Cinélatino also means professional meetings to carry out film projects

Cinélatino, 35th Rencontres de Toulouse © DR

Text by: Isabelle Le Gonidec

6 min

Cinema under construction, cinema in development, Apifa... The Rencontres Cinélatino have set up or collaborate with a profusion of devices to help new or established filmmakers launch or complete their projects. Support often essential to be advised and known, and to move forward on what is often the project of a lifetime.

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from our special envoy in Toulouse,

This Friday, March 31, on the big screen of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, we were able to discover The Barbarism of the Argentinian Andrew Sala, which will be screened in Paris on Monday, April 3, as a prelude to the first edition of the Clap festival. In the family estancia, a young boy discovers that barbarity, violence, concern all social classes, without exception. Full house and questions in burst of an audience conquered for the director and his producer Sebastián Muro. The film, which will be released in May in theaters in Argentina, went through Cinema under Construction where it won the first prize in 2021. L'Eden, Los reyes del mundo and Anhell 69 by Théo Montoya, three young Colombian directors, Las hijas by Panamanian Kattia G. Zuñiga... all these films are from Cinéma en construction or Cinéma en développement, are screened this year at Cinélatino. We also see in the whirlwind of the festival the Mexican director Angeles Cruz. She came to present her new film project at Cinéma en construction; her previous – and noticed – feature film, Nudo Mixteco, had already benefited from this precious boost to which she had paid tribute when we met her last year.

Nudo mixteco, a film by Angeles Cruz: the funeral of Maria's mother, one of the key scenes of the film where the life of the village community is expressed with great authenticity. © Reel Films

A long history

Argentina's Ana Katz was able to finalize her first film, the tender El juego de la silla, thanks also to Cinema under construction. She participated in the first edition in 2002, and we could multiply the examples, because some 231 films have been supported for twenty-one years by this device of which Esther Saint-Dizier had told us the story. A pioneering initiative, then mounted with the San Sebastian Festival, thanks to José Maria Riba. "Never before have two festivals from two different countries and different categories cooperated in this way," Kihn said. The linchpin of the festival, which deals -in addition to coordinating the selection committees in charge of fiction and focus- the professional platform.

This professional platform therefore includes Cinéma en construction, which gives films a material boost for their closure or distribution, thanks to European and Latin American partnerships, and Cinéma en développement, which networks film professionals from Latin America and Europe and project leaders and private or public partners.

After its creation, the professional platform was quickly structured to allow better support for films and a selection of projects was set up. We would like a forum format to support them all, but objectively but it is a volume of projects and people too heavy to carry for a very small team, explains Eva Morsch Kihn.

Cinéma en développement is reserved for calls for projects within the festival, with some partnerships such as the Cinéfondation de Cannes or the Brazilian BrLab: the project can be "a small idea on paper or already a film in post-production", which was the case, for example, ofLa Barbarie: "the goal is not for producers to position themselves, but to give the opportunity for exchanges, feedback, in a given framework". For very young directors, who come for example for a short film or a first film, "it's a pretty gentle way" to help them feed their network and understand how a film is built until its distribution. "We are not a co-production market, nor a lab," insists Eva Morsch Kihn.

Poster of the film La Barbarie by Andrew Sala, presented in competition at the Rencontres Cinélatino in Toulouse: Nacho, 18, takes refuge with his father who is an estanciero in the province of Junin, in the Argentine pampas. © Cinélatino 2023

Cinema under construction and Cinema in development also offer prizes, thanks to partners. After two days of meetings and discussions, the professionals made their choices on Friday.

The growing role of the region

In addition to these devices, there are others, in connection with the region, it is the Occitanie Platform. A regional film agency (Apifa) was created during the merger of Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon, and "it brings a lot of dynamism to the sector". An association of producers from Occitania, with which the festival is associated, also emerged in the wake. This dynamic has broadened the field of action and allows, for example, a regional producer who has a project on Latin America to find contacts and vice versa. "For a Latin American professional, whether his producer is in Paris or Toulouse, he remains French." The exchanges take the form of co-productions, writing residencies, the circulation of films and directors in cinemas in the region, etc. And there is no shortage of projects. Inspired by the co-production workshops with Spain in 2021, then in 2022 with Brazil, this year the platform focused on co-productions with Colombia this week. These workshops again consist of exchanges of information and networking of French and Colombian professionals.

Los reyes del mundo, Colombian film by Laura Mora, which won the first prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2022, went through Cinema under Construction. © San Sebastian Festival

Colombia has also been chosen for this year's Focus of Meetings. The strong presence of Colombian films in major international A-level festivals such as Cannes, Berlin or Toronto, testifies to the vitality of its cinema. The public agency Proimagenes, headed by Claudia Triana since its creation in 1998, is doing a remarkable and long-term job, which is bearing fruit, according to Eva Morsch Kihn. Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile... these countries are very present at the Cinélatino meetings. It may be necessary to be able to prospect more on the side of Central America, less represented, and documentary. "There are needs, and desires, that's not what is lacking, but we are very constrained by our small means," regrets Eva Morsch Kihn. There is no specific budget for the professional platform that falls within the general budget of the Rencontres, fed by the city and the region. To compensate for this lack of resources, Cinélatino collaborates with other festivals, for example, to exchange films and pool guests. "We work with what I call 'the international of spring festivals'": Milan, Barcelona, Ojo Loco de Grenoble, Villeurbanne, Pessac, Valence... The Créteil Women's Film Festival, the Peruvian Film Festival and the Cinéma du Réel documentary meetings have hosted or will host films and directors who have passed through Toulouse. Create virtuous circles to better support and make known this cinema from across the Atlantic...

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