Welcome to the A FILMS Newsletter
(3 minutes reading time)
Hi!
If you are receiving this email, it is because either Carmen or myself, if not both, have shared a set, a festival, a mixer, or any common film-related love with you. We intended to send a first non-annoying message and somewhat sporadic newsletter from A FILMS saying Hi! and sending our good wishes for the new year. After all, we closed 2024 on a very high note despite the state of the industry. We produced 169 short videos in one single year for Tzu Chi USA, had a fun and successful festival run with Los Sandy’s, and produced the NY section of the new music documentary of Fernando Trueba. Yes, Trueba! Do you remember the delightfully haunting album Lágrimas Negras? He produced it! Or the 1993 Oscar winner Belle Epoque? He was the director! Him. Side note: we are so privileged to leave our sets soul-lifted… sigh
Photos by Alvaro Saavedra
But instead of resting, regrouping, and thoughtfully planning the new year with positivism, 2025 has been more bumpy than we expected. To start, five wildfires struck Los Angeles. Two of them devoured Pacific Palisades/Malibu and Altadena in Northern LA, reducing to ashes nearly 30,000 buildings, mostly residential, displacing thousands of people, and taking the lives of 29. Without delay, I am called to urgently get into Disaster Relief Mode and put together two teams to cover Tzu Chi USA’s efforts to help those affected. From here, everything else has been on standby for me until I returned to New York almost two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a political earthquake hits globally. Trump is finally president again, creating turmoil with his battery of changes seeding uncertainty left and right in the US and overseas. How would this affect the weakened American film industry?
I am scanning the film-specialized press, looking for hints on how the new direction of this country will affect the film industry. Will “America First” mean he will force platforms and studios to bring back the jobs they took overseas? Or, as far as the money comes to the US, as it still does, is America already the first as per his parameters? A fundamental question arises: What is then America? A financial concept or its people? But that is another conversation. What is certain is that his appointed “special envoys” to reboot Hollywood, John Voight, Mel Gibson, and Silvester Stallone, raise more questions than hope. Note that some of them had no idea about this until Trump published on True Social with the info.
Steven Zeitchik’s interesting analysis in The Hollywood Reporter shows how the industry is reacting and moving towards or against, often shifting, but definitively more polarized. The Motion Picture Association is already flirting with the new administration, while the Academy has yet to make a move after embracing diversity after years of criticism. Maybe at the Oscars? Don’t miss the detail about the Latino community: the top moviegoers by far, 45% of which voted for Trump, while they are being demonized and prosecuted.
After witnessing an LA of ashes and tears, twisted metal structures covered in soot, I can’t help thinking that this fire took in minutes the homes, resources, memories and dreams of many without caring about their social status, job situation, creed, or who they voted for. It just burned. Everything. The fire prevention, extinction, and recovery work needs to be done as horizontally as blind as the fire is. Outside the silver screen, no 80s action heroes will fix these. It’s on us.
For Health, Wisdom, and many Stories.
Photos by Jaime Puerta
Recommendations:
To watch: I am still here.
Overrated: The Brutalist and The Substance
Visit us at:
instagram: @afilmsusa
Read in Substack: @afilmsusa
Husbandry's GTP at FEEDBACK Experimental & Music FF of Los Angeles
Husbandry‘s Grab Twist Pull music video directed by Jaime Puerta was screened on May 28th at the Experimental Music and Dance Film Festival in Los Angeles. The festival is part of the FEEDBACK Film Festival, so after the films are shown, they ask the audience what they think of the films. Given the current pandemic, the films were streamed online and the feedback was given from everyone’s home. We would like to share with you the highlights the festival shared. Enjoy!
If you haven’t watched the full music video, here it is!
Stay healthy!!
Incentives to film in Spain
Some good news to share from the film industry in Spain. As the pandemic slows down with the numbers of the infection cases in steady decline, the country is preparing to open for business in successive stages while the film industry warms up to get back to the set.
As we mentioned previously, the Spanish government already announced that starting on May 11th, the film productions can go back in action in certain places with minimum risk. Yesterday, the government also approved the improvement of tax incentives for production and post-production in Spain to incentivize the film industry and make it more attractive to international productions and co-productions. As a highlight:
- the Tax Rebate is raised from 20% to 30% applicable to the first million of Euros and 25% for the expenses above this mark.
- to qualify for these deductions, foreign productions must invest at least 1million€ on production or 200,000€ on pre- and post-production.
- the maximum return is raised up to 10million€.
As for the safety and security on-set, the Spain Film Commission, together with other institutions and professional associations, is working on protocols to follow with a manual of good practice to protect the industry workers.
As A FILMS team, we would like to thank the Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte, Instituto de la Cinematografía y las Artes Audiovisuales, Spain Film Commission, Sr. James Costos (Honorary Ambassador of SFC) and everyone else involved in the process to make these measurements possible and provide us with safe spaces to work.
If you consider filming in Spain and want to know more, feel free to contact us at info@afilms.net.
Listos para el 11 de Mayo
Esperamos que todas/os os encontréis con salud y listos para la desescalada.
El 11 de Mayo es la fecha en que se plantea que el sector audiovisual pueda volver a la actividad en España siempre que la provincia donde se desarrolle la actividad “cumpla los requisitos”. El gobierno ha presentado hoy el Plan de Desescalada aprobado por el Consejo de Ministros. Pese a ser genérico para toda la población, establece la vuelta a la normalidad (sea esta cual sea) en cuatro fases de dos semanas que terminaría a finales de Junio, siempre que la pandemia siga bajo control y no se extienda el proceso de desescalada.
Hay ya publicados varios protocolos a seguir en un rodaje. Esta video-guía elaborada por Audiovisual 451 resume clara y brevemente los puntos principales para rodar con seguridad tanto en estudio, en el interior de una localización real o al aire libre. Mientras se unifican los protocolos, para información más específica puedes consultar el Protocolo de la Asociación de Cine Publicitario (APCP), la Agrupación de Asociaciones del Audiovisual (AAA) y/o de la Fundación Secuoya y la Spain Film Commission, que adjuntamos en el artículo y cuyo borrador ya avanzamos en el post anterior “Back to Work”.
APCP: Protocolo de la Asociación de Cine Publicitario
En cualquier caso, cualquier medida es poca. La información y las medidas se irán actualizando dependiendo de cómo evolucione el proceso de desescalada. Recomendamos estar informado y ser extremadamente precavido para evitar una segunda ola de contagios y poder así practicar nuestra actividad de forma segura e ininterrumpida.
joseantonio
Merch&Cía presentó el pasado Viernes 15 de Febrero joseantonio, un minidocumental producido nosotros y dirigido por Jaime Puerta sobre el cantante de rock-punk Jose Antonio García. Voz de bandas icónicas como 091 o TNT y con su disco en solitario “Lluvia de Piedras” recién presentado, Jose Antonio García nos cuenta sus recuerdos más íntimos y revisita los lugares que marcaron su vida.
This Land Wins the Best Documentary Award at the Black Hills Film Festival
This Land, a documentary film directed by Alan Thompson, has won the Best Documentary Award at the Black Hills Film Festival in South Dakota. This Land documents the ways in which the fossil fuels are extracted and transported in areas, such as Texas, including the Mexican Border, the Dakotas, and Canada, and how the native and local communities are fighting against gas and oil pipelines.
We congratulate the director and the rest of the team, including our very own Jaime Puerta as the Director of Photography, as well as the Tzu Chi Foundation for their incredible production that has earned them a meaningful award!
This Land has also been selected by Marfa Film Festival to be screened in July 2018. You can check out the festival link HERE.
Best,
A FILMS team
Our new blog is up and running!
A FILMS has now a brand new blog to share some exciting news and projects with you. As you might know, we spend most of our time on the road and in locations where we create stories through moving images. That’s why we want to include you in the making of these stories and also make sure they reach you in a timely manner once we put the final touch on them.
Here is a brief intro to what we do: A FILMS is full-service production company specialized in high-quality fiction, advertising, documentary, music video, and new media projects. Based in NYC, Barcelona, Granada and Beijing, we produce locally and globally.
Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and now on our blog. And share your stories with us as well!
Very best,
A FILMS team