In 1998, after the signing of the peace accords in Guatemala, one group of film makers decided to organize the First Ícaro Film and Video Festival with the ambition to create a new culture of peace and to provide a space for the public and the artists to meet and reflect about multiculturalism and diversity in our society.

From the beginning, the Ícaro Festival had a good start and could count with the subsidy of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Guatemala, as well as the support of Universities and TV channels.  The participation of film makers was incredibly high since the beginning. In the third year, the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) iniciated an institutional funding of Casa Comal, the organization responsible for the creation and implementation of the Ícaro Festival. Other agencies, like HIVOS from Holland, the Peace Corps from Norway (Fredskorpset) and private companies provided support to realize the Ícaro Festival.

The festival was transforming into a Central American film festival and important representatives of the Latin American cinema were being invited as special guests or jury members and the Ícaro awards acquired international prestige and credibility. In 2004 the first rotating exhibition of the Ícaro Festival was initiated, a selection of works, nominated and awarded by the Ícaro Festival in Guatemala, which are rotating in the capital cities of the region. This selection is as well sent to different international film festivals.

Constantly growing, the Ícaro Festival was having a key function by forming a regional audiovisual movement, by increasing the quality standards of its film production and by creating a space, where public and film makers can meet. The Ícaro Festival with its 13 competing categories has opened up new possibilities of expression for everyone. 
In doing so the Ícaro Festival with over 30 nations participating each year, was becoming the biggest and the most representative festival of the audiovisual movement in the region and recognized among the most important film festivals in Latin America.