Video Age International January 2016

24 January 2016 V I D E O A G E P eter Felix Leda of Argentina’s Ledafilms can still speak German, even though he left his native Hamburg as a newborn in 1938, five years after Hitler took power and raised the Judenfrage . Leda’s paternal grandfather had moved to Hannover, where Peter’s father Benno was born, but later settled in Hamburg. Looking to escape from Nazi Germany before the war, Benno wanted to take the family to the U.S., but he was unable to get visas. Finally, he managed to buy visas for his wife and son Peter at the Argentine Consulate. The Leda family settled in Buenos Aires, where Peter, now Pedro, went to journalism school and started working as a reporter before joining the advertising agency Lowe Argentina as a 19-year-old copywriter for cinema advertising shorts in 1956. That was his springboard for a career that is still going strong, and links the Leda name to U.S. studios such as 20 th Century Fox, DreamWorks, Lucasfilm and Paramount. His career has also seen him operate out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Miami, Florida and Los Angeles, California, in addition to his traditional base in Buenos Aires. Today, Leda likes to look ahead. Indeed, on facing his biggest challenge, he said, “Probably [it is] ahead of us. To be successful in theatrical distribution, TVoD release, Free-TV creating windows to allow the broadcaster to access the movies earlier, Pay-TV and the newSVoD platforms. This is a challenge we really never had before.” Back when he was at Lowe, Leda’s immediate supervisorwas Carlos D’Agostino, aTVpersonality who created one of Argentina’s first independent television program production companies. In 1958, Leda joined Ricardo De Luca Publicidad, one of the largest advertising agencies in Argentina, as head of the television, radio and cinema advertising department. He soon became responsible for the production of 11 live TV shows per week, along with their accompanying commercials. That job lasted two years, before he ventured on his own into the advertising business. At the same time, his father Benno was heading advertising sales for the newly created local private television station, Canal 9. When he arrived in Buenos Aires, Benno met a fellow German Jewish immigrant, Kurt Lowe, who was starting a cinema advertising business. When Pedro began working for Lowe as a copywriter, his father was Lowe’s sales VP in Chile, and when he returned to Argentina to take over the same position at Lowe in Buenos Aires, Pedro was already working for De Luca. Later, in addition to running his agency, Lowe started Canal 9 and Benno followed him there. Canal 9’s shareholders included the American TV network NBC. The channel is now owned by Albavision’s Miguel Ángel González. Pedro was barely on his own a year when Benno introduced him to Leon Darcyl, who was 17 years Pedro’s senior and a brilliant journalist who served as Argentina’s correspondent for the French magazine, Paris Match . Recalled Pedro, “Darcyl had started importing French TV programs to Argentina, and we decided to join forces and founded Telefilms in 1961. He was in charge of acquisitions, and I was in charge of sales.” Leda recognized the abundant opportunities in the nascent production and distribution TV arena at a time when many TV shows were still broadcast live. He recalled, “In the ’50s, there was only one network in Buenos Aires, Channel 7. Program distributors did not have to carry movie projectors, because all had 16-mm projectors, but they traveled with a lot of 16-mm reels.” He continued: “From a very humble beginning, Telefilms evolved into a very successful television program production company and Latin American distributor.” The partnership lasted until 1974, when Leda sold his share in Telefilms to Darcyl and started Ledafilms. Ever since, the history of the company and its founder and chairman have been intertwined. Today, Telefilms is headed by one of Darcyl’s sons, Tomas. “In thosedays,” Leda said, “LatinAmerican free- TV networks were eager to buy over 50 percent of their programs from overseas producers. The challenge was being able to acquire or produce good product for international distribution.” The quest to find good product to distribute in Latin America also brought Darcyl to Italy and to international TV markets such as MIP-TV, and Leda to Rio de Janeiro. Recalled Leda, “In the mid-’60s, Leon decided to open a filmand television programdistribution company in Brazil called Teleshow, and I headed that operation between 1969 and 1973.” Max Gusberti, at that time head of SACIS, the programsalesdivisionofItaly’sRAI,stillremembers when “Leon Darcyl, a cigar-smoking Argentinean who bought most of RAI’s variety shows that Telefilms successfully distributed throughout Latin America,” arrived at his offices in 1965. Leda, whose first MIP-TV was in 1969, recalled hearing about the market in Cannes through his partner Leon, who traveled to Europe often and even attended the first MIP in Lyon in 1963. “All activities were held in the Old Palais, mainly on the terrace overlooking the sea,” said Leda, “I remember that there were not too many Pedro F. Leda: 60 Years In LATAM TV With Challenges Yet To Come Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame Ledafilms’ Pedro Leda, Gabriela Lopez Sarasua, Fernando Paduczak, Moira McNamara at L.A. Screenings 2015 Over the years, Ledafilms has developed several activities: local film and TV production, television distribution of mainly U.S. productions, magazine publishing (comic books) and a children-oriented home video label. (Continued on Page 26)