Tondero: We must break idiomatic barriers

The fluency of accents was considered as one of the barriers for cinematographic content to travel to Spain and Latin America, during the panel Dialogues with the industry: Independent distribution in Latin America at the Iberseries Platino Industria.

“The public from Spain rejects the fluency of accents,” said Antonio Saura, CEO of Latido Films (Spain). “Unfortunately, the accent is something decisive. Language unites us, but accent separates us… there is racism. It is a terrible barrier,” said Alfonso López, CEO of Alfhaville Cinema (Mexico).

Cecilia Gómez De La Torre, associate general manager of Amazonas Films / Tondero Distribución (Peru), mentioned how they ingeniously approached the case of the Chilean horror film Contra Demonio in order to distribute it successfully in the region. “We dubbed this film into neutral Spanish and got 120,000 viewers in Mexico, 40,000 in Colombia and 20,000 in Argentina. If it wasn’t dubbed, it wouldn’t have left the drawer. Sometimes you have to have imagination and look for strategic allies. You have to break idiomatic barriers,” she pointed out.

Enrique González Kühn, general director of Caramel Films (Spain), who also participated in the talk, said that he has brought Mexican films to Spain and this has involved doing promotional work to make the film attractive to the public. “Without help it is very difficult for me to bring films to the market,” he said.

González also highlighted the importance of launching in Europe a multinational streaming platform to compete with Netflix and Amazon. “There is no European mega platform, only multinationals. We see this tsunami and we are not taking advantage of that process. That worries me,” he said.

Another issue that was discussed was to make movie theaters the epicenter of premieres and for the audience returning to theaters. Gómez mentioned that with Enchufe.TV they are premiering a film targeted to the youngest to promote going back to the cinema.

González Kühn indicated that prior to the pandemic older people frequently visited the cinema theaters, but now they are afraid to return. “Older public is at home and you have to win them over to make them come back,” he said.