For Billy Rovzar, producer and CEO of Lemon Studios, after the arrival of the platforms, the Mexican audiovisual industry has the golden opportunity to tell the world that great stories are told from Mexico. “I would like that in thirty years we are remembered as the great Spanish-speaking storytellers,” he said, after commenting that it is not only Netflix with its more than 20 series to be produced in Mexico but HBO+, Paramount, Disney, Amazon, Apple. “If we do the math, there are more than 50 or 60 series to do in a year.”
Rovzar assures that the telenovela is not the only thing that defines Mexico. “There are genres that have not been able to be addressed right, not only from Mexico but from Latin America, such as science fiction, horror, comedy. We have to tell all kinds of stories in all kinds of genres,” he said.
He assures that he is in the right place where professionally he can influence the change the direction of the narrative of his country and language, “I want to be the change I want to see in the world, which are the stories I want to tell.”
Asked about trends in content, Rovzar said that it is always difficult to understand and analyze trends, but right now he sees mystery plots in stories. “In whatever genre, whatever plot there must be a mystery. At the end of the day, human beings are always looking for answers,” he said, after pointing out that an end should always be unexpected, but inevitable at the same time.
Regarding the second season of Control Z, he said that the greatest challenge is the engine of the story, since the approach of the first season cannot be broken – a student with a deductive privileged mind who has to solve a mystery-. “The greatest challenge was what is the new puzzle to solve. And in the second season this challenge is tremendous,” said Rovzar, after commenting that the TikTok hashtag has been incredible.
The other project they are working on for Netflix, La Venganza de las Juanas, is part of the platform’s strategy under the leadership of Roberto Stopelo to bring quality melodramatic stories to the screen. “I don’t think we can call it a telenovela, suddenly we can call it a Netflix telenovela, because they are melodramatic stories made at a different pace. When I say quality, it is not because the novel does not have quality, but because these stories have a much more tension towards the libretto and in the sense that the stories are told in the chapters that have to be told; no more no less,” said Rovzar.