New Mexico aims for more local pics

Homegrown filmmakers still few and far between

By PETER DEBRUGE

'WORD' ON THE STREET: Victor Nunez directs Ruben Blades in 'Spoken Word,' the first local pic produced under the rebate.

Karen Koch sounds relieved to be shooting in New Mexico at last. During a lunch break on "Spoken Word," a coming-of-age tale written by Santa Fe poet Joe Ray Sandoval, she explains the long road to producing the first homegrown feature to collect on the state's 25% rebate.

Five years ago, Koch (who worked for the New Mexico Film Commission in the late '70s) moved back and began developing projects to film there. But she found the incentives designed to lure big Hollywood productions didn't necessarily apply to little local guys. Of particular appeal was the state's loan program, which invests up to $15 million in exchange for participation.

"When we started our company (Luminaria Films), it was a different environment," Koch says. "By the time we were ready on a business level to approach the state for that interest-deferred loan, the rules had changed quite a bit, and their appetite for what they were going to greenlight was different."

The project fell through, and Koch and partner William Conway regrouped, raising their own financing to produce "Spoken Word." The experience reveals a blind spot in a program aimed primarily at luring big-budget projects and training inexperienced locals for film industry jobs.

"One piece of good news is the incentives are available to everybody. If you spend $100 on your film, we're going to send you a check for 25 bucks," explains Jodi Delaney, director of the New Mexico Filmmakers Program. Among the plans she oversees are the Governor's Cup Competition and New Visions Contract Awards, both of which look to cultivate new local voices by awarding modest grants toward the making of short films.

Among the state's innovative programs is a new mentorship arrangement with "Crash," the Lionsgate-produced TV series based on the Oscar-winning pic, which offers above-the-line mentorships for such positions as director, producer, production designer and d.p.

According to Lisa Strout, director of the state film office, partnering with a TV series makes all the difference: "Trying to do this on a movie that's only shooting 30 days is not really long enough to get into it." But 20 days of hands-on experience is another story. "That's like going to graduate school, watching all the thinking and decisions that go on," after which the production can rotate in a new mentee.

And once native New Mexicans have picked up directing and producing experience, it's only a matter of time before additional talent joins Koch in representing local stories. The governor, for his part, is trying to promote film culture by sponsoring festivals around the state and has even set his sites on Robert Redford.

"I'm trying to lure him to come establish a Sundance 2 in New Mexico," Gov. Bill Richardson says. "We've even purchased an old historic ranch in northern New Mexico for him to bring his seminars."