Emerging Talent Raises Dominican Republic Profile
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente The Dominican Republic (DR) has been making bold strides in its film industry, reporting dynamic growth and earning kudos both at home and internationally.
Ironically, what spurred its growth was a global pandemic. As many countries remained in lockdown, DR opened its borders to more location shoots by June 2020. “It was precisely during the pandemic that we began to present record-breaking levels in terms of production service earnings.
We went from collecting revenues amounting to $50 million in a good year to over $250 million,” said Marianna Vargas, director general of national film institute, DGCine.
With health and safety protocols firmly in place, DR began to lure a number of high-profile projects, led by M. Knight Shyamalan’s “Old,” Jennifer Lopez-led romcom “Shotgun Wedding” and Channing Tatum-Sandra Bullock action-comedy caper, “Lost City of D.” A more recent production is Netflix’s “Nyad,” starring Jodie Foster and Annette Bening, where the Dominican Republic stood in for Cuba from which the legendary swimmer Diana Nyad set out to swim to Florida. “Reality shows were the first to come back, followed by the movies,” said Vargas who cited the picturesque Samaná province among the country’s most popular location sites, aside from the Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios‘ 60,000 sq.
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