Latino film producers to hold conference April 13-15

NALIP 2012: Diverse Voices, Universal Content to be presented April 13-15, 2012 at Universal City, California.

LOS ANGELES, CA -- The National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) today announced that its thirteenth annual NALIP Conference will be held April 13 - 15, 2012 in Universal City, California with a new special edition of the NALIP ActorSummit on April 12. Online registration is available now at http://www.conference2012.nalip.org/ .

NALIP 2012: Diverse Voices, Universal Content is presented by Time Warner and the National Latino Media Council. Co-chairs Frank B. Gonzalez of The Disney/ABC Television Group and Juan Carlos Zaldivar of Phonograph Films will host the annual, premier Latino nonprofit gathering of top level Latino executives, content makers and game changers in the Latino media field. This dynamic and star-studded weekend includes keynotes, plenaries, 'Conversations With,' workshops and networking events. The conference begins Friday, with keynote speaker, film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician, Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez's films, which range from sleeper hit EL MARIACHI to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and SIN CITY as well as the SPY KIDS franchise, exemplify how he embodies expressing a diverse voice while creating content that is universal. Saturday's keynote speaker will be Universal Studios' President and COO Ron Meyer. Meyer, the longest-running Studio Chief, is dedicated to creating a corporate culture of stability and consistency that drives a successful business.

In addition to engaging Hollywood's elite, NALIP also brings together the industry's current trendsetters. This will be exemplified in two very special sneak preview screenings during the conference. Friday night, the Sundance smash hit FILLY BROWN will be shown at Universal City's AMC Theatres. Following the screening, directors Youssef Delara and Michael T. Olmos, producer Amir Delara, and cast members Gina Rodriguez, Lou Diamond Phillips, Chrissie Fit, Emilo Rivera and Danny Mora will participate in a Q&A session. The second private screening and Q&A will be held Saturday afternoon for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie of the week "Firelight." "Firelight" is directed by Darnell Martin and written by NALIP mentor and executive producer/ writer of the highly acclaimed LA MISA LUNA, Ligiah Villalobos.

Furthering the tradition of celebrating Latino visionaries, NALIP will host a red carpet gala honoring one of only eight living performers who has won entertainment's grand slam of the industry's most prestigious awards: The Oscar, The Emmy, The Tony and The Grammy -- the inspirational and magnanimous, Rita Moreno. Ms. Moreno will receive NALIP's highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Additional media luminaries being honored at the annual gala include former Nosotros President and current Velasco & Associates President, Jerry Velasco who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for Advocacy and the Estela "Rising Star" Award winners Patricia Martinez de Velasco, Erin McGinnis and Ari Palos, who will be awarded a $7,500 grant endowed by the McDonald's Corporation.

The Conference will also include NALIP's annual Latino Media Market, inviting top industry executives to help attendees bring their authentic, unique and diverse voices to the international market place. Executives from Time Warner, HBO, You Tube, Google, Sony, ABC/Disney, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, SAG, WGA, CNN, HGTV, Travel Channel, TruTV, Mun2 and many others are scheduled to attend this unique event. For a list of speakers, panels and keynotes please visit http://conference2012.nalip.org/conference/keynotes-speakers/ .

The NALIP national conference is organized as three days of workshops and plenaries on film, television and documentaries, plus groundbreaking case studies. These include "The Million Dollar Screenwriting Workshop", which turns writing into an effortless, step-by-step process, "Packaging your Documentary for Success", discusses how to best present your project pitch, proposal and trailer. "The Reality of Reality Television" presents an in depth look inside the world of reality television, why it works, the opportunities and how to break in. "Inside the Mind of the Investor: How Money Decisions are Made" explores how to prepare the best pitch and approach to maximize chances of success. Also scheduled are "Women in Media, Women Who Rock!" and "Make Money in TV Commercials."

Latinos watch more television, buy more movie tickets and consume more media than any other ethnicity, yet Latinos comprise less than 1% of executives in Hollywood; the percentage of minority industry writers in film and television has been frozen at 6% since 1999, and the percentage of directors is lower still. There are over 50 million Latinos in the U.S., which is more than Spaniards in Spain or Canadians in Canada. Latinos are estimated to expend over $1 billion on U.S. filmed entertainment, and $1 trillion in general market buying power. Twenty-six million U.S. moviegoers are Latino, most commonly between the ages of 12 and 34, and are 100% more likely than the national average to be considered "frequent moviegoers." Nielsen Media has determined that Latinos represent an overwhelming 28% of today's heavy moviegoers, that they buy more tickets per year than any other ethnic group, and constitute the fastest-growing segment of the overall movie-going population.

NALIP's closing plenary, Race and the Media, will engage in an insightful and important conversation about the systemic, economic and cultural factors affecting race and representation in the Media. Jennifer Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Alex Nogales, Director of National Hispanic Media Coalition, Joe Torres, author of News for all the People, and Dr. Darnell Hunt, a sociologist at UCLA will discuss the effects of exclusion, and what can be done to improve representation of Latinos in front of and behind the cameras. NALIP's mission is to address the vital need for equitable Latino representation to the most underrepresented and largest ethnic minority in the country across all entertainment mediums.

Variety: Networks going after Latino audience

Networks target fast-growing Hispanic audience...$88 million in new business for Spanish-Language TV in 2011-12
By Anna Marie De La Fuente, Variety.com

The race is on to capture the U.S. Hispanic market, with mainstream networks and their Hispanic counterparts battling for primacy. The result is an increasing cross-pollination of programs and a proliferation of networks, with Fox, Lionsgate and NBCU among those joining Hispanic allies to find and produce content aimed at the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the U.S.

New Hispanic channels are emerging, some in Spanish, some in English, in a bid to appeal to a mix of generations and language preferences that can exist under one Latino roof: The latest census reveals that of the 50.5 million Hispanics in the U.S., 30% are Spanish-dominant while the rest are either English-speaking or bilingual.

Broadcast leader Univision is now the clear No. 5 broadcast network (behind the Big Four) while rival Telemundo has been picking up steam.

"The number of networks focused on the Spanish space has increased from around 12 in 2001 to 100 just a month ago," says Univision networks prexy Cesar Conde, who points out that Univision alone will have a dozen networks by year's end compared with three last year.

These include Univision's upcoming news and sports pay TV nets in addition to the telenovela channel now on Dish Network plus the six TuTV pay TV channels, jointly owned with Televisa.

One of the most anticipated new players is MundoFox, a joint venture between Fox Intl. Channels (FIC) and Colombia's RCN, due to launch in the fall. The new Spanish-lingo network will showcase edgier Colombian telenovelas and look to build on Fox's success in inserting itself into a market. Meanwhile, Fox and Univision recently bowed Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's pan-American talent competish "Q'Viva! The Chosen," while Fox's "Family Guy" airs on Univision sibling web TeleFutura.

Elsewhere, sister networks NBC and Telemundo share talent and resources in the exec ranks as well as on-air.

In the 2011-12 upfront season, an estimated $88 million of new business came to Spanish-Language TV, with Telemundo taking more than half (55%) of the new business, according to Lauren Zalaznick, chairman of NBCUniversal entertainment, digital networks and integrated media.

"The reported 2011/2012 upfront numbers were $1.75 billion for Univision, and $400 million for Telemundo, up 20% from the 2010/2011 upfront," says Antonio Ruiz, partner-communications planning at leading Hispanic ad agency, the Vidal Partnership. Telemundo and its youth-skewed bicultural cable sibling Mun2 delivered more than 20% growth year-to-year, marking their best upfront season ever.

"Our Hispanic strategy is not limited to Telemundo (or Mun2) alone," says Zalaznick, who points out that NBCUniversal's theme parks, studio, cable and broadcast networks, digital assets and Comcast's leading position among cablers in the U.S. allows the company to collectively reach 93% of all Hispanics. She adds that landing the Spanish-language U.S. rights to World Cup Soccer matches in 2018 and 2022 would not have happened without the joint efforts of NBC Sports and Telemundo Deportes.

NBCU parent Comcast has begun to fulfill its pledge to launch 10 independently owned channels on its cable systems over the next eight years. Of these, four will have Hispanic ownership.

Leading the initial pack is young-male-skewed El Rey from Latino helmer Robert Rodriguez and partners John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa of FactoryMade Ventures.

"When Fogelman approached me with the idea for this channel, I immediately said yes," says Rodriguez. He's building soundstages on his 25-acre property in Austin for the English-language channel, which will include animation, music, reality, scripted shows, movies, docus and sports programming.

"The key is to make it universal; I want viewers to watch it because it's cool, not Latino," adds Rodriguez.

Another upcoming Latino-owned Comcast network is BabyFirst Americas from Spanish-lingo TV exec Constantino "Said" Schwarz, which is slated to launch by April.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate and Mexican partner Televisa have expanded their joint film venture, Pantelion Films, onto the smallscreen as well. (Over the March 16-18 weekend, Pantelion scored big at the B.O. with "Casa de mi Padre," which nabbed $2.4 million on 382 screens.) The partnership will include English-lingo format adaptations of TV content from Televisa's library, and the development of scripted and unscripted English-language original programming.

The companies have set up a hefty development fund to enable them to attract top showrunners and talent for an average output of six to eight projects a year, including the sitcom spinoff of Pantelion's debut pic, "From Prada to Nada"; "Badlands," a scripted drama at ABC based on Televisa hit telenovela "Soy tu Duena"; Televisa's drama skein "Terminales" for ABC Family; and "Teresa," based on another Televisa telenovela.

Univision, an erstwhile strictly Spanish-language network, recently began providing English close-captioning for its primetime block of telenovelas and other programs, including long-running variety show "Sabado Gigante." The network is a ratings winner, especially among adults 18-34, where its season average is double struggling English-language broadcaster CW (1.6 vs. 0.8) and is now within shouting distance of ABC, CBS and NBC. (No. 2 Hispanic-language net Telemundo has been offering English closed captions in its primetime block since 2004.)

"Forty-two of the top 50 shows are already watched by bilinguals on Univision," says Conde.

But U.S.-partnered players aren't the only ones gearing up to deliver Latino shows to the U.S.: Venezuela's RCTV, once the oldest and most dominant broadcaster in Venezuela until president Hugo Chavez shuttered it for allegedly inciting rebellion, revived its production capabilities in October, keenly aware of the growing interest in Latino-themed stories.

RCTV Intl. head Jorge Granier is opening a Los Angeles office and has been meeting with showrunners and talent agencies to package English-language versions of RCTV telenovelas selected from its trove of 300 titles.

Latin America's wealth of talent, formats, stories and programming innovations has not been fully tapped in the U.S., says Joshua Mintz, exec VP of Telemundo Studios, which is churning out six to seven telenovelas a year, mainly in Miami. Mintz points to ABC's hit adaptation of Colombia's "Ugly Betty" and, most recently, Fox Television Studios plans for an English-lingo version of "La Reina del Sur," Telemundo's biggest hit telenovela.

"If the U.S. TV industry needs new stories to tell, it doesn't need to look any further than Latin America," Granier says."

Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com