Spain’s Grupo iZen and Argentina-based Non Stop have launched Cacao & Cia, a new shingle aimed at producing content for the global Spanish-speaking market.
With offices in Madrid and Mexico, the joint venture will be headed by Non Stop’s Pedro Dávila, who will lead a creative team in close collaboration with Juliana Barrera from iZen in Madrid.
Among its first projects are biopics of celebrated Argentine Formula 1 race car driver Juan Manuel Fangio and legendary Mexican singer Chavela Vargas. The latter is based on the book “Las verdades de Chavela” by Maria Cortina, which is being adapted by Arantxa Echevarría (“El Cid”, “Carmen y Lola”).
These projects define Cacao & Cia’s upcoming line of content reflecting strong IPs with protagonists closely linked to Latin America and with robust international appeal. This partnership between two strong players is crucial in a highly competitive marketplace where content demand is high, but more players have also jumped into the fray.
Said Davila, CEO of Cacao & Cia: “Under this new entity we will seek to support local talent and stories. We want to work with studios, but also with independent creators.”
“We have the experience and resources to enter into co-production agreements and we are keen to work on creating new models and offer production and distribution support in Latin America or Europe,” he added.
The new shingle counts on the creative knowhow and depth of experience of iZen, run by Sara Fernández-Velasco and Jose Velasco, with notable credits that include “El Cid” (Amazon Prime Video), Netflix’s “Insiders” and Disney’s “Santa Evita” on Star+ among many others.
Non Stop has the most innovative production infrastructure in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Spain, operating more than 20 studios spanning a total of 70,000 square meters (754,000 square feet). It has been the producing arm of Disney Latin America for more than 25 years.
Non Stop president Patricio Rabuffetti leads a group of investors in Screen I, the $20 million investment fund for films and TV series founded by Screen Capital in Chile.
“The potential and size of Non Stop and its enormous capacity in services and technology perfectly complement the creativity of iZen and our distribution force,” noted iZen’s Sara Fernández-Velasco and Jose Velasco.
Said Rabuffetti: “In a context where budgets and projects will be tighter, this alliance with a company of the size and experience of iZen allows us to add top-level creative and production capacity to produce exceptional content both in original and in acquisitions, and thus help our clients who will benefit by having high quality programming with a significantly lower investment.”
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