Cilantro Animation Studios: CNN en Espanol Knows a Rising Star When it Sees One

If Cilantro Animation Studios were a publicly held company, in my opinion this is the kind of start-up that could make history -- and a lot of money. But for now it is a private enterprise. Not that investors can't get involved. The last I heard, this group was taking meetings with venture capitalists who apparently see a future in the 3D animation original TV programs Cilantro creates.

Salvatore Cavaliere, co-founder and CEO of this Boca Raton-based firm, was interviewed this past week by CNN en Espanol. The show aired four times and reached over 22 million households in the US and Latin America

But don't be surprised if your introduction to this unique group comes via an iPod or smart phone or the internet. The multi-platforms now available may allow new visionaries to deliver entertainment without the backing of a major TV network.

Cavalieri and co-founders Katty Arzola, senior vice president of marketing and public relations, and Francisco “Paco” Sinta, vice president of sales and strategic alliances, sees a future ripe with cultural and technological opportunity – for those firms with the presence of mind to act now. On one hand, the tsunami-like growth of Hispanic buying power means television networks, entertainment executives, producers and directors with the skill to connect with this diverse community may be the most likely to prosper. On the other hand, this community and others – Asian-American and African-American, for example – are likely to gravitate to the next generation of technology that allows greater freedom of choice.


Delivery of entertainment via smart phones, websites and computers demands greater bandwidth, often referred to as data transfer rate. Talk of TV show and cinematic downloads would not be dominating the sound waves if technology had not already made it possible to endow devices with bandwidths high enough to accommodate a complex flow of images. That capability gives Cilantro Animation and other entities a leg up that only recently became available.

“Technology created for us a great opportunity that didn’t exist ten years ago. We could have had the greatest characters and stories, but how would we make them available? We would have been dependent on the networks. Now we’re in control,” said Cavalieri.

See what all the excitement is about at http://www.cilantroanimation.com/

And stay tuned.

-- Douglas Glenn Clark