Santiago Pozo

Pozo was born in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, La Rioja, Spain. He grew up in Madrid where his father was a baker. As a teenager, he became interested in filmmaking and eventually found a directing job with the producer Elias Querejeta.[1]

Since the early 1980s, Pozo has been involved in the Marketing and distribution of films. His book "La Industria Cinematografica en España" was published by the University Of Barcelona 1984. In 1983, he moved to Los Angeles where he was working as a janitor cleaning buildings. He was then retained as an assistant by Jose Luis Borau, a Spanish filmmaker, in pre-production of the feature film "On The Line". In 1984, having received a Fulbright scholarship from the Spanish-North American committee, Pozo enrolled in the Peter Stark producing program at The University of Southern California. In 1985, he took an internship at Universal Studios and with his enthusiasm for supplying the Hispanic market, was employed at the studios as director of special markets.[2]

In 1987, Pozo resigned from Universal Studios and founded Arenas Group, a film marketing company[3][4] By 1997, Pozo was using the '360' marketing method, where a brand is presented to the customer at all points of contact.

In 2001, Pozo founded Arenas Entertainment, a studio to produce and distribute Latino films to the Hispanic market in the US. He received support from Marco Polo, a Spanish risk and capital management firm, and from Marc Shmuger, the vice chairman Universal Pictures.[5] In 2002, Pozo's company was engaged to make the international distribution of Empire.[6] In the same year, Pozo produced Imagining Argentina. In 2004, Pozo distributed the film, Nicotina.[7] Pozo's partnership with Universal Pictures finished but continued with Marco Polo.

In 2001, Pozo successfully lobbied the City of Los Angeles to add the Spanish language tilde (Ñ) to street signs where required.[8]

• The Last Harvest (1991) (executive producer)
• Empire (2002)
• Imagining Argentina (2003)
• Culture Clash in AmeriCCa (2005) (executive producer)

• Los Primeros Metros (1980)

• Los Primeros Metros (1980), producer Elias Querejeta.[9]

• Santiago Pozo at IMDb
• "Arenas Group". Company website. Accessed 22 December 2013.