Juan Carlos Tavera TIS Natalia Barrera Netflix
In the last decade, a question that most audiovisual producers in Latin America have is how to approach Netflix and have their projects on the platform.
To answer this and many more questions, Natalia Barrera, Director of Business and Legal Affairs for LatAm of Netflix, and Juan Carlos Tavera, Legal Director of TIS, hosted the talk ‘Netflix: successful production agreements in a diverse industry’. The event took place at BAM 2023, which ended last Friday 14.
“Content is still king. Netflix is interested in good stories no matter where they come from, in order to ensure the best content in its catalog,” said Barrera. She advised to pitch their projects using established producers, agents, or distributors.
She explained that to make originals or acquire any project in different countries, Netflix usually goes to companies with experience such as TIS in Colombia or Mexico, with whom they recently made the worldwide success Fake Profile. She added that the platform is open to any idea and that there are many ways to work with it like services, co-productions, licenses, commissioned works, acquisitions, and developments.
One thing that a producer must avoid regarding Netflix is mailing unrequested projects or mentioning ideas to its executives before any negotiations.
Also, some myths were debunked, such as that there is no way to negotiate with Netflix, that its conditions are immutable, and that the platform always wants to own the whole intellectual property (IP) of the project. “It is an open negotiation where each of the parties expresses their claims. It is the moment where you must be very clear about what you want, what you understand or not about the agreement,” said Tavera.
“The types of agreement are defined according to sources of financing, who brought the idea, and previous commitments. The possibility of marketing in other windows is also established, it is not a closed negotiation,” added the Netflix executive.
Barrera added that in the case of not reaching an agreement with the streaming giant, the project can be “offered elsewhere, the investment – if there is any – must be returned and the owner of the project keeps the rights.”
