There is a cinematic boom going on in Ecuador. Long gone are the days when Ecuadorian films were few and far between, when there could be prolonged periods of time—sometimes several years in a row—without a single movie release, when every new motion picture felt like the first. In fact, when La tigra (The tigress), a film based on a short story by José de la Cuadra and directed by Camilo Luzuriaga, premiered in 1990, renowned Ecuadorian poet and cineaste Ulises Estrella sardonically criticized its promoters’ apparent inaugural pretensions (De la Vega, 2016, pp. 20–21). La tigra was not the first feature-length fictional film ever made in the South American country, of course, but it quickly became—and, today, it still is—the biggest box office hit in the history of Ecuadorian cinema.

La tigra's success notwithstanding, the 1990s saw the release of only three additional Ecuadorian movies, one of them also directed by Luzuriaga, and the other two by various members of just one single family. Sensaciones (Sensations), by siblings Juan Esteban Cordero and Viviana Cordero, premiered in 1991; Entre Marx y una mujer desnuda (Between Marx and a naked woman), by Luzuriaga, in 1996; and Ratas, ratones, rateros (Rats, mice, petty thieves), by Juan Esteban and Viviana's younger brother, Sebastián Cordero, in 1999. The latter film, arguably the first one made in the South American nation with international production values, marks a definite watershed in the history of Ecuadorian cinema, to such an extent that it is usually heralded as the cornerstone of today's so-called boom.