Fledgling Industry Races to Keep Up With Shooting
Investors sought to ramp up soundstages in Colombia
Colombia’s fledgling filmmaking sector feels it’s ready to soar. While there are still holes in its capacity, Colombians are determined to fill them.
“Colombians are survivors,” says Diana Bustamante, whose producing credits include the locally shot Tilda Swinton-starrer “Memoria,” which took the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Jury prize. “When studio productions arrived, we were not really prepared to receive productions of such size, but we learned really fast how to do it.”
For example, she says, 10 years ago, there were only about 20 quality focus pullers in the country. “Now there are like a hundred very good ones.”
Crews, actors, writers and directors are mostly concentrated in Bogotá (Bustamante calls it Colombia’s “only real cosmopolitan city”), with some in Medellin. The surge in shooting since the 2020 expansion of the tax incentive has squeezed the available manpower and equipment; Telecolombia VP of operations Ana Barreto estimates there are around six experienced crews and that there are enough trucks and star wagons to reach about 80% of American standards. Nonetheless, global companies, including Amazon and Netflix, have productions in Colombia, and Paramount Global has taken a majority stake in Telecolombia.
Bogotá boasts modern but relatively small television production facilities.
Unit production manager Hans Daiyal, who recently toured facilities in Bogotá, says, “On a larger [TV] show, we’re looking for 10,000 to 12,000 square feet, maybe two or three stages. [Colombia has] nothing like that. If [Colombia booked] a larger Hollywood-style production, I think it would be a hard time for them.”
Isabella Muñoz, executive director of public-private partnership Invest in Bogotá, says while the number of productions that have landed in Bogotá in recent years shows the region’s potential, “one of the most important challenges is attracting investment for the installation of soundstages.” To that end, an delegation from the org will attend the upcoming American Film Market in Santa Monica.