The San Sebastian Festival opens its call for submissions for the ninth edition of the Forum

The ninth edition of the San Sebastian Festival Forum opens its call for audiovisual projects from Europe and Latin America with a minimum runtime of 60 minutes and 20% of their financing guaranteed. European projects must have an express connection with Latin America.

The Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum will consist of one day, September 20, for pitchings by the selected projects, followed by another three days – from Monday 21 to Wednesday 23 September – for one-to-one meetings between the project producers and directors and potential partners from all over the world. The Forum, whose last edition was attended by more than 1,000 professionals, coincides with the Festival’s two works in progress for European and Latin American productions, while serving as a popular meeting point offering the perfect setting for contacts and agreements between film industry professionals.

The selected projects compete for four awards: Best Project Award; DALE! Award, given by the European Film Agency Directors (EFAD) and the Conference of Ibero-American Cinematographic and Audiovisual Authorities (CAACI); Eurimages Development Co-Production Award; and the ArteKino International Prize. Furthermore, thanks to the Festival’s collaboration with Ventana Sur, the film market organised by the Marché du Film-Festival de Cannes and Argentina’s INCAA (National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts), European projects selected for the Forum have the opportunity to participate in Ventana Sur’s Proyecta programme.

The Festival will select a maximum of 20 projects based on the reports of three experts: Agustina Chiarino, Javier Martín and Andrea Stavenhagen.

Since its creation in 2012, the Forum has selected 130 projects, 65 of which have been released, 6 are currently at the pre-production or post-production phase and 39 have been selected for international Festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venecia, Sundance, Locarno and San Sebastián.

Awards

• Best Project Award, with 10,000 euros gross for the majority producer of the winning project.
• DALE! Award (Development Latin America-Europe) given by the European Film Agency Directors Association (EFAD) and the Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities, comes with EUR 20,000 for the majority producer of the winning project.
• Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, with 20,000 gross for the majority European producer of one of the eligible projects selected by Eurimages.
• ARTE will give the ArteKino International Prize, consisting of 6,000 euros gross for the majority producer of the winning project.

This initiative is possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Basque Government Department of Economic Development and Infrastructures, the backing of Creative Europe MEDIA  and the collaboration of CAACI (Conference of Ibero-American Cinematographic and Audiovisual Authorities ), EFAD (European Film Agency Directors ), Eurimages, Producers Network (Marché du Film-Festival de Cannes), National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts -INCAA, ARTE, EPE-APV ( Basque Film Producers Association), Europa Creativa Desk MEDIA Euskadi, Europa Distribution, IBAIA (Association of Independent Audiovisual Production Companies of the Basque Country ), Etxepare Basque Institute, LatAm and Zineuskadi.