Havana, Dec. 8 - The Churubusco Film Studios, considered among the oldest in Latin America, celebrate eight decades since their founding. Today, a delegation from the company is in Cuba participating in the Film Festival, where they will be honored.
In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, Daniel Ortiz, Churubusco’s post-production manager, explained what it means for the studios to take part in the largest film event in Cuba and to receive one of the Coral Honor Awards.
“For us, being recognized internationally is a privilege; similarly, we are interested in reciprocating that recognition and returning this courtesy shown to us. We also want to do the same with ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry). For example, we are very interested in establishing agreements with that institution,” Ortiz stated.
The Mexican visitor explained that they will sign an agreement with ICAIC in the coming days and that this “is very good for cinema,” he noted.
“With our participation in the Havana Festival, we seek to find alliances and give Latin American cinema a boost,” Ortiz said.
“We are here offering our services; moreover, we try to revive traditional cinema so that it does not disappear. It’s not that it is lost, but it is becoming digital cinema, and this has overtaken the analog part,” he pointed out.
Likewise, he finds that young people are once again showing interest in analog cinema, as if returning to tradition. “It is wonderful to preserve film; the only problem is that it is more expensive, the processes are longer, and it requires more time,” he added.
“We are not against digital cinema either; on the contrary, it is very welcome, but we are preserving film material, cellulose, everything. At Churubusco we still have a living photochemical studio; we can develop 35 and 16 mm films, and I believe that by the beginning of the year, we will work with 8 mm films,” he explained.
Ortiz also detailed that they can develop color positive film, color negative, and black and white.
“So, we are alive!” he exclaimed. “We have nine sound stages — eight of 1,400 square meters and one of 1,000 square meters — the largest in Latin America,” he emphasized.
We possess video editing islands, postproduction, a color grading room, a restoration room, and two THX mixing rooms, he added.
"We can no longer maintain both technologies equally, because as I said, digital surpasses analog, but at least we want to preserve the latter," emphasized the postproduction manager of Churubusco, film studios located in the neighborhood of the same name in Mexico City.
"If we are going to talk about Mexican cinema, we have to mention Churubusco.
All contemporary directors have passed through there; we have produced international films, one of the James Bond movies (agent 007) was at Churubusco; many important directors have come to film at our studios," he specified.
"If we talk about 80 years, we bring memories from the silent film era," Ortiz told Prensa Latina.
"The classics of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema were filmed at Churubusco with Pedro Infante, Dolores del Río, Jorge Negrete; they all shot there," he mentioned.
"Mexico has a very strong base of filmmakers, we have very good film schools, and we are supported by the Ministry of Culture, and in them they train everyone from photographers to color correctors," he revealed.
"Currently, our studios are being renovated with support from the government of the president, Claudia Sheinbaum," Ortiz concluded.
