- A week before the start of the festival, the complete programme representing the Spanish film industry is already known.
- The official presentation of Spain as guest of honour will take place on 18 May under the name ‘Spain – Country of Honour. Main Forum: The Moment of our Cinema’.
- On 19 May, a conference will address the incentives offered by Spain as a filming destination (between 30% and 54%), and the great versatility of locations offered by the country will be presented.
Last March, the Marché du Film announced that Spain would be the market’s guest of honour at the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which will take place from 16 to 27 May. A week before the start of the festival, we now know the full programme that will represent the country’s film industry in a particularly special edition for Spain.
As a result of the collaboration with the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures within the Plan “Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe” (PRTR), the Spanish participation is being co-organised by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, through ICEX Spain Export and Investment, and by the Ministry of Culture and Sport through the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA).
Spain’s official programme as guest of honour at the 2023 edition will be made up of conferences and panels from Spain at the Marché du Film, a Spanish pavilion in which a total of 48 Spanish companies will be represented, more than thirty projects and professionals selected for screenings at Cannes Docs, Short Film Corner, Goes to Cannes and Animation Day, and thirteen Spanish producers participating in the Producers Network’s Spanish Spotlight. ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones and ICAA have mobilised around 130 Spanish companies and talent in the audiovisual sector.
The moment of our cinema
The official presentation of Spain as guest of honour will take place on 18 May under the name ‘Spain-Country of Honour. Main Forum: The Moment of our Cinema’, at the Riviera Palais des Festivals. The event, which will be attended by María Peña, CEO of ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones, and Beatriz Navas, Director General of ICAA as representatives of the two main institutions organising Spain’s participation in the Marché du Film, will also feature a panel on the great moment of Spanish cinema.
The panel, entitled ‘The Moment of our Cinema’, will feature Luis Ferrán (former director of ECAM and producer at Lazona), Paola Botrán (producer at Elamedia), Esther García (producer at El Deseo), Sandra Tapia (executive producer at Arcadia Motion Pictures) and Emilia Fort (Avalon).
The mention of Spain as guest of honour is just the culmination of a recognition of the Spanish audiovisual sector represented by the international awards that the industry is reaping. The most recent in the sector are Estíbaliz Urresola’s 20,000 species of bees, which won three awards at the 73rd Berlinale, and Albert Serra’s Pacifiction and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s As bestas, which triumphed at the French César Awards. In addition, Sith, the first episode of the new Star Wars: Visions, was written and directed by Spaniard Rodrigo Blaas of the El Guiri studio. These successes are in addition to those achieved in 2022 by Alcarràs by Carla Simón (Golden Bear 2022 at Berlinale) and El limpiaparabrisas by Alberto Mielgo (Best Animated Short Film at the Oscars 2022).
Revelations’ at Animation Day
For its part, animation, which has brought so much joy to Spanish, European and global filmmaking, will occupy a special place at Animation Day, which will take place on 21 May at the market with a selection of the most outstanding works of the present day.
Revelations. New Spanish Animation Short Films’, curated by Carolina López, consists of the screening of some of the best Spanish short films on the contemporary scene: benchmarks in the world, talents of the national industry and young promises that invite us to think about a promising future. The eight selected animation short films are, Vision of Self by María Medem; Leopoldo el del bar by Diego Porral; The Windshield Wiper by Alberto Mielgo; Fashion Victims 2.0 by María Lorenzo; Amarradas by Carmen Córdoba; Lost at Sea by Lucija Stojevic and Andrés Bartos; Todo está perdido by Carla Pereira and Juanfrán Jacinto; and La gran cita de Conej by Pablo Río.
The exhibition will continue with Coming Soon, a segment made up of seven projects in different stages of production that will continue to raise the Spanish industry’s profile: Latente by Aurora Jiménez and Carlos Zaragoza; El último muflón by Shira Ukrainitz and Omar Al Abdul Razzak; Supervivencia anormal by Izibene Oñederra; La valla by Sam Ortí; Punto y línea sobre el cosmos by Pablo M. Ballarín; Tots els meus colours by Anna Solanas and Marc Riba; and To Bird or Not To Bird by Martín Romero.
The presentation closes with a lecture by Rodrigo Blaas and the screening of Sith. The Spanish director will be present at ‘Revelations. New Spanish Animation Short Films’ to present the short film he made in his Madrid studio El Guiri Studios for the second season of the animated anthology Star Wars: Visions by Lucasfilm Ltd. This will be the first time this work can be seen on the big screen. The session will conclude with a meet & greet where the producer and animator will be able to chat up close with the attendees of this exclusive event.
Minorities and accessibility at ImpACT
The ImpACT section of the Marché du Film, dedicated to diversity, inclusion and sustainability in the audiovisual sector, has programmed two panels with Spanish participation. ROMA: What Happens Now’, which will take place on 19 May, addresses the under-representation of certain communities in the audiovisual sector and will feature Guillermo García López, director of Aunque es de noche, part of the Cannes Film Festival 2023 Short Film Selection, which gives voice to La Cañada Real, the largest illegal settlement in Europe. In addition, ‘Breaking Barriers in the Entertainment Industry’ will take place on 21 May and will feature Spanish companies with audiovisual projects linked to accessibility and sustainability in the video game industry. Enrique García Cortés from the ONCE Foundation, Ingvil Giske, producer of Ibeli’ and Sheyna Garicano from OWO Games will talk about how to design video games for universal accessibility.
The new film archive streaming platform at Cannes Next
The ICAA will present ‘Meet the New Spanish B2C & BTB Platform!’ on 22 May on the progress made in the creation of the streaming platform that aims to make the contents of Filmoteca Española’s film archive collections available to the public, and which includes the development of a year-round online marketplace for registered international professionals to bring new production content to potential international prescribers. Taking part in the panel will be Valeria Camporesi, director of the Filmoteca Española, and Agustina Lumi, Spanish producer and ICAA collaborator in the development of the new B2B/ B2C platform.
Come Shoot in Spain
In addition, the “Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe” Plan will be presented at a conference to be held at the Palais Stage on 19 May. This country plan has 15 measures grouped around four axes, to promote national audiovisual production, attracting investment and economic activity, as well as strengthening companies in the sector, improving their competitiveness through digitisation and support for talent, reducing the gender gap. In 2022, it highlights the implementation of the centralised information point, the launch of the one-stop shop for investor services and the modification of the tax incentive scheme for audiovisual production.
The conference will also address the interesting incentives offered by Spain as a filming destination (between 30% and 54%), and will present the great versatility of locations offered by the country, which, together with its great talent and visa application facilities, make Spain one of the most interesting destinations for audiovisual productions. The panel will be made up of Fabia Buenaventura from ICEX, Patricia Motilla from Andersen, Zara García-Delgado from Seven Islands Film, Natacha Mora from Canary Islands Film and Ione Feijóo from Zineuskadi.
Download the detailed programme..
You can see the original article at https://spainaudiovisualhub.mineco.gob.es/es/actualidad/talento-espanol-en-cannes
