‘The ebullient romance’

Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

Hollywood producer Scott Steindorff sees the similarities between Las Vegas and Colombia - even if you don't.

Both places are different from the way people around the world think of them, mostly because of the media, he says.

That's why he sees Las Vegas as the perfect place for tonight's premier e of "Love in the Time of Cholera," his film based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel Prize winner from Colombia.

It's probably the first Hollywood film with the buzz of Oscar nominations to premier e in Las Vegas, according to Francisco Menendez, chairman of the UNLV film department.

Steindorff, who has lived in Las Vegas and spent months in Cartagena, Colombia, during the film's production, was convinced of the fit between his movie and the Strip soon after visiting the South American country for the first time.

"The perception of Colombia - and it was mine as well - is of terrorism, war and drugs," he says. In fact, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos offered him security during the production.

"But I didn't really need it," Steindorff says. "In fact, I purposely went places without it ... Cartagena is one of the most charming cities I've ever seen."

As for Sin City: "The perception of Las Vegas is very similar - gambling, strip clubs, partying," says the producer of the TV series "Las Vegas" as well as of the film based on Philip Roth's book "The Human Stain."

But "there's this whole city that's very diverse in culture," Steindorff says, adding that he travels around the world and often hears laughter after describing Las Vegas as "a cultural center."

Tonight, at the Palms, the ante may get upped a bit. Those who have at least $250 for a ticket will not only see the film - the story about a man who waits 50 years for the love of his life , starring Javier Bardem of Spain, Giovanna Mezzogiorno of Italy and Benjamin Bratt of the United States - they also get to hear Colombian singer Shakira perform her songs from the soundtrack. Money from the tickets goes to the Barefeet Foundation, her project for children displaced by Colombia's ongoing civil war.

Steindorff says he persuaded Shakira that Las Vegas was also the best city to raise money for the cause.

"The first place I thought of was Las Vegas. People are very generous," Steindorff says.

Of course, Las Vegas money is one reason the film could be made. Danny and Robin Greenspun, whose family owns the Las Vegas Sun, are partners with Steindorff in Stone Village Pictures, the production company behind "Love in the Time of Cholera."

It wouldn't be the first time money made in Las Vegas real estate, hotels and casinos has backed major cultural enterprises.

Steve Wynn pioneered the idea of hanging great art in casino galleries, in the Bellagio and then the Wynn Las Vegas. Glenn Schaeffer, former president of the Mandalay Resort Group, put up money for the International Institute for Modern Letters, whose U.S. base at UNLV has raised the school's reputation.

These and other developments make Las Vegas "a place that now has a metropolitan culture that we associate with a city such as New York, Chicago and L.A," Menendez says.

Debuting a story from Latin America at a Las Vegas premier e also has special meaning, Steindorff says.

The film is in English - rather than Spanish - to reach a broader U.S. audience. He says "the average person in Minnesota" understands little about the places of origin of many of America's often controversial immigrants .

"It's set in a culture most Americans are not familiar with ... (and) this movie is going to show them how the people really are," he says. At the same time, he hopes the large number of Hispanics in the Las Vegas Valley see the film. "It's very important for Latinos to get behind this so that more of these stories can be told."

Doug Unger, chairman of the UNLV English department, just finished teaching "Love in the Time of Cholera" to 19 graduate students.

He sees the film's premier e in Las Vegas as fitting for another reason. He notes the phrase literary critics and journalists came up with to describe Garcia Marquez's way of invoking the fantastic events of everyday life in Colombia - "magical realism."

"The movie is premiering in a place that is itself magical realist ... based on the hyperbole ... and ebullient romance that Las Vegas sells itself as - whether it is or not."