LIMONERO FILMS, FINDING THE RIGHT NICHE IN A VERY COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT

Limonero Films celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2021. The boutique distributor of factual programming and documentaries has grown organically, finding its niche in a very competitive industry. "Limonero Films sits between the more commercial factual entertainment – travel and food shows, business series, wildlife – and the completely independent 'passion project' documentaries. We love to work with all kinds of producers, from the big boys to the first-timers. We have grown to represent more factual genres, as we want to reach all audiences. One thing that hasn't changed: how picky we are with the titles we take on, and we always work with people we like and admire and who always deliver," said Pamela Martínez Martinez, Head of Sales and Acquisitions at Limonero Films. "Also, I was a one-woman band at the beginning, but now I have a strong team of women who are making my life much easier and entertaining," she added.

Last year the company observed a massive demand for documentaries. "The most sellable are still the documentaries that tell big, compelling stories, with appealing characters, but also local stories with a global impact that people all around the world can connect to," Martínez Martinez stated. "TV channels are looking for themes, while big platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu are looking for the stories. Netflix has made documentaries a popular form of entertainment so. I'd say that we are witnessing a bright age of documentaries and have been for quite a few years now," she added.
To all the global buyers looking for documentaries, Limonero Films offers a wide variety of topics, genres, and formats. "All of our titles have in common their immaculate execution and a sense of fun. Above all, ours is intelligent content that can enlighten, inform, educate, and entertain audiences in almost every part of the world. We are also very nice to work with," admitted Martínez Martinez.

NEW ACQUISITIONS
Limonero Films is attending MIPTV with its latest acquisition, "My Mohamed Is Different," by Ines Marzouk. The film speaks about the growing phenomenon of young men from North Africa marrying older, affluent women from Europe. "Our story is placed in the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor, and it follows three couples with different love stories and destinies," Martínez Martinez said.

The company is also attached to a dazzling and well-crafted feature doc, "Fashion Babylon", by Gianluca Matarrese, produced by the French production company Bellota Films. "It is a character and issue-driven documentary about the elite world of fashion, with a focus on the Front Row of the Fashion Weeks and the people who sit there. It is also an exploration of the world of fashion that ceases to exist since this glittering world has already gone to a point of non-return," she added.

Finally, Limonero Films presents its newest series, "Hidden Flavors of India – North-East". An exploration of the kitchens of the northeastern states of India through the journey of food enthusiast, writer, traveler, and award-winning filmmaker, Ruchi Shrivastava. "We love Ruchi's charm on camera and the opportunity she gives us to travel with her to that hard-to-access part of the continent. We feel that it will work well because Indian cuisine is not that well represented in the marketplace. This series offers a dash of color and flavor that we all can easily fall for," Martínez Martinez affirmed. "Because we are all pandemically home-bound, we are attending more online markets and festivals than ever. We are also receiving more proposals than ever before, so there is a lot of screening time these days. Our plans for the rest of the year are to focus on making the new titles a success and finding the money to take our titles in development into production," she concluded.

By Romina Rodríguez