email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

Ana Catalina and Jorge Mario Durán • Distributors

Colombia welcomes alternative distribution partners

by 

There are few independent distributors in Colombia, and they must work very hard to guarantee the release of films that go on to become winners at big festivals. Like elsewhere, the market is dominated by commercial Hollywood titles, creating a scenario that does not reflect the diversity desired by Colombian audiences.

This opinion is shared by Cine Sin Fronteras participant Ana Catalina Uribe, director of the Centro Colombo-Americano de Medellín, who also runs the country’s only print film magazine, Kinetoscopio. “We don’t get many alternative movies to be shown here. To change this situation, we must work with distribution partners in Latin America,” she says.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Uribe explains there are no valid agreements between Colombia and other countries to help independent distribution. “If there were, we could negotiate as a block, getting better deals and sharing costs”, she adds. She is happy that can now change, after the first Cine Sin Fronteras meeting in Mexico City. “At the beginning, we took this first meeting as a diagnosis, but it was actually much more productive. We got to meet other Latin American and European distributors, discovered common needs and ended up signing this important agreement”.

A mutual agreement between Latin America and Europe also represents a better chance for industries like Colombia’s to become better known in other countries, according to Uribe. “Colombian cinema is not as well known abroad as Argentinean or Brazilian [cinema]. It has just started creating a buzz at international festivals”, she explains.

Also attending Cine Sin Fronteras was Jorge Mario Durán, the head of Red Kayman, a circuit of alternative movie theatres created two years ago in the country. He thinks Latin America and Europe share the same distribution problems: “European cinema doesn’t circulate in Europe, just like Latin American cinema doesn’t here”.

To him, what is most important is to create opportunities to offer both sets of audiences a different worldview, much more varied than the one in films distributed by the majors. But to do that a new kind of audience must be created. “The public here has grown up on Hollywood entertainment. There’s essential work to be done to build up more curious viewers”, says Durán.

For Durán, who has worked a long time in cultural management, meeting other Latin American and European colleagues meant a key and long-waited opportunity to gather different “discrete distribution projects [that] together will create a true alternative distribution project that can go for a possible market that is out there. We are going to be real ‘poisoners’. We’ll stop buying just Palme d’Or and Golden Bear winners to just big cities. We want to take more risks and go further”.

Figures
* Of the approximately 200 films distributed annually in Colombia, 6% are Colombian, 80% US, 7% European and 1% Latin American. Hollywood titles tend to account for around 95% of the box office.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy