Producing has always been a superpower for 271 Films cofounders Constanza and Doménica Castro, and it’s become the key to unlocking a sustainable Hollywood career for them and the talent they partner with.
Prior to founding the development and production house that produces projects for TV, film, commercials and feature films, the Castro sisters were splitting their time between working on commercial production sets and helping bring their friends’ stories to life on screen. As they rose as producers, continually helping fresh and seasoned creatives bring their stories from script to screen, they became known for their precision, timeliness, intentionality and ability to get things done — the right way.
As 271 Films celebrates its fifth anniversary, the Castro sisters look back at how they were able to create a thriving production house.
“An idea that stemmed from wanting to be able to create responsibly, but also do it whenever the opportunity comes — whenever the money, script and/or ideas are ready to go — that’s been our M.O.,” Constanza told TheWrap’s Office With a View series. “We want to bring all of our skills to be able to tell any story at any moment.”
“We built a track record of when we say yes to your project, we finish it,” Doménica added.
Today, 271 Films has earned four NAACP Image nominations and six Telly Awards. Their 2018 short film “We Are Here,” which the sisters directed and produced, cemented their voice and style as filmmakers, as the film went on to premiere at Sundance Film Festival and nab Oscar qualification.
Now, the pair has expanded into feature films, including Sophia Stieglitz’s directorial debut of the documentary Papá Melissa, which premiered at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF), Gabriela Ortega’s “Huella,” and the Castros’ feature film co-directorial debut Robin Fly, written by Alexia Alexander.
Their company isn’t just about creative ambition; they stress their push for operational readiness, financial strategy and disciplined execution — a framework built so that when the script, the money and the moment align, they can run.
Read on for the rest of the conversation with Constanza and Doménica, edited for clarity and brevity.
At what point in your lives did you take an interest in producing, filmmaking and storytelling?
Constanza: We’ve wanted to tell stories since we were little. We grew up in a house that nurtured story and in a culture of storytellers, and so that was part of [our] dinner table — telling anecdotes, sharing stories. When we moved to the United States, I think the language barrier kind of got in the way of how we were seeing like ourselves. We both ended up going to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, going in for theater and acting because we wanted to act. That sort of became a big barrier because of our identity and because of our language barriers, and so we’re like, “Look, we want to tell stories,” and producing sort of became that avenue and the vehicle to bring something to the table.
The summer I graduated [from American Film Institute], Doménica and I moved to LA and then I think a lot of what we realized about being in this industry is sustainability. So we found ways to produce stories with our friends that we really wanted to tell — by being production assistants on commercials. We started to work our way up in the commercial world as producers, and then started to freelance with various companies. Five years ago, we said, “Why don’t we open 271, so we can navigate our unity of voice and the stories that we as sisters through this journey want to tell more intentionally, to be the yeses to stories that we that we ultimately want to tell.”
Doménica: We were surviving in the city on these professional sets as production assistants. And then at the same time, or the next day, we were producing short films with our friends. The mirror of sustainability and your dream. Our dream always goes hand-in-hand [with projects]. And that’s something that I think we constantly think about in even moving forward: how do you stay afloat and continue to follow your dream?
What did you feel like the industry was missing that 271 Films supplied?
Doménica: The people we were working with weren’t getting seen. Because we had been working in commercials, on these bigger production sets, there were a lot of people who were bored of [working on commercials] and they were ready to come in and work on a short film. High-level professionals who were hungry to experience the narrative format, and we were able to bridge those worlds together. We realized there is a hole in this ecosystem that we may be able to put together and I think it translated into the brand partnerships. We had friends that were doing narrative work who wanted to get a little more into the commercial scene.
Constanza: And production is hard. We learned structure, and understood the value in doing things the right way. There’s a lot of liability that comes with production, and a lot of responsibility. We just want to have structure to be able to run and go when projects are ready.
Doménica: The reason people were calling us or coming to us — and this is at the very independent, short film level years back — people would call because oftentimes independent films fall apart in the making. They just don’t get finished. We built a track record of when we say yes to your project, we finish it. That really helped us cover a gap. We understood that there was a project to finish and something that had to be on screen, and that it had to be done in a format that represented what we’re aiming for. We consistently think of Clarence Gilyard, who was a professor at UNLV, and he used to say, “How you practice, how you rehearse is how you perform.” So we’ve treated every single project as the performance, not the rehearsal. We seek to excel.
Why do you think independent films have a tendency to fall apart?
Doménica: So many reasons. Resources are key. Time management, the demands — what expectations are being unmanaged along the way? Not setting up deadlines, feeling the freedom to do anything and everything with no money, and sort of the impact it has on the people that get involved and sign up to create this piece of art and the mismanagement of the process.
Constanza: It could also be curating teams for the project.
Doménica: The way people interview for a project. It happens so often that because it’s such a hard business that you just want to make it happen. You sit across from a production designer and they say your vision is great, but you haven’t taken into account how much time [they have] or if they can match your level of [commitment] when you’re making the film. Every film is its own universe, and the script, the resources, the people that are involved, are really going to shape it into what it’s going to become. How you’re putting it together and who you’re putting together will determine the quality of the film.
You’ve done short films, commercials, music videos and you’ve now branched into feature films. Why was now the right time for you as a company?
Constanza: Because of the way we make features; we just wanted to live in those stories longer. As storytellers, it comes from we want to be able to explore for a longer time with these characters, stories and crew. Also, in looking at the film as a business, you can’t really make money off shorts. It goes back to sustainability: I want to be able to make art, but I also want to be able to stay in this industry for a very long time. But we’re still going to make shorts.
Doménica: It’s really about feeling ready for it, and after having done a ton of this, it would be wild for us to think we’re not ready for it.
Constanza: Right now we’re working with first and second-time feature directors, and that’s how we’re building our slate. Figuring out these $2 to $5 million movies that will look like $15 million or bigger. Because we know how to stretch our money [as producers]. We have everything from an adventure thriller comedy, we have a psychological thriller by Gabriel Ortega. We have a tragic comedy, a broad comedy. We choose projects about things we’re dying to see. And we’ve been strategizing about doing international co-productions between Europe, Mexico and the U.S.
How do you balance the artistic risk of features with the operational realities of scaling a production company?
Constanza: It’s figuring out how to subsidize 30% to 40% of a budget by these co-productions and going to different places, like Latin America, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and minimizing the risk so that when you as partners are coming in, it’s not all the money. That’s where we see the biggest challenge. A lot of the stories we’re choosing naturally gravitate between France, Mexico and the U.S. We’re figuring out co-productions between these three countries to minimize risk and subsidize that money for a bigger yield.
Talk to me about also going into directing. You guys just had your feature film co-directorial debut with the film “Robin Fly.”
Doménica: Directing was always in our hearts. It just wasn’t at the forefront for many years.
Constanza: We directed in undergrad, and took all the classes — acting for directors, directing actors. We were editors, we were cinematographers. We really explored. Looking back, fear and the lack of opportunity for women storytellers even 10 years ago was so big that it reflected the choices that we were making. When it came time to apply to AFI, my teachers were like, “You should go in for directing. You have proven yourself.” Cut to 2021, we got this opportunity to tell the story of “We Are Here,” and we co-directed that. It went to Sundance and a lot of other festivals. It was really successful, this eight-minute, animated short documentary about what it’s like to walk in the land of the U.S. as an immigrant under 30. It was then we realized we have something to say, so after “We Are Here,” we started to really get a lot of scripts to consider for directing as we were still producing. Our first feature has to be so personal, and it has to be so much of our voice and tackle themes that were undeniable. And then Doménica watched a one-woman show in L.A. that Alexia Alexander, the writer and actress of this project, had.
Doménica: When I saw Alexia, I was watching an incredible artist who spoke words that really resonated with me. We connected, I asked if she had a script, and she was like, “I’m actually on the first draft of it. I’m going to Columbia for a workshop, a lab,” and I said, “That’s incredible. Please let me know when you feel ready, we’d love to read it.” First I thought maybe we can produce it, I didn’t jump on it thinking we’re going to direct it. When the script came, it touched on themes and characters that we wanted to explore. We made sure we were aligned in the narrative, and then when we met her to tell her we want to direct it, it came from her. She said, “Why don’t you guys direct this?” We were like, “Oh, we can breathe.” And she was like, “Great, let’s do this.”
What’s some advice you wish you would have heard earlier in your careers that you’d give to upcoming filmmakers?
Constanza: When people say it takes patience and it takes a long time, I don’t think you really understand what that means. Prepare yourself to be knocked down by the amount of nos you are going to hear and don’t let that get in the way of your spirit and your love of the craft. I feel like I’ve been the most rejected person on this planet, right? But look to the left; it’s going to be the same.
Doménica: Know your why, and your why can change over time, but why do you do this? Why are you here? Why do you show up? Why do you care? Why do you come back? Because this is hard, and having that clarity as to why you do it is important.
