A new cable network for Latino audiences will mark the culmination of two decades of filmmaking for writer-director Robert Rodriguez, who is leading the ambitious effort.
"I've been on this journey for 20 years now ... and this seems to be the reason," " Rodriguez said Friday during a conference of independent Latino filmmakers and documentarians.
"What's great about this is that no one is doing this for an audience that is growing so fast," Rodriguez said, referring to how Latinos are now the nation's No. 2 group in the latest census, surpassing the 50 million mark.
"When you think that there's nothing on television like this, it boggles the mind."
The El Rey network starts broadcasting between September 2013 and January 2014. It is a daunting venture as talk show queen Oprah has discovered at her struggling OWN Network, whose woes have resulted in recent layoffs.
But the film maker of "El Mariachi," "Spy Kids" and other features isn't deterred.
"I'm glad I'm so naïve," Rodriguez said. "I don't think about the obstacles too far in advance."
The response has been overwhelming, according to Rodriguez, who was attending the Friday opener of the annual NALIP conference.
The network will allow Latino filmmakers to tell stories about the Latino community from their own point of view, he said. El Rey network will also appeal to general audiences, he added.
"It not only reflects the identity of a culture but shapes it," Rodriguez said of the new network.
Rodriguez is Mexican-American with deep roots in Texas, where his family can trace its history to a land grant in 1760, he said. He grew up making movies in his backyard with a home video camera and proved to the world that a film can be made "with very little money and no film crew" when he enjoyed widespread success with "El Mariachi" in the early 1990s.
The El Rey network will offer "an action-packed, general entertainment network in English for Latino and general audiences that includes a mix of reality, scripted and animated series, movies, documentaries, news, music, comedy, and sports programming," according to Comcast. READ MORE
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