Felipe Calderon is taking a break from fighting corruption to focus on movie making. He met with big gun movie makers/actors Antonio Banderas and Manoel de Oliveira (amongst others) to talk about how Latin America and Spain/Portugal could start competing in a legitimate way against Hollywood.

In spite of the repressive government attendance, it still sounds like there were some interesting ideas being passed around at the event:

“They (the US) don’t need to invade us militarily because they’re invading us culturally, which is the worst invasion we can have. This congress is also a call for freedom,” said Uruguayan actor Hector Guido.

Spanish star Antonio Banderas, due to return shortly to Mexico to shoot a film with Mexican director Luis Mandoki, led calls for more support from governments and a “patronage law to finance cinema in the region.”

“The problem is not so much about producing movies, because we find the money one way or another, but we have a problem of terrible distribution,” he said.

“With the system of production that prevails today, there’s no bigger threat for cinema than economic censorship, that imposes greater restrictions than official censorship,” said Mexican director Arturo Ripstein.

I can’t imagine why anybody would feel that U.S. movie making is a cultural invasion–I mean, what’s wrong with Beverly Hills Chihuahua?

The interesting thing is that apparently, the question that was discussed here at VL a while back–can movies create a Latin@ community–is also being considered at this event:

Iglesias underlined the importance of cinema in creating a common identity.

“A community without cinema is a community without a mirror, it doesn’t know its reflection,” he said.

It’s an interesting thought, one that I’m not sure I know how to unravel. I wish I could sit in on the discussions.