (Currito de la Cruz, 1925, of Alexander Perez Lugín and Fernando Delgado), and on topical historical episodes (Agustina de Aragón, 1928, of Florián Rey), subjects that during years have dominated the panorama of the Spanish cinema. Zarzuela filmed would represent in 1923 50% of the cinematographic production in Spain.

The arrival of the sonorous one in 1929 causes a collapse of the national production when having to sonorizar the films abroad. For example, the damn village (1929), of Florián Rey, rolled mythical film in dumb version, had to take to Paris to record the sound, it was released in that city, and it was only exhibited commercially in sonorous version.