Magma Cine, Chemistry Unveil Strategic Production Alliance (EXCLUSIVE)

Emiliano De Pablos

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Magma Cine, a pioneering company on the pan-Latin American co-production scene, and top Mexican post-production house Chemistry have sealed a strategic alliance to produce high-quality contents.

Unveiled at Buenos Aires’ Ventana Sur, the partnership aims to respond to the strong appetite of regional OTT services as well as pan-regional studios, and forms part of an emerging initiative led by ambitious companies from markets such as Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, looking for new alliances to adapt to market demand.

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While in Mexico the OTT platforms and studios such as Turner Latin America boom have generated a strong demand for content, in Argentina OTTs are not as integrated, in terms of project requests, so it leaves well-known screenwriters working at under-capacity.

Argentine TV fiction has always been well received in the Mexican market, as demonstrated by examples such as telenovela “Rebelde” and “El Recluso,” a remake of TV series “El marginal.”

“We started working together two years ago and now have a first slate of of projects that we are developing together,” said Juan Pablo Gugliotta, co-founder of Buenos Aires-based Magma Cine.

“They are universal [but also] regional projects, [in the sense that] will allow us to board Latin stories that can be replicated in different Latin American cosmopolitan cities such as Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Bogotá,” said Andrés Martínez, at Chemistry.

“We have three TV projects in development, from Argentine and Mexican writers, but we are open to talent from other territories. There could be Argentine writers with Mexican directors and a Colombian and Chilean cast,” said Magma Cine co-founder Nathalia Videla Peña.

“We are going to start to exchanging ideas in the writers room,” she added.

The projects’ heads are in Argentina and Mexico, but will eventually merge, they explained.

Coming from Mexico is Antonio Arenas’ comedy series “Living La Roma,” produced by Martínez at Chemistry, which follows a charismatic young woman known as Lady Margot, of humble origin, who must deal with her reckless brother and her extravagant best friend to achieve her goal of becoming a sought-after Mexican influencer.

Set up at Magma, a black comedy and women-focused project “Bataclana” marks the first TV series jointly created by Camila Toker (“UPA! An Argentinean Film,” “The death of Marga Maier”) and Tamae Garateguy (“UPA! An Argentinian Film,” “Until You Untie Me”).

Structured as a 13-episodes, 48 minutes TV series, “Bataclana” is set among the Argentine show business elite, where a network of crimes and lies come to light after a top actress falls from a fourth floor under mysterious circumstances.

Another Magma-presented title is cop thriller “Hotline,” created by Nicanor Loreti, author of “Kryptonita,” a film whose sequel mini-series “Nafta Súper” broadcast on Turner Latin America in 2016. The feature also won best Argentine film at 2011 Mar del Plata festival with “Diablo.”

“Hotline” takes place in Buenos Aires in the context of Argentina’s fierce economic crisis in the late 1980s. There, Marcela finds an original job outlet through the creation of her own hotline, until a regular client involves her in a web of serial crimes.

Also set up at Magma Cine is an untitled social documentary series by Cannes regular player Agustín Toscano, co-director of “Los dueños,” which received a special mention at 2013’s Cannes Critics’ Week, and of 2018 Directors’ Fortnight entry “The Snatch Thief.” A crime in northern Argentina surrounded by corruption and controversy, reveals the fragile structure there of justice and social inequality.

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