ESFUF
At the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival, the European Film Agency Directors (EFADs) and the Conference of Ibero-American Cinematographic Authorities (CAACI) deepened their structured partnership with a series of events and exchanges as well as the award of the first EFADs-CAACI Co-Production Grant to the Los Días Según Ellos project.
EFADs-CAACI partnership meeting
On 18 September, representatives of the EFADs and CAACI met to brainstorm on the topic of distribution and EU funding opportunities. Following the first high level meeting that was organised in Toulouse last March and further exchanges in Cannes, European and Latin American film agencies confirmed their willingness to work closer together and establish a regular exchange of information.
The purpose of the meeting was to obtain a better understanding of the MEDIA programme and its potential to foster European-Latin American audiovisual cooperation. While MEDIA MUNDUS has disappeared, other schemes are still available to support exchanges between the two regions, such as access to markets, training, festivals, co-production funds and online distribution (ready-to-offer catalogues).
Deepening the reflection on distribution issues will be the focus of the partnership in the next months. The EFADs and CAACI will exchange on the European Commission’s mid-term review of the Creative Europe programme and other issues to see if common positions can be found. Film literacy was also an important common concern raised during the plenary meeting of the EFADs on Monday 19 September, which was attended by Jorge Sánchez, representative of CAACI and Director of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography.
Round table on co-productions
Another step forward to the EFADs- CAACI partnership took place on 21 September during the round table on ‘A film affair. A boost to co-productions between Europe and Latin America’. The event was organised under the framework of the 5th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, and participants had the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of fostering co-production between Europe and Latin America.
The next meeting of the partnership will most likely take place during the Berlinale in February 2017. Before that, a representative of EFADs is expected to attend CAACI’s meeting in Valparaíso, Chile on 15 November 2016.
Premier for the joint co-development grant
On 21 September, the first EFADs-CAACI joint grant to support the development of a European-Latin American co-production was awarded to Los Días Según Ellos. The project is directed by Juan Pablo Félix and produced by Utópica Cine (Argentina - Spain - France). The adventure story takes place on the border between Argentina and Bolivia and is scheduled to be shot next year.
The purpose of the €20,000 grant is to encourage more collaboration and to increase the number of genuine artistic co-productions between Latin America and Europe. The selection of the project was made by an independent jury consisting of Alex Trăilă, Ministry of Culture of Romania (EFADs representative), Pierre-Emile Vandoorne, Ministry of Culture of Perú (CAACI representative), and Fernanda del Nido, Setembro Cine (Festival San Sebastián representative).