By Julio Martinez
Jorge Garia Castro is a Mexico born-and-raised film producer who admits to being quite busy.
“We have just done the premiere of In A Relationship, he says. “It stars Emma Roberts (We’re The Millers) and Michael Angarano (Will & Grace) and recently screened at the Trifecta Film Festival. We are now in discussions about when it will be released. It looks like maybe the end of Summer. My previous film, Dear Dictator, starring Michael Caine and Katie Holmes, has just been released on DVD and Blue Ray. I am currently in post-production on a film, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, starring Hilary Duff, which is scheduled to be released in August.”
Castro now lives in Los Angeles. He spent five years with Disney, leaving in early 2012 to start his own production companies, including Altered.la which deals primarily with commercial productions, principally for the Spanish market. His second operation, 2 Friends Media, focuses on film and television production. “I am working independently but also in association with other studios,” he explains. “Dear Dictator, even though it was an independent movie, was bought by Universal while we were in production. And I am currently doing a TV show and a movie for Netflix. Then I also have purely independent stuff. It kind of flows back and forth.”
“I basically focus on two major responsibilities; the first one, is to develop and produce the film and TV projects from the directors that we represent. Help them get their passion projects produced. And second; is to find, develop, acquire, and produce commercial films that can travel universally, but that have Hispanic elements to them.”
Growing up in Mexico, Castro recalls when he became motivated to pursue a career in show business. “When I was a kid Back to the Future came out,” he recalls. “That was one of my favorite movies of all time. I remember vividly watching the end credits and that’s when I realized all the people who worked on a movie. And I realized you can do this for a living. That’s when my youthful mind shifted and I wanted to do something in entertainment, in movies.
Castro studied in Monterey, Mexico. Then he worked a few years, applied to Harvard and got in. “I got my Masters degree there but not in entertainment,” he says. “I got my degree in Finance and Strategy. I started working as a consultant for entertainment companies. One of my clients was Disney and this led me to moving to Disney full time, overseeing Spanish language productions for them. Then I worked as a consultant on bigger budget films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Alice in Wonderland. It was great learning experience and gave me a lot of exposure for what I am doing now.”
Castro is 39 and has been living n Los Angeles since 2008. “This work is tricky. Sometimes it seems you have a lot of productions and you’re more than busy; but things can fall though and then you’re left trying to figure out what to do next. There are so many elements to get a movie made. I am never really comfortable until the first day of shooting starts and I can say, ‘Yes, this movie is finally happening’.”
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