In an anticipated move following their recent split from Canana, the shingle they co-founded with Pablo Cruz, Mexican multi-hyphenates Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna have launched a new film-TV company, La Corriente del Golfo (Gulfstream in English).
The new shingle aims to first serve as an independent production company for theatrical film and television projects and secondly, to develop a variety of community-oriented projects. Bernal and Luna are still collaborating on initiatives like Ambulante, a documentary film festival in Mexico that they co-founded 14 years ago.
“La Corriente del Golfo is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and travels all the way to the North Atlantic, allowing for a temperate climate – and, without which, there’d be Arctic tundra,” said Garcia Bernal, adding: “We take up the symbol of this global current to emphasize that liberty – in all its meanings –should flow as freely as an ocean current.”
Garcia Bernal went on: “The working and personal friendship that Diego and I have shared since the beginning of our lives flows from this same sense of liberty. Through this company we will undertake all projects with a sense of shared friendship and the strong impetus to better the world in which we live.”
Luna concurred: “The beauty of telling stories for a living is that we are constantly reflected in them and simultaneously forging our own. Today we announce another effort to tell the stories that we wish to hear.”
He added: “Thanks to the friendship we have always shared, Gael and I are undertaking a new path that is one of creative freedom and shared ideals. From Mexico, we will allow ourselves to be carried by this new current to wherever our stories and new associations may take us.”
The partners have tapped Paula Amor, who previously served as director of media and institutional relations at Mexico’s Morelia Film Festival and as director of communications at the Fenix Film Awards, to head La Corriente del Golfo.
First out the gate is the buzzed up political thriller “Aquí en la Tierra” a co-production between Fox Networks Group Latin America and La Corriente del Golfo. Created by García Bernal and Kyzza Terrazas, the drama series is the only Latin American title competing in the inaugural edition of Canneseries, Cannes’ new TV festival, which runs April 4–11, 2018.
Next is “Chicuarotes,” the second feature-length film directed by García Bernal, after “Deficit.” Filming wrapped in January of 2018 at the San Gregorio Atlapulco pueblo, which had been severely hit by the massive 7.1 earthquake in September last year.
“Chicuarotes” follows two young friends who, in their desperation to leave the pueblo, get caught up in the nefarious activities of adults. Penned by Augusto Mendoza and filmed in Spanish, “Chicuarotes” is currently in post. It is co-produced by TAO, Televisa’s new premium content division.
