Mexico Aims to Lure More Locations Shoots

Depending on who you ask, the state of Mexico’s film industry is either waxing or waning.

The twin labor strikes of 2023 saw fewer U.S. film and TV productions that year and the following year. However, the first trimester of 2025 has reported a 16% spike in overall audiovisual activity, said Guillermo Saldaña, Mexico City’s Film Commissioner.

“I’d like to think that we have a symbiotic relationship with the U.S. and Colombia because we share talent, industry and information. We always work closely with the MPA, the major studios, Netflix and the others,” he said, adding: “Lately, there has been a sense of uncertainty — I’d call it a sort of tariff threat — but we’re not 100% dependent on the U.S. industry, as you well know. We also have a strong local industry that produces content for both domestic audiences and the U.S. Latino community.”

“Some local production companies saw limited activity in 2024, but are now gaining momentum in 2025 with two to three projects underway,” said Saldaña. Others are still discouraged from the paring back of incentives for domestic productions and have been inactive.

“Mexico’s presence on the international stage has been down recently,” noted Pimienta Films’ Nicolas Celis (“Roma,” “Emilia Perez”), who’s just been named president of the Mexican producers association AMPI and the newly launched Mexican Federation of Film Producers (FMPC), unveiled at the Guadalajara Film Festival on Sunday.

Eficine, the incentive for co-productions, rejected local producers’ bids to participate in both films that won in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard this year, Chile’s “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo” and Colombia’s “A Poet.”

When Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos showed up in February with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum to announce a landmark $1 billion investment in production over the next four years in Mexico, the local audiovisual industry let out a collective cheer.

“It was very well received by the film community, I got calls from everywhere in the world,” said Redrum’s Stacy Perskie, who has worked on some of the biggest international productions in Mexico, led by the 2015 James Bond thriller “Spectre,” which featured a spectacular Day of the Dead parade in the streets of Mexico City, Neil Blomkamp’s dystopian “Elysium” and Netflix’s upcoming “The Gringo Hunters” and “Man on Fire.” Among other large-scale local projects, he’s also worked on “Narcos: Mexico,” “Pedro Paramo” and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Bardo,” which involved closing down the center of Mexico City.

Reflecting on the growing competition from elsewhere in Latin America and other territories, he pointed out: “There are all these incentives all over Latin America and in Europe as well but sometimes when you compare Mexico to all these places with incentives, you see that at the end of the day, you won’t have to bring equipment, crew, department heads, etc. And we’re closer to Los Angeles than Atlanta or New York!” At present, Mexico offers a 16% VAT rebate to international productions on a federal level. Only the state of Jalisco extends a cash rebate incentive, but it has an annual $5 million cap.

“If we did have incentives, Mexico would be so much more appealing,” noted Celis who has a slew of productions in the pipeline, including the latest fiction features from Lila Avilés (“The Chambermaid”), Tatiana Huezo (“The Echo”), Eliza Miller (“Hurricane Season”) and the directorial feature debut of lauded stop-motion animation artist, Sofia Carrillo.

The issue of a nationwide location filming incentive is being discussed and coordinated closely with the Presidency and the Ministry of Economy, according to Saldaña.  

“In Mexico City, the film industry makes up nearly 12% of the city’s GDP, reflecting significant investment. The President is well aware of its importance — hence her joint announcement with Netflix. Discussions are ongoing in the Ministry of Economy’s Creative Industries roundtables, alongside cultural institutions like the film institute Imcine, the Ministry of Culture led by Claudia Curiel, and various industry chambers,” he asserted.

Asked if Netflix foresees any challenges to fulfilling its $1 billion commitment to Mexico, Carolina Leconte, Netflix VP of Content for Mexico, responded: “We’ve been producing original content in Mexico for a decade now, so we’ve built strong local partnerships with cast and crew, in front of and behind the camera, and we continue to grow alongside each other.”

“We always strive to tell better stories and to apply learning as the industry evolves in the newest production standards and technologies, and luckily Mexico has so much talent and so many stories to tell,” she added, listing a slew of projects underway.

These include: “Las muertas,” the first series from film director Luis Estrada (“Herod’s Law”) and Mexican Revolution period series “Mal de amores,” based on the novel by Ángeles Mastretta.

It has recently kicked off production on four new series: “Santita,” “Love 9 to 5,” “I’m Not Afraid” (No tengo miedo) and “Corruptors” (“Los corruptores”). 

The state of Jalisco, whose capital of Guadalajara hosts a number of cultural activities, including the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG), a book festival and a gay pride parade among others, launched a 40% cash rebate on production and post-production expenditures in 2023. The incentive is luring more companies to set up shop there in order to avail of the rebate, open to those who have had offices in the region for at least three years.

Non-resident producers would need to forge a co-production deal with a Jalisco-based producer to avail of the rebate. News broke at FICG that post-production house Chemistry joined forces with its Guadalajara-based counterpart Semillero Estudios in order to better tap the perks.

Netflix has shot Season 3 of “The Manny” as well as “Snakes and Ladders” in Guadalajara while AppleTV+ was shooting its Eugenio Derbez series “Acapulco” in Puerto Vallarta.

While Jalisco has yet to reach Mexico City-levels in terms of crew and department heads, the state boasts a wealth of locations. “Barring snow, we have cities, we have deserts—in other words, Jalisco offers a wide variety of locations, which isn’t the case, for example, in Mexico City where if you wanted a beach location, it would take at least five hours to get there. We have a clear geographic advantage in that sense, plus, we have great food – and of course, tequila and mezcal,” said Filma Jalisco film commissioner Alejandro Tavares, who added that it hosts an average of five to six international audiovisual projects a year.

“We organized a fam trip here for producers from Los Angeles, directly in coordination with the Los Angeles Consulate. It was great that they came to see firsthand how easy it is to do things here — co-productions, etc. As you know, Hollywood is facing major issues right now, so they’re looking for new filming destinations,” he said, adding: “Jalisco has a big advantage over other states in Mexico, mainly due to its connectivity. Two of the country’s top five airports are in Jalisco, and we have direct flights to Canada, Europe and the U.S.”

Guadalajara has also become an animation hub with the Guillermo del Toro-backed film school El Taller del Chucho spearheading the genre. Over the weekend during the Guadalajara Festival El Taller unveiled “Sira,” an ambitious hybrid animated feature co-produced with Spain, written by actor-writer-director Ángeles Cruz.

Also, “They’re doing a lot of work with students, thanks to strong ties with the University of Guadalajara; It’s become a key training ground for up-and-coming filmmakers and a talent pipeline for the animation industry,” Tavares noted.

Around 20 animation studios have been working on several international projects, including some from Marvel. FICG’s opening night film, Mexico’s first stop motion animated feature “I Am Frankelda” was post-produced in Guadalajara and tapped the cash rebate. Some of the pics in FICG’s Made in Jalisco section used the cash rebate, most notably “Abracadaver” and “Over the Waves” (“Sobre las olas”).

“The political push by other states to develop their regions has benefited everyone, as a greater number of developed regions means more audiovisual industry growth and production services coming to Mexico,” said Saldaña.

“We are open to exploring locations where the story calls for it, and we continue to explore new regions,” said Netflix’s Leconte, adding: “So far, we have filmed in over 50 locations in 25 states – for example in Oaxaca (‘El secreto del río’), Baja California (‘Gringo Hunters’), Puebla (‘Mal de amores’), San Luis Potosí (‘Pedro Páramo’ and ‘Las muertas’), Tijuana (‘Santita’) and Veracruz (‘No tengo miedo’), among others.”

Said Saldaña: “We’re planning to fully leverage Mexico City’s infrastructure and are working to diversify the permitting process. The goal is to shift filming away from the usual central areas – like Roma, Condesa, and Coyoacán, which are typically featured – and instead spotlight and give visibility to other parts of the city, such as Iztapalapa, with its deep cultural roots, and Azcapotzalco. We’re also focusing on boroughs with significant protected natural areas, like Milpa Alta, Magdalena Contreras and Tlalpan. In short, we’re aiming to bring more exposure to these underrepresented, ecologically and culturally rich areas of Mexico City.”

And to partly address the beach issue, the city is working on an agreement with the famous coastal resort town of Acapulco. “Our goal is to revive the audiovisual corridor between Acapulco and Mexico City, with the initiative led by the Tourism Ministry. We’re deeply invested in restoring Acapulco’s rich cinematic legacy and its long-standing history in film,” Saldaña said.