latin American Storytellers reimagine Global Television for teh Streaming Era
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A recent panel discussion at MIP Cancun revealed a significant shift in how Latin American writers are approaching television, moving from customary soap operas to short-form series for global streaming platforms. Two of the region’s most influential screenwriters, Leonardo Padrón and José Ignacio Valenzuela, shared insights into the challenges and opportunities presented by this evolving landscape.
From Poetry to platforms: A Literary Foundation
Both Padrón and Valenzuela emphasized the importance of literature as the bedrock of their storytelling. Padrón, reflecting on a career spanning nearly four decades, described literature as his “amniotic fluid,” stating, “My amniotic fluid is literature, it is poetry… Pursuing cinema, I entered a hallway that was television. That hallway has been getting narrower and narrower, and now it’s a tunnel. And now, with streaming, it’s like they told me, ‘HBO or Disney, you have to eliminate your entire act one and start directly with the triggering event. For me it meant erasing 25 years of experience from my head and learning again.'”
Padrón highlighted the stylistic “crossover” involved, contrasting the demands of writing 40 pages a day for traditional television with the need to ensure every scene actively propels the plot in streaming. He explained that streaming demands a focus on essential narrative elements: “You have to cut out the dramatic fat and get to the bones of the story.” Both writers agreed that streaming platforms, influenced by cinematic storytelling, have raised the bar for formal quality while together fostering greater creative freedom.
The concept of writing for a “global” audience presented a unique challenge.Valenzuela recounted being told to consider a potential viewership of 200 countries while working on Who Killed Sara? He responded by focusing on global themes, stating, “I decided that globality was my navel. I wrote about what bothers me, what hurts me, and I crossed my fingers that it would be shared.”
padrón echoed this sentiment, asserting that the power of a story lies not in the characters’ nationality, but in the strength of the underlying conflict. “The stories travel not by the passport of the characters,but by the force of the dilemmas,” he explained,citing the moral complexities of Pálpito as an example that could resonate with audiences worldwide. Valenzuela added that successful innovation lies in updating content while preserving classic narrative structures: “If you wont to innovate, you can’t experiment in the structure, you have to do it in the content. Manny successful series have very classic bones, but a different skin, more melodramatic, more Latin American.”
reality as Inspiration
In a saturated market, both writers emphasized the importance of drawing inspiration from reality. Padrón was emphatic: “Reality writes better than fiction. A writer is a spy on reality.” He believes latin American reality is a notably rich source of stories, urging writers to explore untold narratives to avoid creative stagnation. Valenzuela shared his personal method of brainstorming in the shower, and also revealed a data-driven approach, researching trending keywords and news topics to connect with the concerns of different territories.
The Evolving Role of the Showrunner
The role of the screenwriter is also undergoing a transformation. Padrón described serving as a showrunner before the term gained prominence, overseeing all aspects of production. Valenzuela discovered he was functioning as a showrunner on Who Killed sara? when he began receiving decisions regarding all production elements through his email inbox. Both writers are now consolidating this role through their own production companies: leonardo Padrón Productions, partnering with EndemolShine Boomdog and Banijay Entertainment alongside A Fábrica México, and Malule Entertainment, which has co-produced seasons 2 and 3 of Who Killed Sara?, Where There Was Fire, The War Sisters, and is developing new series for Spain, Netflix, and France.
This shift reflects a growing trend of Latin American creatives taking greater control over their projects and shaping the future of global television.
