Since 2003 Marisa Fernandez works as production coordinator for MEDIAPRO, one of the most important communication and audiovisual companies in Europe. She holds a degree on Spanish Philology and Audiovisual Communication and has developed a professional career as coordinator, script reader and producer for several companies and film festivals. She has taught several lectures for training curses and workshops on the production process in the cinema, ranging from the conception of an idea to the screening of films. OnCuba talked to this renowned producer during her recent stay in Havana, where she offered a workshop for young producers taking part in ICAIC’s 2014 Young Sample (ICAIC: Cuban Film Institute by its acronym in Spanish), which came to an end last Sunday.
How did you come up with the idea of travelling to Cuba to share your experiences with young Cuban filmmakers?
I metYumeyBesú, producer of the Sample, three years ago in a Latin American Film Festival in North America, where we both were juries. We kept in touch and he recently invited me to teach a workshop for sharing my knowledge and experience with young Cuban producers. I loved the idea because it is about advising the youngest who are initiating their professional career and are in need of information on how things are done right now worldwide. I felt I could be useful in helping them to take a qualitative jump and to think about their projects with a broad perspective rather than a Cuban only. I wanted to show them the possibilities to get financing for their projects today and how the funds they can have access to operate. It is important for beginners to keep in mind all the tools in the cinematographic scenario.
What’s the most interesting element you shared in your workshop?
I tried to share my experiences on how to tell a story and sell a project. The most important thing has been to position them in the world, to make them understand they work in Cuba but they want their pieces to be seen all over the world. In order to do that they have to know how the world works in terms of cinema and to have the tools, like selling and negotiating, for conciliating all that in the right moment. In the future, when they produce their first full length film they must know that Miami’s and San Sebastian festivals, for instance, there is a fund for finishing your movie and taking care of its postproduction. If Cubans don’t know that because they don’t have internet or access to the information, then they are not even able to opt for that. The San Sebastian Construction Cinema Award pays for postproduction of the film, they subtitle it, and they distribute it in Spain and place it within Europe’s most important festivals. Berlin’s Festival offers residences for development, where they are paid for writing scripts. These are tools and clues that should be used for starting to think globally. It’s true this has been an ambitious workshop where I tried to cover everything, from the initial stages of development of a project to its commercialization and distribution. In all those processes creative and production control of the works is essential, that’s the most interesting thing I shared with my students, who must not forget that nicely told stories result in projects sold.
MEDIAPRO has collaborated in Latin American cinematographic projects. What’s your opinion on the current Latin American production?
During the past years I have travelled a lot to Latin America;my company is working with international talents and Spanish talent as we have cooperated with Latin American projects such as new ones with Chilean Patricio Guzmán. I have visited Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, among other countries in the region and this is my first time in Cuba and I’m very pleased. I find comfort in places like this because I get to know many people with solid artistic interests. Latin America possesses incredible talents. European professionals have a lot of respect for the Latin American cinema. We appreciate its qualities; it is a very competitiveand effervescent kind of cinema. Filmmakers from this side of the world get to produce wonderful movies with low budgets and they are living dynamic and creative moments that have to do with economic growth in some cases and training in some others. Latin American producers are better trained now than in previous years; there are cinema schools and they have travelled and nourished from diverse experiences and cultures. I don’t like to talk about Latin America as a compact block. I would rather divide it because Mexico’s reality has nothing to do with Argentina’s or Cuba’s. Mexican talents know their way between the US and Latin America as for example, Carlos Cuarón’s films. I prefer to distinguish nations rather than grouping them because that’s a huge mistake we Europeans make, to take as a whole the reality of this continentdespite its diversity.
Historically, Spain has been the main European co-producer for Latin American cinema. In addition to the economic crisis, what other factors do you consider have affected in number such co-productions?
A few years ago Spain was the natural vehicle and the prefect partner in terms of co-productions. Annually it used to co-produce many films with Argentina, Mexico and Cuba too. That’s natural because we share the same language. However, I believe that relation has been lately displaced by countries like France because they have very powerful aid mechanisms in that part of the world, which Spain cannot afford right now due to the lack of funds and the damned crisis. Anyway, beyond the crisis, I think Spain has looked somewhere else, and hasn’t been looking to Latin America recently and this continent has expanded to other markets and widened its scope. We must avoid paternalistic positions, but I do believe we must continue to be the natural partner of the Latin American cinema because in addition to the language, we shareculture and many other elements. We must not forget reality though. The fact is that France has a strong cinematographic policy with Latin America and the cinema thus produced is claimed in every festival and by a great part of the audience.
You have worked with important directors from different nationalities like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, among others. Professionally speaking, how much have they contributed with your career?
MEDIAPRO produced Conocerás al hombre de tus sueños, Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona, and Midnight in Paris and also distributed in Spain A Roma con amor, just to mention a few examples. So you ask me what I have learned from them and their staff. First of all, they have taught me the clarity to undertake a project. When you produce and premier a movie per year everything must be very clear, otherwise you won’t succeed. Allen is a symbol and not just because of that but because he is absolutely clear in his projects which makes you understand them to perfection. His foresight and organization capacity,during the preparation and shooting and promotion and advertising stages,allow him to produce exemplary films. It is worth admiring his capacity to approve every step, when he is the creator of the piece and thoroughly supervises every detail. That’s the reason why everything goes so smoothly, because he doesn’t do anything randomly. Still, for that purpose he needs an efficient team as capable as his. He taught me to organize, foresee and keep it all outlined in order to prevent avoidable mistakes.
Is it true that the Spanish cinema is going through a rough moment?
These aren’t obviously our best years, just as it hasn’t been for any other sector, not because we are worse but just the same. The crisis has affected us given that thecultural sector in general demands support by the government. Budgets have been reduced sometimes drastically. The government has withdrawn a considerable part of the aid for new producers. This is a delicate moment because we are going through several crises, on one hand the economic and on the other the crisis caused by the technological transition. Spain records a high piracy rate, something we need to fight back. We must react but it is increasingly harder. It is necessary to put our movies in every digital platform though I believe we have arrived a bit late, as well as other filmographies, at commercializing cinema by this means and at opening ourselves to electronic trade in order to avoid piracy.The current situation is characterized by a deep gap in the financing of films. There are movies with high budgets as for instance, Lo imposible; and there are lotswith minuscule budgets. There are barely any intermediate productions. It is also true that opportunities may arise out of crises and we are witnessing a saga of new directors that are self-financing their first movies and are using new mechanisms for distributing them. If their movies cannot be screened in movie theaters, they offered them in digital platforms, send them to small alternative festivals, though it doesn’t make an industry or a business model. The situation is harsh because we have also lost the support of the audience and we have to get it back, to run a conscience test in order to find out what to do to get it back considering we are in crisis and people have to decide in what they are going to put their money and their time in because the cinema is not the only entertainment there is, it has to compete with videogames, television, social networks, etc. We have to offer a bonus to mark the difference, otherwise traditional models will disappear. In Spain there is increasingly less movie theaters andmost films don’t get to the small cities. People have to wait three months after the premier of a film to get the DVD and watch the movie. It is complex. Something must be done or the cinema we know will disappear.
