By: Álvaro Emiliani
Creators’ economy is a popular term and a growing one in the tech industry. These are creators in arts, film, television, and music who find in emerging and revolutionary technologies the opportunity to build profitable and sustainable business models. Looking for America is a great example of this. A project that has found in tokenomics an huge opportunity to develop and evolve.
Film directors Nelson Navarrete and Alex Ulises took on the task of creating a feature film, so far, named “Buscando America” (Looking for America) based on financing strategies with tokens and blockchain. This is not simple crowd funding with cryptography, “Looking for America” is the construction of a creative ecosystem that generates entertainment content such as documentaries, photographs, and films through collaborative strategies with its own community. I spoke with Nelson Gonzalez Navarrete about “Looking for America”, creativity, chaos and the true, amazing story behind a film turned startup.
“Looking for America is a personal dream that we founders have. The opportunity to manifest all our dreams in a single project and for us to be able to do it the way we want (…)
We want to make the film of our dreams, present it the way we want, make it with the people we love. Do everything as we truly imagine it and that represents us 100%.
And that is very difficult to do when you are going through traditional issues”
Nelson Gonzalez Navarrete, co-director of Looking for America
Looking For America: a film as for now.
Navarrete is very clear about the characters, structure, and nuances of the story. But he is aware that when it comes to creativity and technology, today we are here but tomorrow anything could happen. As for today, many refer to the project as “Looking for America“, but even the name could change. As Gonzalez Navarrete, co-director of the project says “Looking for America” is the ecosystem that encloses the film, which does not have a name yet. We decided that for the film is to early to call it anything”
“The film is about everyday life in Latin America under an eye where we are all protagonists (…)
It revolves around the speed that exists in Latin American countries, corruption, and latin idiosyncrasy that can range from a plate of food to how painted cars look. And everything revolves around seven characters, in a choral structure, in which everyone is good and bad.
In that structure there is an alligator, an anthropomorphic character, who is the physical representation of corruption and lives in the underground part of the city.
“Our film touches a lot on magical realism, seven characters, seven true stories, social drama comedy, black comedy with magical realism.”
Nelson Gonzalez Navarrete, co-director of Looking for America
Looking to…turn a film into a startup
We are just infant of a project with WEB3 strategies for its financing and possibly creative development. A community of holders with active participation in the evolution of it and its variants. Collections of NFTs that lead the production path and more. “Looking for America” is a film turned into a startup! Technology, creativity, roadmap, patience and allies, in this case Disrupt3rs, a firm that operates at the intersection of technology, entertainment and culture, helping creators excel with industry insights and resources. We foster entrepreneurship in the creative industries.
“Working with Disrupt3rs has been crucial for Buscando America’s ecosystem growth. They have been a key ally in helping us build momentum and bringing new ideas to market based on circular economy and community growth strategies. We appreciate their continued support in consolidating new and exciting brand partnerships for our company.”
Nelson Gonzalez Navarrete, co-director of Looking for America
To quote Gonzalez Navarrete “It started as a script and has become an ecosystem. And at the end of the day, it will be a startup “
A dream that triggers an ecosystem…can be an Eden.
Looking for America as an ecosystem revolves around many projects. Every NFT collection and every fundraising strategy is a piece of art, both structurally and visually. The Idiosincracia collection seeks to begin the pre-production of the film and is a collection of 2,500 photos that shows part of the research to find characters and places that represent the idiosyncrasy of Medellín. The photographs include portraits, colors and situations that serve as inspiration for their creators in the process of writing the film’s script. NFT marketplace OpenSea selected Idiosincracia as a standout collection.
“We are creating a universe, an intellectual property before the film.”
NELSON GONZALEZ NAVARRETE, CO-DIRECTOR OF LOOKING FOR AMERICA
About the co-directors, and creators, of Looking for América
This developing ecosystem is built by Latin filmmakers with the intention of producing an independent film. It is composed by Alex Ulises and Nelson G. Navarrete in the direction; along with JN Silva, Web3 executive producer of the project.
Nelson G. Navarrete is a multimedia artist passionate about cinema production and directing. He has directed music videos for Latin acts like Canserbero and Lil Supa.
His feature-length documentary “A la Calle” was distributed by HBO Max in 2020, granting him admission to the “Producer’s Guild of America” and an Emmy Award nomination in the “Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary – 2022” category.
Next to Navarrete on the wheel is Alex Ulises, a Colombian cinematographer living in Medellín. Ulises was Director of Photography in VIPASSANA, “Short Film Official Competition”, Cannes Film Festival 2015.
He has worked as a Director and Creative for music labels such as Universal, Warner and Sony, writing and directing music videos for renowned Latin artists such as Maluma, J Balvin, Akapellah and many more, adding two billion views. He is currently developing his first fiction feature film within an ecosystem that merges cinema and WEB 3.
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