Lat ambitions

Jaime Dávila of Campanario Entertainment

Streaming giants are zeroing in on Latin America while the region’s local players continue to step up their international ambitions in search of worldwide hits. By Nico Franks

If there’s one type of content that is synonymous with Latin America, it’s the telenovela. But to assume this genre of TV has stood still over the years would be a mistake, as the groundbreaking and Rose d’Or-winning Argentinian telenovela Pequeña Victoria (Victoria Small) – which stars multiple trans actresses – highlights.

The telenovela form continues to evolve and remains a bastion of Latin American cultural exports, drawing sales for Lat Am companies from broadcasters around the world while fending off stiff competition from a host of other countries and regions.

Moreover, the telenovela is now just one string in the bow of Latin American programme makers these days, particularly as the popularity of non-English-language content continues to grow internationally.

Players such as Globo in Brazil are enjoying the fruits of a shift in strategy to focus on more international, ambitious dramas that they have successfully shopped around the world.

For example, Globo-distributed series such as Aruanas, Sweet Diva, Orphans of a Nation, Hidden Truths and Jailers landed on channels and platforms in countries as distant as Germany, the US and Japan in 2020.

“Globo today has a robust portfolio of series with current themes, in line with society’s trends, which have narratives that talk to people from all over the world. And seeing that Aruanas is gaining more and more space in Europe signals that our strategy is being assertive,” says Raphael Corrêa Netto, director of international business at the Brazilian broadcast and production giant.

Buyer and audience openness to premium non-Englishlanguage content has been helped in no small part by streamers such as Netflix. Watching Narcos – which features both English and Spanish – on Netflix was, for many people, the gateway drug that led them to their foreign-language drama addiction. Since then, another Spanish-language show, crime drama La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), has become one of Netflix’s most-watched originals and its top non-English series to date. Although it was produced in Spain, the success of the show has clearly given Netflix – and other streaming giants, as we will soon see – the confidence to invest in local programming across Latin America. Currently, Netflix is used by 11% of the Lat Am population and is expected to reach 13.4% by 2023, according to data firm Statista. Unsurprisingly, Brazil is the company’s largest Latin American market by number of subscribers, followed by Mexico and Argentina.

One of Netflix’s latest Spanish-language originals, Selena: The Series, arrived to much fanfare on the streamer globally in December last year, telling the story of Tejano singer Selana’s rise to fame and the sacrifices she and her family had to make along the way.

Touting a full Latinx cast, production team and writers’ room, the biographical drama marks the latest step in the evolution of Latin American content. Already renewed for a second season, Selena: The Series quickly rose to the number one spot in Netflix’s top 10 in the US and across other parts of Latin America in December. And though it received mixed reviews, creators across the region hope that the show could lead to more nuanced, creative and wide-ranging storytelling for Latinx viewers in Hollywood and beyond.

Jaime Dávila, president of the series’ producer, Campanario Entertainment, says the company is committed to changing the way Latinx voices are presented and included in mainstream entertainment. Looking to act as a production bridge between the US and Latin America, the LA-based firm was co-founded by Dávila, former development executive at cable channel Bravo, and Jaime Dávila Sr, a former Televisa chief operating officer and Univision president and chairman.

Dávila believes Selena is important because it reflects a side to Latinx people that goes beyond stereotypes that tend to follow them around on TV. “In recent years, I have been perceived as a ‘narco.’ I watched Narcos and it was very good but I am not one of these people. There are also so many other Latinx stories. I wanted to create a company with a voice that could tell Hollywood and Mexican buyers that there are other stories we can tell,” says Dávila.

These include Bridges, a multi-generational, multicultural Latinx family comedy, which has received a script commitment from ABC and will be made by Campanario with Eva Longoria’s prodco UnbelieEVAble, and Mexican Dynasties, a docuseries for Bravo about elite families in Mexico City.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s hunger for Spanish-language content makes it the latest US media giant to look south of the border for stories to bring not only to Hispanic audiences but viewers around the world.

While Hollywood has been guilty of treating Latin America as a monolith in the past, there is evidence that this is beginning to change via the local arms of US

studios. MGM International TV, for example, is focused on developing content with Latinx talent both in front of and behind the camera for English- and Spanish-speaking audiences around the world following the opening of a Miami office.

“When one is open to ideas that can come from anywhere, that’s when new talent is found,” says Diego Piasek, senior VP of development and production for MGM International Television, who points to the more than 400 million Spanish speakers around the world.

El Fin Del Amor: Querer y Coger, from Argentinian author Tamara Tenenbaum and starring Lali Esposito, marked MGM’s first Spanish-language project. It has since been followed up by Mariachis, a multi-generational drama about an estranged Mexican family, described as a vibrant love letter to Mexico’s rich culture, musical traditions and the ties that bind families together.

The show, MGM’s first in Mexico, has been developed with Mexican prodco Hippo Entertainment, and demonstrates a shift away from the crime dramas that have arguably acted as something of an albatross for Mexican producers in the past.

Meanwhile, MGM signed up Argentinian showrunner, writer and producer Erika Halvorsen, with whom it worked on El Fin Del Amor: Querer y Coger, a drama about the complexities of modern romance, to a first-look deal in early 2020.

Halvorsen, who is also behind ViacomCBS International Studios and Mediapro-owned Oficina Burman’s aforementioned hit Pequeña Victoria for Telefe in Argentina and Amazon Prime across Lat Am, is developing projects aimed at global audiences with MGM.

The two parties have a slate of English- and Spanishlanguage projects in development spanning multiple genres, the intention being that Halvorsen will write or supervise other new Latinx voices on the shows.

These include an adaptation of Gonzalo Demaría’s novel Cacería, which sheds light on the persecution of homosexuals in 1940s Argentina.

Piasek describes Halvorsen, whose credits also include Amar Después de Amar, El Hilo Rojo, Desearás and What’s Up Mamis, as a “rock-star storyteller with a true, unique voice.”

Argentinian television has a strong tradition of women storytellers, Halvorsen told last year’s MipCancun, but added that the TV industry still needs more women in charge of shows. She believes the “masculine” Latin American broadcast TV industry in particular is guilty of outdated attitudes towards how women should be portrayed on screen, which she is keen to challenge.

“I realised my female characters didn’t have the right to make mistakes. In Latin America, there is a culture of purity – the white heroine who cannot be sexual, or if she does like having sex, then the public will not empathise u

Rose d’Or winner Pequeña Victoria (top) and RecordTV and Amazon Prime Video copro Game of Clones Brazil

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“If there

is one big change, it’s that streamers are doing more and more unscripted shows, not necessarily instead of scripted content but on top of it. Laurens Drillich

with her. We want to create characters that break with those gender stereotypes, which have ultimately been very toxic for our culture. This is not a trend, this is a debt that is owed,” said Halvorsen, who called for more training to be made available to people in the industry to learn about other perspectives on gender beyond the norm.

Halvorsen is seeking out players who are “prepared to gamble on boldness” and can help her jump over local, traditional barriers by taking her stories global.

This follows in the footsteps of players such as US premium cablenet HBO, which has been producing edgy originals in Latin America for almost two decades, resulting in over 900 hours of content as well as 56 coproductions. “Some networks on national television, which is very important in Latin America, confuse perspectives on gender with feminism and they see feminism as a niche. There is a lot of misinformation,” added Halvorsen.

The increased involvement of streaming services and US studios is not only leading to shifts in the kinds of stories that Latin American creatives tell, but also in the ways deals for new shows are put together.

Laurens Drillich, president of Banijay-owned Endemol Shine Latino, has watched as streamers such as Amazon Prime and Netflix have made waves in Lat Am, while Spanish-language services like Pantaya, a joint venture between Lionsgate and Hemisphere Media Group, have also popped up to commission local shows.

Endemol Shine Latino oversees the production and distribution giant’s Spanish- and Portuguese-language operations across the region, including the studio Endemol Shine Boomdog, which produces original content for both the US Hispanic and Mexican markets.

“I guess you can say that free-to-air broadcasters in Latin America and also in the US Hispanic market are more likely to commission proven shows from our catalogue, shows like MasterChef, Mira Quien Baila, Your Face Sounds Familiar and Masked Singer,” observes Miami-based Drillich. “Meanwhile, the streamers like original development, which may not have rights issues. But there are, of course, exceptions to both rules. Also, broadcasters that we work closely with in the region are mostly looking for broad family entertainment, while the streamers often don’t mind catering to more niche audiences.”

Moreover, the two types of buyer aren’t averse to working together, as Endemol Shine Latino has seen with the production of entertainment format Game of Clones, which was jointly commissioned by RecordTV and Amazon Prime Video in Brazil.

How is demand shifting in Latin America when it comes to unscripted formats and scripted content? And what are the main challenges as demand for premium Spanishlanguage content increases internationally?

“It is difficult to generalise, as Latin America is a huge content market. But there are a few trends and a few basic unwritten rules. Telenovelas still make up a large part of all programming on many of the major channels. Even if the channel does not produce the content themselves anymore, they may buy Turkish or Brazilian soaps,” says Drillich.

“From what I see, the shorter, 13-episode or less series usually go to the streamers, not the broadcasters, so that doesn’t interfere with the traditional balance of scripted and unscripted programming on the free-to-air channels.

“If there is one big change, it’s that streamers are doing more and more unscripted shows now, not necessarily instead of scripted content but on top of it. That leads me to the premium Spanish- and Portuguese-language series. They are, no doubt, very important now to the more established OTTs like Netflix and Amazon, but all the newcomers to the field as well.”

Indeed, Discovery+ and HBO Max are due to arrive in Latin America later this year, with the latter putting over 50 projects in development and targeting production in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Disney+ arrived towards the end of 2020, with ambitions to stream more than 70 Lat Am originals that are currently being developed in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia.

As Cecilia Mendonca, head of content development, kids, young adults and family at The Walt Disney Company Latin America, told Mip Cancun recently: “We are open to listening and working with talented people from all over the region.”

Drillich adds: “While this will initially mean that talent might be spread thin and it will be hard for the industry to keep up, it is no doubt extremely good news for the local production industry. Fortunately, Latin America has great creatives and wonderful stories to tell.” .

This is certainly true. But what other common challenges face producers and distributors in Latin America in 2021 and beyond? “I would say, first of all, the economy, which was already not very strong before Covid-19 hit. The other thing is that all of Latin America outside of Brazil is Spanish-language territory and that makes the rights and sales issues ever more complicated,” Drillich says.

Nevertheless, with storytellers from diverse backgrounds top of the agenda for the global TV industry, it follows that a culture as diverse as Latin America’s would be a top priority for a business where language is no longer the barrier it once was.

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