\n\tSoccer legend Pel\u00e9 kneeling to tie his boots in the seconds before kickoff at the 1970 World Cup and the Puma brand on show is a legendary image; less well known is that it\u00a0was engineered by a Canary Islander.<\/p>\n
\n\tHans Henningsen, widely cited as a father of modern sports marketing, is now the subject of a documentary, \u201cThe Puma King,\u201d from Las Palmas- and Tenerife-based Videre. And its exactly the kind of title that the Canary Islands<\/a> have brought to Sunny Side of the Doc<\/a> to sell, a homegrown story with wide appeal.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s like living on a goldmine of stories for documentaries that\u2019s still pending development,\u201d\u00a0Pablo Hern\u00e1ndez, president of the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC), tells Variety, as the archipelago makes documentary the latest front in a 17-year drive to diversify a tourism economy into screen production. \u201cIf you come and set up here to manage the IP, you\u2019re going to have an amazing amount of stories.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tHaving built recognized industries in live action, animation, VFX and video games on one of Europe\u2019s most aggressive incentive packages, the islands, with some exceptions, have spent barely three years drilling into non-fiction.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe opportunity is no longer simply to come and film in the Canary Islands,\u201d says producer Oscar Fern\u00e1ndez of Videre and sister company Mediareport. \u201cIt\u2019s to build projects from the Canary Islands.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA few years ago, Hern\u00e1ndez notes, almost nothing carried a budget beyond a few hundred thousand euros; today several Canary Islands documentaries run into the millions, landing on HBO, Amazon Prime Video, Movistar+, ESPN and Disney+, with sales as far afield as Switzerland and Sweden. Pilar Guerrero, whose Videoreport Canarias is a joint venture between Secuoya Studio and Izen, says the sector \u201chas experienced exponential growth over the last five years.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDoc budgets can sit well under that headroom as compared to narrative film, but Hern\u00e1ndez is untroubled. \u201cDocumentaries make more with less budget, and it\u2019s more organic,\u201d he says. \u201cOf course the tax incentives are an enormous boost for documentaries, on top of the natural conditions and content for documentaries. It includes 45%-54% rebate, and a 4% corporate income tax that increases profits 30%-40%.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhat\u2019s being made spans the genres global buyers are chasing. History, traditionally popular for public broadcasters, is one: Las Hormigas Negras\u2019 doc-series \u201cInsulae: Cr\u00f3nica de nuestra historia,\u201d now in its second season on Canarias Play, re-reads the islands part in Atlantic history. \u201cWe want to show that local history can also be universal storytelling,\u201d producer Luis Luque explains.<\/p>\n \n\tNature and science run alongside, via Videoreport\u2019s \u201cThe Last Volcano,\u201d on La Palma\u2019s 2021 eruption, and \u201cThe Last Great Colony,\u201d on the Atlantic monk seal. <\/p>\n \n\tDisaster sits close: Macaronesia\u2019s \u201cLine of Defense\u201d reconstructs the catastrophic 2023 Tenerife wildfire. \u201cIt is a story about the people who stood between destruction and survival,\u201d says director Emilio Alonso.<\/p>\n \n\tSports arrives through Wakai, the sports-doc label of WAP Media Group, whose FC Barcelona Femen\u00ed feature \u201cDream, Play, Win\u201d marked its first ESPN deal and went out worldwide on ESPN and Disney+. \u201cIt gave us the chance to tell the story of a cultural movement,\u201d says director Paula Fern\u00e1ndez Crespo. Crime is next: beyond \u201cThe Puma King,\u201d Videre is developing \u201cThe Sensei\u2019s Web,\u201d on the so-called Karate Case, one of Europe\u2019s largest sexual-abuse scandals. <\/p>\n