- Cuts, cash, credit: China's latest bid to jumpstart flagging economy
- Zelensky to take UN stage in plea to sustain support
- Leftist Sri Lanka leader stuck with painful IMF deal: analysts
- Cryptocurrency platform boss urges tighter regulation
- 'Crazy' tree planter greening Sao Paulo concrete jungle
- French champagne makers bid to protect seasonal workers from abuse
- Atletico Madrid president splits time between football and film
- Japan ruling party to hold 'toss-up' vote for next PM
- Alcaraz says 'a lot of players' agree after schedule 'kill us' comments
- Outdated rules, limited metro collide for 'unbearable' Athens gridlock
- Ninth body recovered in flood-hit Japan region
- China launches intercontinental missile into Pacific in rare test
- The EU vs X: How big could the fines be for Musk?
- Hefty Australian penguin chick 'Pesto' becomes star
- Fashion's fun 'Frankenstein' flies after Olympic triumph
- Volkswagen crisis pits homegrown leaders against each other
- Princess Zelda takes the lead in 'Echoes of Wisdom'
- Astros clinch division title, Yankees kept waiting
- Asian markets boosted again after another Chinese rate cut
- The struggle to keep track of Gaza war deaths
- China cuts another key interest rate to boost economy
- Restarting nuclear power plants: the unprecedented gamble in the US
- US state executes man despite conviction doubts
- Asylum seeker lifts South Korea hopes at Homeless World Cup
- Hostages freed in Gaza truce pine for those left behind
- Pope offers refuge to Myanmar's jailed Suu Kyi: report
- Tragic tale of two West Bank teenagers freed in Gaza truce
- US intel warns of Iran threats to assassinate Trump: campaign
- In election, Hollywood is about cash not endorsements
- UK foreign minister Lammy seeks 'strongest position' for Ukraine
- Macron presses Iran president for Lebanon de-escalation
- UNRWA fears new 'tragedy' as Lebanon violence adds strain: chief to AFP
- Russia mulls ban on 'childless propaganda'
- Blackwater founder probed by Venezuela over anti-Maduro campaign
- Crypto CEO and Bankman-Fried ex Caroline Ellison gets two-year sentence
- Hezbollah announces death of commander after strike on south Beirut
- Tatum hungry for more after breakthrough Celtics success
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs sued for alleged 2001 rape
- New York area port prepares for possible US strike disruption
- Rodri 'irreplaceable' but Guardiola confident Man City will still compete
- Mbappe strikes again as Madrid hold off Alaves
- Nkunku hits Chelsea hat-trick, Man City edge into League Cup last 16
- Amnesty calls for commission to probe Kenya protest deaths
- Bolivian government rejects Morales ultimatum for cabinet reshuffle
- US Congress calls on Novo Nordisk to lower drug prices
- Russia 'can only be forced into peace," Zelensky tells UN
- Biden pleads for democracy in final UN address
- Brook's hundred sees England beat Australia in 3rd ODI
- Alarm grows as Israel and Hezbollah exchange intense fire
- NFL legend Favre reveals Parkinson's diagnosis
Atletico Madrid president splits time between football and film
Enrique Cerezo is best known in Spain as the longtime president of Atletico Madrid football club, the less glamorous cross-town rivals of Real Madrid.
But he is also a powerful film producer who owns the rights to some 7,000 movies, including around 70 percent of all flicks ever made in Spain, which feed his streaming platform FlixOle -- the first to specialise in Spanish cinema.
Success in the two fields is measured differently, said Cerezo, who has led Atletico Madrid to six European titles and four Spanish ones since he took over as president of the Spanish first division side in 2003.
"You release a film on a Friday and on Monday you know whether it's going to work or not, whereas in football you test yourself every week," the silver-haired 75-year-old told AFP at the headquarters of his film business near Madrid.
His first experiences with film came during his high school years in Segovia, a town some 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Madrid, where he would help screen movies at the school's cinema on weekends.
"Between studying and having the possibility of being able to manage this whole projection system, I preferred to be there," Cerezo said.
- 'Start from the bottom' -
When he finished high school, Cerezo began working on film shoots with the camera and lighting teams.
He took part in around 100 shoots in Spain, including with top directors such as Richard Lester -- who directed the Beatles films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" -- and George Cukor -- who won the best director Oscar for the 1964 movie "My Fair Lady".
"The job of a producer has to start from the bottom, from being an assistant to an assistant to an assistant", Cerezo said.
In the early 1980s, just as the market for video rentals was taking off, he founded a video distribution company, Video Movies International, which began buying film rights with the aim of restoring them and making them available on video.
It was a lot of work and cost a lot of money because the visual quality of films in "the early years of video was dreadful," Cerezo said.
"The producers or the heirs of the producers didn't want to do it, nor were they going to do it, so we had to do it ourselves," he added.
At the end of the 1980s, Cerezo started producing films and buying practically all the major Spanish production companies, which allowed him to considerably increase his film library.
- Franco-era films -
Among the films in his collection are light, unpretentious comedies made during the 1939-1975 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco which were scorned by critics but which Cerezo defends.
"Cinema, from my point of view, is for the general public, for people to have a good time, a nice time," he said.
Cerezo joked that you have a better time in both cinema and football "when you win".
His films are restored in a laboratory belonging to FlixOle and his distribution company Mercury Films, where they are digitised at a rate of one a week, if there are no major problems.
The lab recently completed the restoration of "Furrows", a 1951 Spanish film classic about a poor family that migrates from rural Spain to Madrid in the hopes of finding a better life, which was very deteriorated.
The restored 4K resolution version of the film was presented on Monday at the San Sebastian film festival, the highest-profile movie event in the Spanish-speaking world.
O.Gaspar--PC