Early years

Santiago Pozo was born in 1957 in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, La Rioja, Spain. He grew up in Madrid, where his father had a "mantequeria", a bakery/convenience store. He showed interest in cinema from a very young age thanks to the free tickets the neighborhood theater gave his father in exchange for hanging the poster of the weekly double session in the family store.,^[8] He graduated in history at the Complutense University of Madrid with her thesis "The Spanish Film Industry, Legal and Economic aspects", published by the University of Barcelona in 1984, which is considered the first economic and legal history of Spanish cinema.

He began working in the cinema at the Elias Querejeta’s production company as a P.A. in the Jaime Chávarri’s film A un Dios desconocido. In 1980, Pozo wrote and directed one of the chapters of The First Meters, also produced by Elias Querejeta.

Relocate to the US and work in Universal Pictures

He emigrated to Los Angeles in 1982, without speaking English. His first job is to clean buildings,^[9] experience that allows him to come into contact with the Hispanic immigrants of the city and that will help him develop the instinct for communication with the Hispanic population. José Luis Borau, a Spanish director working in Los Angeles preparing the production of his film On the Line/Rio Abajo in California and Texas, hired him as his assistant ^[10] and became Production Coordinator.^[11]

In 1984, having received a Fulbright Program scholarship from the Spanish-North American Permanent Committee, Pozo enrolled in the Peter Stark Producing Program at The University of Southern California Cinema School, becoming the first Spaniard accepted into the prestigious Program and one of the first Europeans.^[12] The Master focus on the financial, marketing and creative aspects of the film industry. In 1985 Pozo, as an intern at Universal Pictures, convinced Michele Reese, the EVP of Marketing to do a test market using Spanish dubbed prints of E.T. for the re-release celebrating the 5th anniversary of one of Universal's biggest hits. Pozo booked a dubbed Spanish print at the Orpheum Cinema in downtown Los Angeles.^[13] The theater, regardless of being a discount house and having half-price tickets, delivered the highest-grossing theater in the entire United States.^[14] Because of this success Universal Pictures created the first multicultural marketing department for any Studio in Hollywood dedicated to the ethnic markets with particular emphasis in the US Hispanic market, and offered Pozo to direct it.^[15]

Foundation and development of Arenas

In 1987, Pozo resigned from Universal Studios and founded Arenas Group, a film marketing company. His first client was Robert Redford, for whom he marketed the film The Milagro Beanfield War.^[16][17]

During the following years, he worked on numerous campaigns for major studio and independent releases,^[18] including Universal, Disney, DreamWorks, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, TriStar, New Line, Paramount etc. In 1997, Arenas does the marketing campaign for the release of Selena (film) the film that made Jennifer Lopez a star, and consolidates the importance of the Hispanic U.S. market for Hollywood.

In 2001, Pozo returned to Universal Pictures,^[19] where he and the investment fund Marco Polo Investments formed Arenas Entertainment.^[20] Arenas' mission was to acquire, produce and distribute films targeting the US Hispanic market.

Arenas’ first film wass Empire, 2002, with John Leguizamo, Peter Sarsgaard and Denisse Richards. Arenas has also produced and distributed such films as Imagining Argentina with Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson; Nicotina with Diego Luna, The 3 Wise Men, with the voices of Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez and Jose Luis Rodriguez (singer) and Culture Clash in AmeriCCa, directed by Emilio Estevez.

Producer

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

Director

• Los Primeros Metros^[34] (1980)
• Un Reino Sin Fronteras ^[35] (2014)

Writer

• Los Primeros Metros (1980),^[36] producer Elias Querejeta.^[37]
• Un Reino Sin Fronteras ^[38] (2014)
• The Run (2019)^[39] (in development)

Other Credits

• On The Line (Rio Abajo) (1984)^[40]