"We doubled the Hollywood Hills in Colombia": The local producers putting Colombia on the map

Local companies led by Jaguar Bite, AG Studios, 64A Films, Dynamo Producciones and 11:11 Films & TV are among a coterie of companies that form the bedrock of Colombia’s thriving production scene. They bring on-set experience, deep ties to the country’s promotional agency Proimagenes Colombia and its Colombian Film Commission, and familiarity with the robust production incentives.

Many Colombian production companies fulfil dual roles. As production services providers, they are the local partners of Netflix, Amazon MGM Studios, Lionsgate and smaller independents on international productions, assisting with logistics including crew and transportation, and handling paperwork on the Colombia Film Fund (FFC) cash rebate and CINA transferable tax credit.

They are also producers in their own right, working as co-­producers under the auspices of the Film Development Fund (FDC) established under the 2003 Law 814 to incentivise Colombian features and shorts at any stage from develop­ment through promotion.

Jaguar Bite worked in a service capacity on Lionsgate and Constantin’s Amazon-set action horror Titan, Megabox Plus M’s South Korean crime thriller Bogota: City Of The Lost on Netflix, and this year’s Fantastic Fest title Coyotes starring Justin Long and Kate Bosworth, that shot in the capital Bogota.

“We doubled the Hollywood Hills in Colombia for [Coyotes],” says Jaguar Bite’s VP of production Juan Pablo Solano.

In late October, Solano was in Leticia in the Amazon for the Colombian leg of Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph. “It’s one of our most exciting projects ever,” he says of the rescue drama from the director of 300 and DC Universe tentpoles.

Jaguar Bite is also shooting its first original production Susana y Elvira, a feature co-production with Colombia’s Pulsar Studios backed by Law 814 (aka ‘The Film Law’), which is funded mostly through an 8.5% levy of exhibitors’ net box office from all films released in Colombia. “We have evolved into a fully integrated production company with 40 in-house employees between Colombia and Mexico,” says Solano.

AG Studios managing partner Rodrigo Guerrero was a founding partner of Dynamo and left to set up AG Studios with Mexican producer-­financier Alex Garcia in 2014. NYU film school-educated Guerrero says the company has produced or serviced roughly 24 projects over the last decade or so, split evenly between film and television.

“We bring trust,” says Guerrero. “We have foreign producers and talent coming to Colombia and we’re taking their money. We provide assurances everything will be transparent and we’re there to guide them.”

Versatile location

AG Studios has worked in a service capacity on many projects, among them BBC/AMC’s upcoming second series of The Night Manager, which shot with a majority-­Colombian crew all over the territory including Cartagena on the Caribbean and Medellin in the Andes; the Jack Ryan spy series for Prime Video; and Studio­canal’s Paddington In Peru, which filmed in the central locale of Prado. As a producer, AG Studios made the Initiated (Los Iniciados) crime franchise financed by Amazon MGM Studios.

Marianna Zubillaga is head of production at 11:11 Films & TV operating in Colombia, Mexico and Dominican Republic. It has serviced shows including spy series Covert Affairs for NBCUniversal, and produced recent Mexican feature romance Algo Azul, which ViX acquired for the US.

“We are strengthening our production services department to offer a more robust package to inter­national clients,” says Zubillaga. “And we’re expanding our co-­production strategy to build an integrated production model that combines Mexico’s Eficine [incentive] with Colombian incentives.”

Diego F Ramirez, founder of 64A Films and producer of acclaimed indie features such as Laura Mora’s 2017 thriller Killing Jesus, has three narrative features lined up for 2026. They include sports drama Daughters Of Water (Hijas Del Agua), a Spanish co-production he took to San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America co-production forum in August.

Along with TV channel Telepacifico and the support of Caracol Television, 64A produced Juan Carvajal’s 2025 SXSW selection Salsa Lives (La Salsa Vive), the biggest theatrical documentary of the last five years in Colombia, which garnered 24,000 admissions through Cineplex. The success has inspired Ramirez to launch 64A Docs, which is preparing to start production on the sequel, We Are Salsa (Somos Salsa).

Netflix is streaming Salsa Lives but the two channels will air the documentary after the streamer’s window expires. “It [was] unthinkable that Caracol Television and Telepacifico would work together and now everybody is happy to do that,” says Ramirez. “Instead of owning 100% of something, it’s better and less risky to have a little chunk of something where everyone gets a piece.”