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Central Do Brasil (Brazil, 1998) - This film won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival and it was nominated for the best foreign language film at the 71st Academy Awards.
I didn't want to create a new thread about this news, so this thread will do. LOL
Today made it to the news that Hollywood's movie producer Avi Lerner is in the Dominican Republic and announced that he will build the world's largest movie producing studios in the DR. Amazing news! The DR is already the "Hollywood" of the Caribbean with a burgeoning local movie production and international (mostly from the USA for now) movie production (many blockbuster movies from Hollywood shown in US movie theaters and worldwide are actually filmned in the DR). Right now more movies are made in the DR than anywhere else in the Caribbean and now this will only make it an even bigger industry. Along with this comes thousands of jobs from construction, movie producers helpers, cleaners; security, etc. Good news all around.
Here is an interesting interview (in Spanish) to Alfonso Rodríguez. He comes from a well-to-fo family, but has become a major Dominican movie producer and has been promoting the Dominican movie producing industry. Currently, he is the Dominican Consul at the Dominican Consulate in Los Angeles, California. The amount of Dominicans in the Western USA are so few, that its jurisdictio basically is all western states plus Alaska and I think Hawaii. Once you get away from the east coast, the presence of Dominicans in the USA goes off a cliff.
Anyway, he was sent there because of its proximity to Hollywood and since he is a major Dominican movie producer and one of the biggest promoters of the Dominican movie industry, the hope was that he would be a major help for American movie producers that wanted to go to another country and film there to lower their movie producing costs. Here comes Alfonso who in the last 3 years (not counting 2024 and keep in mind the world was shutdown around 2020 due to Covid) over US$600 million from Hollywood alone has gone to the Dominican movie industry and related industries in the DR. That’s the amount taken to the DR by American movie producers as they decided (induced by Alfonso) that they will film their “Hollywood” movies in the DR vs some other country. This figure is growing. Had Alfonso not been there, those US$600 million would had gone elsewhere and only a trickle if any to the DR.
Another topic talked about is PELIDOM. In a nutshell, this is Dominican Netflix. It has all Dominican movies and even can host Dominican podcasts, etc. The only requirement is that whatever it’s must be made by Dominican(s). The most interesting part is that Alfonso says that they have reached a level of sophistication with PELIDOM that it’s guaranteed to show an entire movie with never buffering!
At 3:22 to 11:23 about PELIDOM and at 1:03:34 about future Dominican Consul assigned to Los Angeles should be people from the Dominican movie industry (for obvious reason.) Most of the interview is about politics, how to keep Dominican democracy alive, etc.
PS. I think Dkminican movies should try to expand and see if any other Spanish-speaking market would be very receptive to them. However, I have heard Alfonso in other interviews where he very clearly says that he does movies for the everyday Dominican, not even for rich Dominicans, let alone people from other countries. That’s fine, but he should be more open, IMO. The Dominican movie industry could greatly benefit from this with increase sales and even an increase of Latin American movie producers that are attracted to the DR for the same reason those from Hollywood are. In addition to local Dominican producers, that can be very beneficial for that industry and other industry that are related such as hotels/airb&b, restaurants, transport, etc.
I think right now the Dominican movie industry is the biggest one in Central America & The Caribbean. That didn’t happen by chance and it can be bigger.
Last edited by AntonioR; 03-20-2024 at 03:48 PM..
Reason: Cent
This isn’t a Dominican movie per se as in reality it’s American and in English, but it was filmed in the Dominican Republic. It’s also new as it came out in this 2024. Based on the scenes shown in the trailer, it appears it was filmned mostly in Santo Domingo and Samana.
The title of the movie is Arthur the King.
These area a trailer of the movie and interviews done to Mark Wahlberg and Simu Liu, 2 of the main actors.
For people that aren’t aware, in recent years the DR has become the “mini Hollywood of the Caribbean” as the movie filming in the country of both, Dominican movies in Spanish and foreign movies usually American in English, has ballooned. This is the result of deliberate policies on the part of the Dominican government to support and encourage the development and growth of the DR movie industry offering several incentives to that respect. This didn’t happen by chance and that’s a recurring them regarding the development of several sectors in the DR. If you wait for things to fall from the sky or appear out of nothing, nothing will happen. The previous post touches this aspect.
Last edited by AntonioR; Today at 07:02 AM..
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