María Wood Producciones: The challenge is to produce among us Latin Americans, not only with Spain

Being able to produce among Latin Americans, and not only with Spain, is one of the challenges that María Elena Wood, executive director of María Wood Producciones (Chile), believes exists among filmmakers in the region. “I feel that the platforms are giving us the opportunity to get acquainted with our regional talent. We always look abroad, like obedient colonial countries. I believe that the challenge is to produce between us Latin Americans, not only with Spain,” she pointed out during the talk Ibero-American Producers: On the crest of the wave, in the framework of Iberseries Platino Industria.

The presentation also included Juancho Cardona, Producer and Director of 11:11 Films (Colombia); Leonardo Zimbron, CEO Traziende Films (Mexico); and Sergio Pizzolante, Director of Strategic Alliances for the US and Latin America at Secuoya Studios (Spain).

“We have to support each other, Latin America and Spain, to build a strong industry, made of super premium content producers, not just of small stories or that talk about our shortcomings and pains. We have to move on and create stories of life itself and in that way we will be able to involve Spain and open the market between the two regions,” said Cardona.

Regarding projects, Pizzolante mentioned that they work on La Isla – filming in Chile and on Easter Island – and the historical series Los 39. He indicated that El Zorro is the great project for 2022 where they already have 10 scripts made and will soon start filming. He added that in February 2022 they will co-produce a series with Pantaya.

Wood mentioned that they are in the post-production of Noticias de un Secuestro that they shot in Colombia; they also developed the series Vientos Patagónicos, a co-production with ZDF, and the science fiction series Humanity with the production company Mediacrest.

Zimbrón, spoke that 2020 was an intense time for developments and from there arose a romantic comedy for Amazon that has just finished production and is preparing an explosive comedy series “a media satire” for mid-October. By 2022 they will begin recordings of a melodrama. “We have an interesting portfolio of projects under development and we have alliances with Pizzolante and Cardona, for something in Chile,” he said.

For Zimbrón, 2020 was an intense time for developments including a romantic comedy for Amazon that has just finished production and is preparing an explosive comedy series “a media satire” for mid-October. By 2022 they will begin filming a melodrama. “We have an interesting projects’ portfolio under development and we have alliances with Pizzolante and Cardona, for something in Chile,” he said.