The CSF workshops

After the success of its first edition, CICAE, ARCALT, FICV and Europa Distribution in partnership with FELCINE are about to launch the 2nd Cine Sin Fronteras Edition for the Latin-American and European Professionals.

Aims of the Workshops

To support the diversity of the cinematographic offer by improving the presence and the visibility of Latin-American cinematography in Europe and European cinematography in Latin-America through a training programme and a matching up between diffusion professionals of both continents. 

They are dedicated to:

  • Professionals from the promotion field: distributors, exhibitors and film festival directors.
  • Professionals with at least 3 years of experience and a good knowledge of the sector.
  • Professionals with a concrete new project to develop the circulation (distribution, exhibition and diffusion) of European cinema in Latin-America and of the Latin-American cinema in Europe.
  • Institutional professionals willing to create policies in favour of diffusion.

Presentation of the workshops

Nowadays, the main difficulty is not the production deficit of world movies ; in fact, the world production level has reached its peak in the last couple of years. It is rather the lack of distribution and exhibition of these world movies. The current distribution and exhibition market is very concentrated and benefits mainly to the most exposed movies.

We can see that, through the world, the authorities have now really realized the importance of a support for the local cinematographic production. In addition, coproduction markets have appeared in festivals all over the world and have enabled producers to find complementary funds for their innovating movies.

On the other hand, the majority of these countries supporting local production don’t have any schemes for diffusion support: no support for the distributors of national or no-national movies, no support for independent cinema exhibitors.

This situation results in a centralization and concentration phenomenon: concentration of the demand for the most exposed movies, benefiting of a huge P&A budget, concentration of the admissions in some cinemas, mainly multiplexes or commercial cinemas. This leads for the independent cinemas to a forced homogenisation of the offer in order to survive, and for the independent distributors, to difficulties to find screens for the movies they promote.

Those professionals, exhibitors and distributors, have to face, on each continent, more or less, the same issues.

However, this is not a fatality: there is an audience seeking for more diversity and it needs to be answered. Professionals of the circulation are the link between audience and movies, they have to be at the forefront in the circulation of Latin-American movies in Europe and European movies in Latin-America. They are the most trained and informed persons who can improve the films’ circulation and ensure their promotion so that they can reach the audience. It’s today necessary that all the doers of the circulation field can structure a market to find interprofessional synergies.

main axis of the training

 The main axis developed during this second session will be

  • Audience development, targeting more specifically young audiences, as an essential mean to increase the audience
  • The markets’ conditions, the chain of rights (productions, international acquisitions and sales, distribution, exhibition), legal settings and financial opportunities for the diffusion in the two continents (financial aids, supports to the direct or indirect diffusion).
  • The Network part in order to share ideas, knowledge and information and to develop and reinforce the independent sector, which promotes cultural diversity.

We will lean on case studies, theoretical lessons and coaching of projects. The special feature of our training is based on the matching up between professionals and the sharing of knowledge.

Practical information

The training, which will be dedicated to 12 participants – 6 Latin-Americans and 6 Europeans, will occur during two festivals, one in Europe, specialised in Latin-American films and the other one in Latin America, offering an international programming.

For the 6 selected Europeans professionals, the training will be divided in two phases:

  • the first part will take place in Toulouse, during Les Rencontres Cinémas d’Amérique Latine on March 23-24.
  • the second part will take place in October during the International Festival of Valdivia.

The six Latin-American professionals will join their European colleagues during the International Festival of Vadivia for a training period of three days.