Spanish Word-of-Mouth Sells ‘Ciudad’ Tickets

At first glance, it’s bizarre to picture David Riker--an earnest, 36-year-old filmmaker who studied at the London School of Economics--as a guest on Univision’s campy game show “Sabado Gigante”--a kind of “Price Is Right,” Latin-style, with ladies in skimpy outfits and a boisterous host named Don Francisco.

But Riker found himself there nonetheless, plugging his first feature film “La Ciudad,” a documentary-style drama in black and white chronicling the tales of Latin American immigrants in New York. His stint on “Sabado Gigante,” one of the most popular shows on Univision, was part of an impromptu Spanish-language marketing campaign Riker has immersed himself in to create a buzz for his movie.

Initially, the film was booked for art house theaters focusing mainly on college-educated, upscale moviegoers. But as word got out in New York’s Latin immigrant community--the people profiled in the movie--more and more working-class Latinos came out to see the film. The crowds prompted phone calls from Spanish-language radio, newspapers and television shows requesting interviews with Riker.

“ ‘La Ciudad’ [The City] had everything going against it--I knew that from the beginning,” said Riker. “I couldn’t have made this film in English. A market analysis [at a studio] would never have allowed this film to be made. . . . The [Latin American] community that is embracing this film has yet to be acknowledged [by Hollywood] in the way it soon will be.”

So far, the Spanish-language campaign seems to be paying off--an indication that Spanish-language films may benefit as much from grass-roots campaigns and word-of-mouth publicity as they do from high-powered marketing strategies.

In Manhattan’s artsy Quad Theater off Fifth Avenue, where the film opened Oct. 22, some shows have been sold out. A majority of the audience members were high school students and Latinos traveling from Queens and Brooklyn to see the show--not the Quad’s usual crowd, according to theater owner Elliott Kanbar. In fact, the Quad had to change its “no children under 5” policy because so many families arrived to see the show during the weekend, Kanbar said. The film initially was booked for one week but has done so well that Kanbar extended its run for a month.

Since opening, the film averages an impressive $12,000 to $14,000 a week, Kanbar said. “It is phenomenal for a film like this to have this kind of staying power,” he added. “It’s all word-of-mouth.”

The film is now playing at theaters in Queens and New Jersey.

In Los Angeles, the film opened on the Westside at the Nuart Theater on Nov. 5; again, the results were surprising. Many of the filmgoers at the Nuart were Latinos traveling from as far as Montebello, Eagle Rock and Whittier to catch the movie. The film was moved last weekend to the Landmark Theatres in the Westside Pavilion, a popular art-house plex. In December, “Ciudad” likely will open on the Eastside, according to Zeitgeist Films, the film’s distributor.

Zeitgeist Films is planning to open the film in Houston and Miami in December, followed by San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago and Seattle in January.

At the Nuart, the film made $17,596 in its seven-day release. Over the weekend at the Westside Pavilion, the film made $3,136. All of this has been achieved with a grass-roots effort focusing mainly on the Spanish-language media. Lacking money for a traditional English-language marketing campaign, Riker and the production company, Echo Lake Productions, have relied mainly on free publicity to get the word out.

Riker has made the rounds in radio programs, print and television, appearing on such shows as CNN’s “Noticias” and, of course, “Sabado Gigante.” There’s also a toll-free hotline in Spanish and English for information on the film.

“We never expected this kind of response,” said Robin Alper, vice president of production at Echo Lake Productions. “The distributors did not know how to reach the Latino audience. But the word started to spread, and then we started the Spanish-language campaign.”

In Los Angeles, the film’s production unit held benefit fund-raisers with labor organizers, bus riders’ organizations, Central American refugee organizations and health-care clinics, which, in turn, passed out flyers promoting the film to clients and union members. At UCLA and other schools throughout Los Angeles, instructors are asking their students to attend the film so they can discuss it in class.

“There has been a buzz about it at school,” said 25-year-old UCLA student Carlos Ramos, waiting in line Thursday for a show at the Nuart.

However, not all Latinos are pleased.

Although the film has received mostly positive reviews and many Latinos seem to be embracing it, others say the film is once again perpetuating stereotypes. The movie is divided into several segments, each chronicling heartbreaking stories about day laborers, impoverished parents, seamstresses, and the loneliness of leaving behind friends and family to find a new life in the United States.

“Anglo filmmakers mean well, but why is it that when they do Latino-themed films, they tend to focus on the down and out and the folkloric Latino? This perpetuates an image of Latinos being only that way,” said Bel Hernandez, publisher of Latin Heat, a bimonthly entertainment magazine. “Why haven’t they done a story on someone who came from El Salvador and makes it?”

But Riker defends the film, saying that it addresses the recent immigrant experience he witnessed on the streets of New York. The majority of the cast was nonprofessional--in fact, 20 of the cast members have been deported since the film was completed, he said. The stories were written with input from the immigrants he befriended during his five years making the film, which cost $500,000. The movie, which grew out of Riker’s senior thesis at New York University film school, was partially financed by the Independent Television Service.

“I don’t see it as somber, or a film about victims or the downtrodden--it is a film about people who are living in economic struggle,” Riker said. “The experience of being uprooted and living in two worlds is the conflict at the heart of ‘La Ciudad.’ It’s broader than a story about Latinos. It’s a story about immigrants. If I was in London where I grew up, I would have made it about the South Asian community or in Paris about the North African community.”

Indeed, at a recent packed screening of the film at the Nuart, Martha Angiano, who traveled from Eagle Rock with three friends and their two children to see the film, said it was worth the drive.

“It’s a film that is different from everything else out there,” she said in Spanish. “We are interested in movies like this because, after all, they are our stories.”

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‘I couldn’t have made this film in English. A market analysis [at a studio] would never have allowed this film to be made. . . . The [Latin American] community that is embracing this film has yet to be acknowledged [by Hollywood] in the way it soon will be.”’

David Riker, filmmaker