During the past decade Latin America has attracted more and more international production with its stunning and varied locations and cheap labour costs.
Leading directors to have shot in the region include James Cameron (Titanic), Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill Vol 2), Gus Van Sant (Gerry) and more recently Mel Gibson for Apocalypto and James Ivory with The City Of Your Final Destination.
Mexico has been particularly busy, drawing major productions thanks to its proximity to Los Angeles and high quality crew. Each year, the country receives between $40m and $150m from foreign productions taking advantage of the studios or making use of the forests, deserts, beaches, jungles, small local towns and colonial buildings on offer.
Further south, Argentina is also strongly competing for international productions since the economic meltdown of 2002. Shooting in the country's capital, Buenos Aires, can now be 20% cheaper than its main rivals Canada, South Africa and New Zealand and 40% cheaper than Madrid.
Post-devaluation, productions have included Gus Van Sant's Gerry and Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, and Francis Ford Coppola recently announced that he would shoot the semi-autobiographical Tetro, starring Matt Dillon, later this year in Buenos Aires.
Other territories are also hoping to emerge from Argentina and Mexico's shadow with Brazil's newly created film commission attempting to shake off the country's violent image and attract more international productions, while Chile is slowly emerging as a shooting hub and Colombia managed to handle Stone Village Pitures' Love In The Time Of Cholera.
Aside from obvious political and criminal dangers in some territories, the only other factors holding back the continents momentum is a lack of studio space and incentives, something that each territory is hoping to rectify. The links to the right break the situation down, territory by territory.
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