Latin American film fans ask, Where are our movies?

By Fernanda Ezabella

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Latin American cinema may be enjoying a Golden Age, but the movies must sometimes travel the world before they can get a showing on their home turf.

The governments of Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and others are handing out money to encourage local productions, and the results are gaining wide acclaim, but they are struggling in a continent saturated with Hollywood blockbusters.

Films must first reach international festivals like Cannes or Venice to have a chance of getting a distributor and running around the world, before maybe coming home to Latin America.

"Even being so close, it is very difficult to watch Latin American movies in Latin American cinemas," said Daniel Andrade, who was in Sao Paulo for a film festival October 19 to November 8, where he was showing his new movie "Esas no Son Penas" (Anytime Soon).

He said "Cidade de Deus" (City of God) and "Central do Brasil" (Central Station) both Oscar-nominated Brazilian movies of recent years, got to his native Ecuador only through their North American distributors. "Carandiru", a top Brazilian movie of 2003, was never shown in Ecuadorean theaters.

Adhemar Oliveira, an independent distributor who runs theaters in Sao Paulo, said he must go to Europe to get Latin American movies to show in Brazil, such as the acclaimed Chilean movie "Machuca."

"It's the same price to bring a movie from Asia, Europe, USA or Latin America," Oliveira said.

Brazil is now making so many movies -- 70 per year, up from 30 in the 1990s -- that its 2,000 movie theaters hardly have room for all of them, let alone movies from the rest of Latin America.