The Directorate General of Cinematography and Theatre (Spanish: Dirección General de Cinematografía y Teatro; DGCT) was a department of the Francoist dictatorship with the rank of directorate-general charged with the control of cinema and theatre in Spain, including the scope of censorship.
[1] In the wake of the administrative restructuring of 1951, several areas were removed from the ministerial department of National Education, as the aptitude of incoming minister Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez as censor was put into question.
These areas (including the DGCT) were thus transferred to the newly-born Ministry of Information and Tourism, led by Gabriel Arias Salgado.
[2] From 1962 onward—a period of purported "openness" during the second spell at the helm of the DGCT of José María García Escudero [es]—the DGCT promoted and sponsored what it came to be known as "New Spanish Cinema", even though filmmakers were not fully exempt from censorship.
[3] The DGCT disappeared in late 1967, when it was demoted to the rank of under-directorate reportedly because of budget cuts and was subsumed within the new Directorate General of Popular Culture and Spectacles, led by Carlos Robles Piquer.