Latins go to Hollywood.

Latin American directors arrive in Hollywood with films from home, but they stay to make American movies.

MEXICAN FILMMAKER LUIS MANDOKI was one of the first Latin American directors to make a Hollywood hit, with "Gaby: A True Story," in 1987. Based on a true account and a script by Mexican writer Elena Poniatovska, it garnered widespread recognition, including an Oscar nomination.

Since then, Mandoki has remained in the United States, making movies that have little or nothing to do with Mexico or Latin America. He's now working with Hollywood stars such as Meg Ryan, Andy Garcia and Melanie Griffith, and recently directed Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, and Paul Newman in the Warner Bros. film "Message in a Bottle'

Mandoki is just one of many Latin American directors who, after finding fame and fortune in Hollywood, have stayed here to make movies with multimillion-dollar budgets, produced and directed for the U.S. moviegoing public.

Examples abound. Mexican director Alfonso Arau has gone from the success of the surrealist Mexican film "Como Agua para chocolate" (Like Water for Chocolate) to "magical comedy" with "Picking Up the Pieces," starring Woody Allen, Cheech Marin, and Kiefer Sutherland. Venezuelan director Fina Torres went from the Venezuelan jungle in "Oriana" to Parisian opera in "Celestial Clockwork," and now has ended up making "Woman on Top," a comedy about a Brazilian immigrant-played by Spanish actress Penelope Cruz-who arrives in San Francisco and becomes a famous chef on American television. And after making "Cuatro Dias en Septiembre," (Four Days in September), Brazilian director Bruno Barreto is working on a police drama for Miramax, "One Tough Cop," starring Stephen Baldwin and Chris Penn.

"About 80% of the world's movies come from the U.S. ... the other countries have to split up the remaining 20%," says Guillermo Del Toro. The Mexican director has remained in the horror film genre since arriving in Hollywood, but he has swapped the Mexican vampires in his flick "Cronos" for killer New York City cockroaches in his movie "Mimic." The $30-million production made some $70 million at the box office, so of course sequels two and three are in the works.

Money talks. All of these Latin American directors have found an unmatched opportunity in Hollywood to do what they love best: Make movies, with budgets they could only have dreamed of in their native lands.

Success, of course, has come at a price.

"Money talks in Hollywood:" says actress Bel Hernandez, founder of Latin Heat, an L.A. magazine about Hispanic filmmaking. "It doesn't matter how great your country is, in Hollywood, directors take what is available and work on whatever Hollywood wants:"

There is no lack of opportunity at home. Latin America is currently undergoing a film-making renaissance.

"Production is booming in places like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico ... but there's no place for these films to go," says Michael Donnelly, founder of Shadowfax Films, a distributor of foreign movies. He points out that, thanks in no small measure to tax incentives, some 60 films have been made during the past four years in Brazil. But the majority of local productions hardly recover their modest budgets because of lack of promotion and distribution.

The easiest way to make money on them would be to show them in the United States. But that has always been difficult, and is getting harder all the time. In the 1960s, about 10% of box office income in the United States came from foreign films. That number is about 1% these days. The growing number of independent films promises even more competition.

"There are some very innovative films being made in Spain and Latin America, but it is not a good time for foreign cinema in the United States," says Cathy Rivera, an expert in Latin America cinema. "The boom in American independent films is filling the space once occupied by foreign alternative cinema.

"Latin American movies don't make money in the u.s." says Andrew Paxman, former head of Latin American news for Variety magazine.

So Latin American directors have given the market what it wants: English-language movies with subjects that interest general audiences. "The problem is not exclusive to Latin American films. All foreign movies share it. Distributing a foreign-language film in the U.S. is always a problem," says Del Toro. "You have to make movies that can be enjoyed in any part of the world, independent of its 'Latin' flavor or the language they're made in."

In an effort to overcome this obstacle, Del Toro, together with other Mexican directors and a Spanish promoter, created Tequila Gang, a production house dedicated to making movies in Spanish that can play worldwide--and that can make money.

Tequila Gang was behind "Un Embrujo" (A Spell), by Mexican director Carlos Carrera, and it is getting ready to start on the $6.5 million production of "El Espinazo del Diablo" (The Devil' Spine), a classic ghost tale that will begin filming in Spain at the end of the year. The film will be produced in partnership with Pedro Almodovar's production outfit, El Deseo.

Many in the industry are betting that the rise in the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. will bring about a bigger push for Latin American filmmaking. "The growing awareness about the Hispanic market in the U.S. is going to help Latin American films, directors and actors to gain more recognition," says Herndndez of Latin Heat.

The Hispanic community "prefers to buy, rent and see gringo movies, but if you show them that there's a good product in Spanish that will entertain them, they'll go see it," Del Toro says.

All this has not been lost on U.S. film houses. Kushner-Locke, an independent distributor and producer, launched Mexican actress Thalia in her first English-language film, "Mambo Cafe," directed by Chilean Ruben Gonzalez.

The idea is to penetrate the Hispanic market in the U.S., and, in the long run, distribute the movies in Latin America.

If successful, this project could put an end to the problems of Latin American directors, who could dedicate themselves to making Latin American movies, with Latin American actors, in Hollywood - then export them to Latin America.

Only in Hollywood.