Is Latin America becoming the new Hollywood?

Majority of the world’s films come from Hollywood, leaving Australian, English, and foreign films often cheering for themselves. If the film industry were a stadium half of it would be filled with Americans and the other half would be trickled with lonesome ‘others’.

In an industry that attracts 7.5 billion viewers per year, how many of those are seeing Latin American films? Is there a shift in audiences moving away from Hollywood films to foreign films made in South America that have closer relationships to local culture and tradition?

In film and media studies the one thing that is taught, and that aspiring filmmakers hate to admit, is that often if a film is not American it will be put under the genre of either Australian or foreign. The foreign label given to any film that is not made in Hollywood shows just how much one country *cough* America *cough* dominates the industry.

The 1980’s saw Latin America making on average only 230 films per year and most were government funded. Government support for film production was and still is a common occurrence in the film industry in Latin America, but while long ago this was seen as negative it has allowed the Latin American film industry to grow.

In 2011, Latin America made US$1.6 billion, sold 417 million tickets, and on average from 2005 to 2011 350 films were being made per year.

While the film industry is still largely American based, audiences are shifting to global films more and more. Bollywood was once laughed at, but now it pumps out more films than fists pumping at an Adele concert. Latin American films may not be making the billions of dollars America makes per blockbuster movie but the industry is growing and building, empowering more industry minorities and economically growing South American countries.

By Taylor-Jayne Wilkshire