Meeting in April: present and future of film festivals

FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE, through its 4+1 Film Festival, will be bringing together professionals from the industries of film and culture to participate in the Meeting Film Festivals: Looking to the Future, to take place on the 18th April in the auditorium of the FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE building in Madrid. Through the course of the morning, experts from across Spain and abroad will be opening up a public space for debate with the aim of identifying those factors which will prove decisive for the sustainability of film festivals. Those people interested in participating will also be able to follow the speeches through life online broadcasts and participation channels will be open to the public through the Festival’s Twitter and Facebook.

Film Festivals: Looking to the Future will be structured around three round-table debates, dealing with the triple challenge of globalization, the economic crisis, and digitalization, respectively. Pablo Jiménez Burillo, General Manager of FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE’s Institute of Culture, will open the meeting in which different views will be shared: that of the Spanish public administration, through the participation of Susana de la Sierra (General Manager of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, the ICAA), and that of the film festivals themselves with the insight of Jose Luis Rebordinos (Director of San Sebastián International Film Festival), Josetxo Cerdán (Director of Navarra’s Punto de Vista Film Festival) or José Luis Cienfuegos (former Director of the Gijón International Film Festival). The debate will also feature input from experts in independent cinema such as Juan Carlos Tous (CEO and Founding Member of Filmin and Cameo Media), Domingo Corral (Director of Turner Broadcasting System España) and Carlos F. Heredero (Editor of the magazine Caimán Cuadernos de Cine), among others. The view of Latin America will be represented by Manuel Ferrari (Coordinator of MALBA – Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires), Sergio Becerra (former Director of Cinemateca Distrital, Bogotá), Iván Giroud (former Director of Havana Film Festival and manager of Sala Berlanga), Bertha Quintero (Institute of Art – IDARTES, Bogotá) and Tarcísio Bastos Cunha (Executive Director of the Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre, Río de Janeiro).

FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE is convening this gathering of industry professionals in order to promote the role played by film festivals. In the words of the General Manager of the Foundation’s Institute of Culture, Pablo Jiménez Burillo, “these cultural events play an essential role in disseminating and raising the profile of independent film production and, as such, they are in practice the guarantee of an increased diversity and cultural wealth made available to society”. The event is a public gathering aimed at all those professionals with links to film festivals, distributors, producers and exhibitors, as well as to promoters and those responsible for cultural policy, and specialised journalists whose participation will serve to enrich the dialogue taking place in each of the three debates. To make it easier to follow, the event will also be available online on the web pages of FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE (www.fundacionmapfre.com) and the 4+1 Film Festival (festival4mas1.com).

Date: Wednesday 18th April
Place: Auditorium of FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE (. Madrid)
Time: 10AM
Registration:

Download the complete program here