TTVNews celebrates its first 20 years, inviting friends and industry colleagues to share their personal experiences over the past two decades. Manuel Siles, General Manager of La Luna Pintada Producciones, answers, “Where were you 20 years ago?”

This 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of TTVNews, a big reason to celebrate for the group. It is consolidating itself as one of the go-to media platforms in the audiovisual industry in Latin America.

To mark the occasion, we’ve invited friends and colleagues to share their experiences, challenges, and lessons learned over the last twenty years in this industry.

This time, Manuel Siles, General Manager of La Luna Pintada Producciones, answers, “Where were you 20 years ago?”

Where were you 20 years ago?

I want to say how happy I am to celebrate 20 years of TTVNews. I remember that 20 years ago, I was just entering this extraordinary and magical world of cinema, not directing my films but working for other directors in my beloved country, Peru. Likewise, I was working as a production assistant, making sandwiches, carrying the coffee, setting up the stands and the lights, and carrying the cables.

That’s what I was doing. If someone had told me that I would be celebrating 20 years of TTVNews, a film director with five finished films, working overtime, and working in an international market, I would not have believed them; I would have said they were crazy.

What was your first industry event?

The first market I attended was the American Film Market in Santa Monica, USA, about 15 years ago.

La entrada TTV 20 Years: Manuel Siles se publicó primero en TTV News.

Filming for Luna Pintada’s next feature film has taken the Peruvian producer to the US, where they’re working on a film that raises questions that are as uncomfortable as they are necessary.

Production company La Luna Pintada has embarked on the production of its next film, El Teorema de Khun, an ambitious crime action title set in a fantastic world, yet not so far away, scripted and directed by Manuel Siles, general manager of the Peruvian company.

Siles’ concerns make El teorema de Khun a film with a very current sensitivity, which raises fundamental questions for its fictional universe, which are easily transferred to our reality.

«The film presents several questions, such as what it means to be a human being in a world where people are ordered to do what they do according to the needs of the market, or what freedom means if your genetic mapping prevents you from devoting yourself to what you prefer. “If the genetic design has been made for someone to be a murderer, does that person have moral responsibility?” explains the director and screenwriter.

«Likewise, what happens to our social being when institutions such as nations and nationalities, religions whatever they may be, different forms of family, political systems disappear and are replaced by political systems of representation of business interests. What happens to individuals when emotions and feelings such as friendship, love, empathy give way to utilitarian and practical thinking par excellence, and people decide their actions, within the narrow margin they have of decision, considering only the particular benefits and convenience. What happens to our planet when the decisions that matter to you only take into account immediate business interests?,” he added.

Social life in a world without institutions is put under the microscope in the plot of the film, as well as the impact on the planet of an order that only prioritizes immediate business interests.

“El teorema de Khun is a detective story that raises these questions as part of a plot of intrigue, suspense, murder and struggle for power, and it is my intention for it to help present a critical look at how we are building our social being, where we are going. What we could become, and what we could gain and lose along that path, taking into account that the decisions we make now will be the ones that decide our destiny,” said Siles.

The film has a cast headed by Magaly Solier, who won the Berlin Bear for La teta asustada (2009), the only Peruvian film nominated for an Oscar.

“I am very happy with the cast that has committed to this project, they are all very outstanding actors and actresses from my country,” he explained. «With them, there are new stars that are making the cut and that, in my opinion, will very soon occupy prominent places within our cinematography. Furthermore, it is very special for me to work with Magaly again, whom I admire and appreciate so much. She is truly an extraordinary actress and it is a privilege for me to have her again.”

THE ART OF KHUN

The film’s production is “30% advanced,” as shared by Siles, who commented that the filming method in “mini production modules” has allowed them to advance with smaller and more affordable objectives.

A decision made was to film in the US, where La Luna Pintada found more facilities for permits and financing possibilities than in Peru: “In the US I have found a culture favorable to filmmaking that unfortunately does not exist in my country,” Siles lamented.

On that journey he added the visual artist Billy Capozzoli to head the Art Direction and online production, while Carlos Pain is in charge of general production.

Capozzoli’s talent can be seen in the teaser that La Luna Pintada has already prepared for the film (pictured above).

«In a proposal of a fantastic nature, which does not seek to faithfully portray reality, (the Art Direction) acquires even more relevance, since it must imagine a solid and coherent fictional universe within itself, which does not seek to fit with an external model,” said Siles.

«In that sense, the development of conceptual art has been a rich work, full of great creative satisfaction. El teorema de Khun is developed in a universe where the environment is so deteriorated that microclimates must be built to make that universe habitable, with the differences that economic power brings with it, in such a way that there will be visual aspects that contrast with each other and that present dissimilar atmospheres with the only common characteristic being that they are artificial, except outside the town of “Nihilo”, where the pollution and darkness of a perpetual night makes visibility almost impossible”.

The next mini-module will take place in the middle of the year. “I have the hope that Khun will be ready next year, 2025, and only then would it begin its exhibition at festivals,” the executive shared. “At the moment I only have a distributor in Peru and I prefer to move further with the production to start seeing possible international distributors.”

La entrada El teorema de Khun: the construction of the human being se publicó primero en TTV News.

The Peru-based production company was present in Miami with two completed feature films and two projects in production, looking for potential partners and platforms.

*By ttvnews, from Miami, USA

Peruvian production company La Luna Pintada Producciones is in the process of international expansion, with headquarters in Peru and soon another in the US, where it seeks to continue growing in terms of production.

“We are in Content Americas with four projects,” Miguel Siles, general manager of the production company, began in dialogue with ttvnews. Of those four, two are already finished and for sale, which are Extirpador de idolatrías y Vivir ilesos.

“In addition, we have a work in progress which is El teorema de Khun, which is precisely seeking a co-production to be completed, and a project that is just in development with the finished script, which is an animated feature film,” explained the executive.

And after two days of meetings and networking, the production company is on the right track to finalize agreements and move forward with these production projects.

“From day one we have been lucky to get very promising interviews. All of this is defined over weeks, not during the event, but we will leave confident that our production has been able to summon important people in the field, very indie, but with many more years of experience than us,” said the executive.

“We feel very confident that this will progress and grateful for these types of events that facilitate the connection between producers and investors,” he concluded.

La entrada Manuel Siles, La Luna Pintada: “We came to Content Americas with four projects” se publicó primero en TTV News.