Film and television in Latin America: Building the future

The reality of Latin American cinema is similar to that experienced by any character of those created by the writers of this part of the continent: random, sad, passionate and, to our pain, often truncated because, if our cinema stands out for something, it is because making films has become an almost miraculous act, heroic, where the iron will of some daring allows to bring to fruition the few projects that are carried out in each country.

But despite all the problems, we are still trying to make films; new forms of production are sought, much more effective for our environment and thanks to new alliances it is hoped to open more space so that, finally, it can be a stable, permanent and prosperous industry. In this way, one of the main achievements of the medium is the alliance between television and cinema, increasingly firm in countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, to mention some examples, not only thanks to the growing interest of private channels in making budget investments in film projects, but to the undeniable interest of the Latin American public to recognize themselves in their own productions.

About the industry, the television medium and its projections we spoke with Darío Armando García (Dago), screenwriter and producer of film and television, who has been in charge of the creation and writing of the scripts of renowned television productions such as Tres veces Sofía and Tío Alberto for TV Azteca de México or María Rosa, find me a wife for Iguana Producciones and Venevisión that is currently broadcast in Peru, who in recent years has been able to do a continuous filmmaking job with interesting results.

TVyVideo: The history of Latin American cinema is conditioned by situations of uncertainty that hinder in many ways the attempts to make films, however, in the last four years you have been able to make 4 films. How have you achieved this?

Dago García: Thanks to several circumstances among which is having managed to form a team that has had continuity and that has been qualified in the work. It's different when you make a movie with people who are making films for the first time. The production team I have is the same, that in one way or another has helped to save the resource that we take care of the most when we make films, which is time. In the production scheme that we have, time is money and it is the capital that we manage best and take care of the most. That implies that we do an absolutely rigorous pre-production work, which allows us to always reach the set to be executed.

Generally we shoot very fast and we are always very precise in what we shoot, a fact that in turn saves us time in processes such as editing, sound or musicalization. There is also the fact that I am a producer and screenwriter, and in one way or another a script, in addition to telling a story, what it does is execute a budget. I write stories for the money we have; we proceed in the opposite way to how the industry that works generally produces under the model of generating a story, an idea, writing a script, then budgeting or paying for that script and going out to find the resources. Likewise, we have worked very another front, for example, in Pena Máxima, which is the film that we are going to release in June, we are doing an almost unprecedented job in terms of promotion and marketing. That is another aspect that, generally those of us who make films do not consider, we do not approach the exhibitor or the distributors to establish a relationship. We have done it, we approach to talk about the business, we approach the media, the press trying to consider marketing as that necessary half for the film to have a circuit that makes profits and allows other films to be made.

TVyV: How has the box office behaved with all your films?

Dago García: Let's say that "La Mujer del Piso Alto" was a film that was not shown. It was done under a cooperative scheme where really the investment was minimal, therefore there was no mourner of that cost; "Posición Viciada" was a film that went very badly at the box office, but it was very awarded and almost at the point of awards, box office, sales to television, recovered its investment and gave profit margin; "It's Better to Be Rich than Poor" was a film with a small contribution from the State, but it also behaved very well at the box office and had three sales for television and, now we are going to premiere the "Maximum Penalty" to see how we do.

TVyV: You talked about sales to television. In the United States, approximately 50% of the collections of a film originate in the new forms of audiovisual marketing (cable, pay per view), in Latin America it seems not to be so. What percentage of recovery does it mean to you to spend your movies on TV?

Dago García: Very little. It does not reach to represent the... 2%. Now, what happens is that the possibilities of the television circuit of a movie are very long-term business. Let's say, with "Posición Viciada" one of my films, I have sold it four times to both Colombian television and to "pay to see" services and televisions elsewhere. Gustavo Nieto Roa told me, "Look nowadays, when you make movies, the immediate recovery has to be done on screen, but that is a business that annually can be giving you a few dollars here and there." In the very long term the film continues to sell, it is a medium and long term recovery while the screen is a short-term recovery.

TVyV: Continuing with the theme of film on television, what do you think it means economically to produce film for television in an industry like ours?

Dago García: For now it doesn't mean anything, even though television is already starting to get interested in that format. Just a few days ago the president of the channel for which I work, called me and we met because he intends to produce a package of feature films for television. Not only for local consumption but for export. But cinema for television is different from screen cinema both in terms of themes, narrative terms and ethical terms, so now we have the project on standby because the number of stories that adapt to the scheme that the channel seeks to make its films for television has not been found... but that there is interest, it exists! However, today anyone who intends to make films for television, if not proposes a scheme of great volume, of making many films, is dead. I think that is also a medium-term business, interest has already been expressed at least in the channel in which I work, but it is not yet a reality.

TVyV: Mexico and Argentina have managed to integrate their cinema into television thanks to the support of private channels, as an author-producer and industry connoisseur how do you see that panorama?

TVyV: To finish. Would the content of your films vary if you thought about making films to spend on television?