The official name has been Festival of Lima, Encuentro Latinoamericano de Cine since 2007.

Conceived as a "Latin American Meeting of Cinema" the growth of the festival has expanded to the Centro Cultural de la PUCP, brought in Cineplanet, and various concert halls and cultural centers in Lima.

The Festival launches & promotes the work of Peruvian directors, such as Claudia Llosa and Josué Méndez, and seeks to increase distribution of Latin American films in Peru and elsewhere.

The official competition includes two main categories—Fiction and Documentary—and all films must be Latin American.

The award from the festival is called "Trophy Spondylus", which consists of a stylized statue of a Spondylus, a marine mollusk widely used in the pre-Columbian art of Peru.