Los especiales de GPS Audiovisual - Productores Audiovisuales - T2 - 60 - Hernán Musaluppi (Cimarrón Cine)

Episode Transcript

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Audiovisual ductors, encounters with the protagonists? Second season of podcast in QPS audiovisual,
The changes of the industry, thenew platforms, the challenges that come
audiovisual producers, encounters with the protagonists? Hernán Usalupi is a film producer and

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teacher. It is one of themost recognized and prolific producers in Latin America.
In 2, 000 he founded Rizoma. Along with Natacha Serbi. He
produced films and series of filmmakers likeMartín Resjuan Pablo Trapero, Lisandro Alonso Israel,
Adrián Caetano, Anai Berneri, RodrigoMoreno, Agustín Toscano, Paula Hernández

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and Albertina carri among others. Orin Berlin, San Sebastián and Locarno and
only Argentine member of the prestigious makesthe European cinema atelier. In two thousand
twelve he published the cinema in whatis left of me his first book.

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In two thousand eighteen he creates CimarrónCine with Diego Robino and Santiago López,
a production company based in Montevideo andoffices in Buenos Aires and Mexico, from
where he develops and produces impact projectsfor the international market. Hernán graduated from
the writing career of the University ofCinema and studied lyrics that took you to

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production. Why you chose production.It took me a totally fortuitous fact,
which is that I was a studentof the University of Cinema, which at
that time was a school at thebeginning of three days a week later,
starting from the second year of auniversity, let' s say later I

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was studying some literature and we weredeveloping a project that was the bad time
film. We were not on therun and developed a project that was four
short films together and called me adirector of one of the short films and
that I didn' t even knowhim, let' s say a partner

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of mine, but he had norelationship and told me I know he used
a neat guy. Don' tbelieve producing my short and I said I
' m scripted, I have noidea and the truth I had nothing to
do. Then I got in thereas production manager for one of the shorts.
And that' s where I startedbecause after the production assistant was a

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trapper of that short that we werecompanions of Rodrigo Moreno' s time.
Blisa ros all those people who,in fact, Rodrigo directed one of those
shorts and I got in there andwhat I know I started to make production.
Later, Paul had the idea ofa world to crane and I started
to collaborate in that, because onecannot say that one produced any of those

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films, but began to collaborate infilms made without scripts outside the system,
as one thing was taking me tothe other. I never wondered much why.
I wondered a lot many years later, when I had made several films
and I told myself what I'm doing here, but obviously I found

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a place in the world there thatI wouldn' t have found in the
script or found in anything else.In the relationship that I have with the
cinema, let' s say notclear, but I realized many years later.
It was a totally intuitive question andI' d say fortuitous more than
intuitive. The road took you andI made a bad time. Then we

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start with crane world. Later,at one point I organized with Fernando Barca
some short festivals that made the fucatwo years. And in the year ninety
- seven days in the frame ofthe Festival of Mar de Plata, and
there we called him Martín Regman deJurado and he had filmed, serves to
prietus, but had not finished,but we became friends. He offered me

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to finish the movie with him.I ended up being an executive producer of
the film. And there, like, they were after very emblematic films,
very hard and without project, butit is that I produced them I say,
I participated in some way actively,let' s say, but the
gruel world did not in the wholeprocess, for example, a part of

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person else too, but well,suddenly, my career started. Yes,
I became a producer and what itmeant to create the producer of Rizoman At
the beginning of singles you could sayno, and the beginning to say two
thousand one, in the midst ofa crisis of two thousand one. A
little earlier we armed the producer.I had helped Bertina Carrias to her first

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film. We also had Martin Reghman, Middle produced in a film by Federico
León, the theater director. Alltogether it was called the movie, but
it' s very nice that itdidn' t look and it had like
the need to have a space.At the same time I worked at the
Bufis and then they threw us outand I started to work at the Mar

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del Plata Festival and quit within fifteendays because I didn' t see that
I didn' t see myself inthere and suddenly I felt in the secidente
in an office, a fax,which was the first thing I bought a
fax machine in Santa Fe' sand I talked to Natacha Servi, who

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was my lifelong partner, with SantiagoBonta, who is a ch who worked
with us in the festivals as welland, on the other hand, with
Juan Taratuto, with whom I wasworking in chief of advertising production, because
I did three things. He workedin advertising for a short time, but
intense. He worked at film festivalsand then made films without money. That

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was my three occupations that combined andcoincided and with them three we armed rhizome,
but in the middle of a sortof random because Juan is a director
Nati came from a place that wasnot Santi cinema as well and the producer
built a little with the magic glovesproject. A clear project was first put

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in place. First we had aproject that I brought to the producer or
the other way around, or theproject built the producer. We were with
that project and with what was lateron in you it' s me,
which is the first movie we madewith Juan Taratuto. Yeah, and those
two projects that started, let's say, I' m talking to
the direct ones, they kind ofpushed me or didn' t push us

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not to have a structure, aminimal structure. That was and we were
lucky that our first movies were importantmovies. All the magic gloves aren'
t you It' s me andWhisky were the first three. Sure,
then we did a lot. Weactually did a lot, but it was

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like that. I think the producersstart from a project and not the other
way around. Che I put ona producer and see what happens, because,
at least in my case it wasso. And what profile did you
want to give Rizoma at the time? Look at the profile. I think
you' re giving it up withoutmuch thought and I tried my whole life

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to make the movies that I likedas a spectator and movies that gave me
that, somewhere, I identified myselfand, on the other hand, I
was a little proud to see them. Then you can do better or worse,
but in principle they are films thatI would have liked to see always

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as a spectator. So that forme was a premise and it is still
today a premise, very a permissive, There is a challenge, especially because
cinema sometimes takes you on other pathsand that premise to me does not cause
me to deviate much within the possibleprojects of certain characteristics yes author cinema,

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especially because I started in that wayto work with directors who were producer directors,
author writers. Let' s saythey had like that imprint of what
the European author is at a pointthat comes from that tradition. The directors
who are like conductors, let's say they do everything. And I

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have that learning and then I foundmy place as a producer, because,
because there' s the producer basicallythat I also tempt a couple of decisions,
but that' s a place thatyou' re also finding on the
road but yes, we made movies, we made film author, we made

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films author, basically and it callsbasically, not convocateurs, yes later in
measure with its production model. Imean that no yes, and industrial films
in the sense that they are madefilms, some silver, paying people with
an industrial system signed a number ofweeks in any movie, but films with

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an important authoral, films made inco- productions and g have co-
produced international, looking for funds inother countries so that t also that artistic
risk that we took does not entailan economic risk that we did not want
to close the producer. Then therewas like some kind of axiom, which
is I don' t have tostop money and we have to live off

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this. We live on this.I mean, I don' t have
a chance, I never had achance, and I don' t have
a chance to live on anything elsenow. So that' s a very
interesting discussion for me that wasn't always like something I always had in
front of my eyes, which iswhen your vocation has to feed you.

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Of course you saw, because Ican do the first time I want,
because I live from something else andI have no problem with people who saw
something else. But I say Ithink about my case, how I make
a movie I like, represent myselfand feed myself. So that is a
challenge that I think is impossible today, for example, in a hundred Argenti,

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very difficult. Today is impossible,It is impossible and at that time
good for the conjuncture, for alot of questions and also for the films
that we made. It was possiblefor twenty years better moments, without worse
moments. Yeah, but it waslike an axiom. That one for me

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I have to do what I likeand that should eat me good, but
it' s a decision too thatI don' t. Many directors,
producers take it into account. Notfor some people. It' s good.
I have to make this movie becauseI like it, because it'

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s my movie, because I wantand then we see yes, we,
we were actually pretty good if wehad a tail wind and because Argentine cinema
was on the table to get enoughfunding outside, then we did it with
little economic risk really, or weworked a lot to avoid economic risk,

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but always, finally it was adisaster and a lot of things. And
in fact, even with Taratuto's movies, when we did it wasn
' t you. It' sme that it' s a movie that
was very important because it was likesome first films of a very small producer
so it went very well in thebox office. Yeah, I' m
laughing because with the other movies wewere going to Khan and what do I

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know? And with Taratuto' sfilm, the old Argentine producers started talking
to me, they started giving ballsof that chepi came to meetings and I
know. But it was the moviewe made with less money than we all
made with nothing in borrowed houses,with sixteen- millimeter movies, which I
don' t know where we got. We didn' t have money,

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we got indebted, we owed moneyto the partners, that is, we
were about to stop it a thousandtimes in the film I went with a
VHS to Spain to get money.I was from producer to producer. They
had me sitting down for hours andthey didn' t listen to me.
And it wasn' t the bestone. In relation to the second first
John we made much more spectators,but it was already bigger with the television

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back and what do I know.But with this movie it wasn' t
the best. It' s theone we made with the least money and
the most shortages. And then,even in that film, the spirit of
independent cinema was respected. You sawwhy there' s also something that'
s what movies you like and wantto make and how do you make them?

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How you do them, because alsothe processes of development and the forms
without which you produce them. There' s really who you are and how
you work. Because, but itmay go right or wrong, it may
be better or worse, but theprocesses and principles are in the processes.

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I think I can say Look,the movie' s great And if that
' s why it was a disaster, I' m a son of a
bitch. I don' t know, I don' t know, and
the relationship with everyone was bad andI don' t like paying people and
a lot of things don' thelp this good and goocan. I mean,
for me I value processes much more, because prosonas depend on one and

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the results don' t depend onclarity and because I also understand that in
those processes you are looking for whereto go with that film. No,
but you' re thinking about it. I imagine that before starting the film
yes and every film is a worldbecause yes and experience leads you to say

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good in this film that acer suchthing and every film gives you a surprise.
And every different movie and in everymovie you start from scratch. So
because there' s a context thatchanges all the time and the movies aren
' t just entities that are therefloating the galaxy. They are films that
coexist with other films, with themarket, with the context, with the

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economic sedad, with the encouragement thatthere is, with a lot of things
it forces you to stumble again withmy more stones. You saw it that
way, but it' s thegood thing that it also has because if
it wouldn' t be a serialjob, let' s say it would
be clear and much more bureaucratic,what happens is that it created a risk

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for you. It is an activityof very high risk, despite what one
may think. Not today, especiallyin the opposite direction. Not many people
think otherwise, they don' tthink anything. These don' t risk
it. No. This doesn't happen. Well, I had to

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change jobs because we laughed with natimypartner Listen to me Francio more failed because
in the end we had to bothlook for other alternatives, because we were
going to go to the tacho,well, but because also the author cinema
changed a lot, the financing changeda lot and a lot of things and

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we realized that we had to puttogether other things, because if not this,
that is to say that there isa huge economic risk, enormous.
There are films and films also whatyou manifest has to do with the idea
of public opinion about films that aremade with the silver of the Inca and
the link gives them the silver.That movie is made with that money and

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nobody loses anything. It' spossible this kind of movie won' t
happen. Sure, never passion thesekind of movies. Let' s say
because they' re films that havean industrial addition, but they' re
author movies and well, this silverto make one that industrial life, for

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what already implied the shift from rhizometo maroon as a producer. Well,
what I just told you a littlebit that in my case I saw us
say the author movie that we haddone and that we were doing. I

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was changing a lot. Let's say there was much more regional competition,
it was much harder to get funds. Public support was also getting smaller
than private support tended to disappear andthen the films that degenerated more risks and
gave us less chance to live outour activity. Then the first decision in

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my case was to bet on anothermodel of work, on another model of
production that could give me what Ihad never had as a little more economic
stability, at the risk of resigningthe type of product that I like to

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do, resign it partially or haveto tackle and deal with projects that I
am also interested in not motivate meless. Then my decision had to do
a little, which is also adecision that has to do with maturity,
with age, with the years alsoconverted. And something also happened to me
now that you' re asking me. I started not finding directors and directors

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I wanted to work with. That' s why I realized later I'
m doing prima operas and now I' m developing for cousin. I mean,
we haven' t done a premiumopera in Rizoma every year, every
year in Cimarrón. I' mrepeating it. Let' s say we
' re not able to do thiswith so much skill, I mean,

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we' ve been betting our entirelives as young directors and that many producers
don' t. But with thedirectors I worked with or with those who
are in the market, let's say that I didn' t want
to work with or I didn't find who I wanted to work with
and for me it' s importantbecause cinema is the directors. For me,

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cinema is the directors. Beyond thatour work is fundamental and I have
to say yes and I don't take off less, no, I
don' t take away merit fromthe producers, but I do priba because
there are directors and and that binomialfor me is something that I am interested

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in growing and I am interested inis a foundational part of my work.
Then when you look at the horizonand I say yes to who I want
to work with. And I reallydon' t know. The problem is
mine. Of course, I'm not telling you that there are bad
directors, that they' re allbad. The problem is mine. But
it doesn' t happen to me. Let' s say if it happened
to me, then I was halfempty in terms of content, It also

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happened to me then I said well, there came a shock and change,
but I didn' t know thatit was going to happen with caprón,
because it was decimarón at first itwas nothing itself. And then with the
pandemic and everything that happened in Uruguayand with the incentives and there was a
brutal exponential growth that put us allin a place that we had no idea

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about. That' s the truth, and to me in particular, it
took a little film author away fromme, but also because it' s
what' s happening now. Yes, yes, in the world not author
cinema, as this, in otherwords, are other models of production and

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others like I insist, I insist, I think it can be done,
I think you have to think well, you have to choose well, you
have to see business models, budgetsand, above all, you have to
work long before developing much. Nohai writes an ion and shoots say.
We really have to prepare a lot, because I' m going to insist.

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I keep insisting now what profile orwhat kind of movie privileged at the
time of undertaking a job. Youjust said it' s important for you,
the director or the director you're going to work with. No.
But as for the project itself thereis some kind of genre, some

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kind of production that attracts you morethat takes you more into it. Not
really, it doesn' t happento me that author movies have a particular
genre. You see are film author, have like that trait, where the

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genre is the imprint that gives itwho realizes it. Yeah, it happens
to me that the themes that openthose movies somehow have to challenge me.
We are now developing, as Iknow, some cousin opera that has the

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theme of parent paranoids, about possibleproblems that children may have. And it
happens to me with my kids.Then I say the movie, you question
me. It makes me think thingsand and the film says with Pablo Hernández,
it challenges me about faith and aboutmy beliefs and about that kind of
thing. So, somehow I feelpart of that mune, obviously, of

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gender. And then, in thatprocess, I' m very interested in
where the directors are from. Forme, cinema is the look of directors.
The movie is the directors' looksand then I get in there like
it' s mine, because thosemovies question me. I said the word

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of twenty thousand twelve already, butit is the word I find. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, soI pick it from there and then,
obviously, but in a second instance, there' s a slightly more
serious evaluation, in the sense ofeconomic evaluation, the real possibilities, and
I can get platform was what riskI take. All that is said,

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it is obviously, but the firsthas to happen the first good, the
other, which is not just veryimportant. All I listed most recently is,
in short, it is your taskfrom production to find that way to

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get to a good port or thebest possible port. A story that a
director or a director imagined doesn't happen. It' s just that
my case is paradoxical. This isnot my case in my idea of what
paradoxical producers are, because I believethat a producer is not an entrepreneur.
A producer is not a business manager. I think a producer is a filmmaker

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who chose a part of the cinemato find his place of belonging, which
is next to and a little behindthe director. I work primarily and I
think the most important is to supportand improve directors and improve films, than
to make movies better. Within thatis risk assessment, business evaluation and economic

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evaluation, of course. But anessential part of a producer' s work
is to understand what film he ismaking and to make it grow from the
artistic, to participate in reading,to discuss, to watch the montage,
to think, to look for thebest partners that understand the film, that

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can contribute ideas, to make thedirector feel safe and that can explode to
the maximum during the filming and notto narrow it down so that he can
film as he can film. Andthe film can be a disaster, of
course it' s always an economicconditional, but the job one producer is
that and not another. I think, I think not good. It is
an artistic decision, especially not theone that is now taken some characteristic of

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maroons, the co production with proposalslike the wind that razes or the society
of snow, how one works toexpand markets, which is another key issue.
We didn' t rhizome it allour life. Almost all of our
pibas were made with European co-productions and co- productions with some Latin

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American country, basically Spain, Spain, Forgiveness, Uruguay and Brazil and sometimes
Chile. And movies, if they' re not made in co- production,
can' t be made. So, unless you make an original film
for a platform platform, you payfor everything and you' re the one
who makes the film. Let's say the pike Paeblo. It was

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difficult to look, to look forco- producers, to suffer the race
we are very few and Bayona wasdifferent because in reality the film was attached
to Netflix and with a Spanish producerwho started the project. We got into
the project about six years ago,but we' re not real co-

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producers. I mean, we workas co- producers because we work a
lot, we' re very involvedin the film, but in the end
we did a production service for them. But, for example, because of
that relationship, we are now bothproducers, seeing that it is the film
we make together and that it followswith which an important part of the production

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has to do with the two partsbeing good and fulfilling and one being happy
with what it does for later.That' s where they started their journey
of reciprocity together. That' sfundamental. If one, when it is
a co- production, starts onlyfor one' s own benefit and that
of the other, the most possibleis that it does not have a long
life. And the good thing aboutco- productions is that companies have some

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stability to keep working together. Wein Rizoma had him with a German producer
pac Dora. We made a lotof movies and it was a very stable
relationship. So I don' tknow anything about that and then the productions
depend a lot on the type ofprojects, because sometimes every country looks for

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types of projects. Spain is lookingfor a project other than what France or
Germany can look for. Then youhave to have projects that fit what each
country is looking for. And that' s good then. If you have
a project that' s in Spain, I' m not interested, I
' m interested, then you can' t go look there. You have
to look for another country and thenthere is a lot of competition. So

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one of these projects is really cool, but there' s a lot of
competition. It is very difficult toachieve the objectives. Sure, well,
look again for the right way forward. Now, more than a decade ago
you wrote a book about the wayof a producer just the cinema and what

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' s left of me. Thatyear two thousand and twelve said that the
gap between what a film costs andthe possibility of recovering the investment was getting
bigger and bigger. A decade later, the production model changed. Well,
I got it right No. No, no, no, it didn'

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t get sharper. That' swhy I, in a moment said I
have to get out of rhizome,because this is an announced death and with
all the pain of the soul andI have to go do something else.
No. No, no, no, he didn' t ruddy look at
this thing I' m telling you. I told you. I think there

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' s a lot of Latin Americanproject. Today, Argentina is not on
the movie mat. It is inother countries in the region that have much
more access to funds. It usedto be a lot easier to get funds.
There were far fewer films. Argentina' s subsidies covered a much larger
percentage of costs and is now small. Part of those subsidies one reinvested them

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for his new films. So,the movie didn' t start with some
funding, so there was a chainthat worked, that chain was cut and
then you had to also look intowhether the movies now. That' s
very, very arbitrary. What I' m going to say should be integrated

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into the quality of the films we' re doing. But also the quality
of the films often diminishes by theconditions in which those films are made and
perhaps by talent and in the moviesthere was a great film litter until this
beginning of the two thousand, alitter yes, huge filmmakers who all went
very well and who all have avery big specific weight. And that'

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s a little unrepeatable. Also whatdoes not mean that they are directors today
could be filmed because today the conjuncturalsituation is really, very, very terminal.
I' d tell you now it' s worth producing movies. Today
look I' m in a privilegedposition. Now he privileges because I have

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a job, not because I sayif you worked for that too. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Me. Allof this stuff that happened to you
with a maroon, I also takeit as a prize. That' s
what you saw as a way forme to recognize myself, but I don
' t know how a guy does, I want to make a producer or
how they make the intended producers tolive with the movies they make. Because,

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in addition, Argentina' s producershave to live off their work.
They live off their job. It' s not that they' re living
on rents and from time to timea movie is signed. Not the guys
who produce and produce, not thenew and not so new companies are big
producers in general who live day byday. It' s a job.

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So I' m really not veryoptimistic about that. I don' t
see how they can do it.I don' t see, well.
To a certain extent you advanced somethingthat I was going to add to this
question, to the question I justasked. If it' s worth making

(31:48):
movies in Argentina I' ll answerlike this. I have a film we
want to make, a prima operaby an Argentine director written for Argentina and
I' m going to make itthe Inca cinema and I' m not
going to do it in Argentina.If I can make it and I'

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ve done it in Uruguay and I' m going to film it if I
can in Europe and I have tochange the script and make a different movie
than we' re going to seewhat we' re going to do with
another imprint, the same movie,but it' s no different at one
point so it can be possible.Then the answer is there now. Who

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can do it. Of course,yes, few or only some do not,
and yes, I can. Ipassed because I have a producer in
Uruguay, because in Uruguay a systemof very great incentives, because the film
has a particularity that can be filmedoutside a part and I can get it

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if I get some silver there andso on, I have to see if
I can do it, but Argentinatook it directly from the map, from
the contracts, from everything. Andthat' s a huge loss, because
it has to do with an emptyingof talent, an emptying of experience,

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the work of technicians, an emptyingof the possibility of actors who come to
know each other and a lot ofthings. It' s terrible. Yes,
very hard. I mean, youmove your whole model, you move
it and you come doing it toUruguay then this movie. Yeah, because
it was or said you can't do and throw away or try to

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give him a life another way.Yes, it is to survive, then
by looking for other rules of playin Argentina. Yeah, I think so?
I think so. It is nota new issue of this Government.
It is a subject that has beencoming in for many years, many years,

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and there were indicators of that andit was a fall that was coming
and that I, at least hadvery clear where I was going to arrive.
The thing is, this government endedup detonating everything. But what was
not something that was coming was beingannounced dead with an announced death. Let

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' s say subsidies are infinitely belowinflation in recent years, so the percentage
of the cost that you become stateis getting smaller. Then there was a
problem that has no solution. Ifsuspensions do not increase, at least the
rate of inflation and increase, butten times less. The amount that covers

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the ever- decreasing subsidies. Onthe other hand, cinema is financed by
part of the television advertising agenda.Open television tends to die, making it
shorter and smaller. Then the boxwas going to shrink more and more.
That' s in addition to inflation. It gives you a bomb, which
is a time bomb. It's not if the government is good,
it' s not bad. That' s one thing that doesn' t

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solve unless there' s been apolitical decision to go find the silver from
the platforms to finance the fund ofpromotion that, explicitly, didn' t.
There was no such thing explicitly withmore like- minded governments as well.
Yes, then, the Promotion Fundis going to empty itself, regardless

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of inflation. Yeah, and that' s the truth, and that'
s coming ten years ago, andit' s been terrible for the last
five years. Be astounding. Yes, absolutely, and this finding the way
to work with platforms is something thatgood came to some other project in Congress,

(36:00):
but yes, no political decision wasmade to stay on those platforms.
They have to pay a tax togo to the fund promotion. It'
s very simple and that should bea state policy. If you pay the
movie ticket and pay for the TV, pay the platform as in the same
concept. But, well, here' s an express decision not to go.

(36:24):
I don' t hear anyone arguingabout it. For example, I
don' t hear anyone in thesector discussing that, not in general,
not with the vehemence that we shoulddiscuss it, and neither do I.
But and after the inflation subsidies itis directly something that you choose that there

(36:52):
is no way to get it back. So what happens is that this government
is a provocative government, it isa government that tempts, throws in the
face, that lin has to closewhat they are. We' re all
thieves and a lot of things.Let' s just say it' s
not new, on the other hand, the speech at all. New,
yes, not at all, butwell, it is becoming a reality,

(37:15):
at least what this government intends,this management. Let' s say good
arnan thank you so much for sharingyour experiences with us.