Ventana CineMad flings open the doors of its sixth edition

by Alfonso Rivera

21/10/2020 - From 21-23 October, Madrid will host a (hybrid) co-production event seeking to forge alliances between the European and American audiovisual industries

Ventana CineMad flings open the doors of its sixth edition

Duo Burnin’ Percebes, whose project Golem has been selected

Hosted by the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid – simultaneously on site and online – the sixth edition of Ventana CineMad is set to unspool from 21-23 October. This year, the co-production forum forming a bridge between Europe and America features 16 finalist projects (after 120 were submitted during the call), which will be duking it out for a total of €60,000 worth of prizes, split across four categories: animation, fiction, documentary and series. The event is organised by the AMA (Madrilenian Audiovisual Association), the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council, and aims to encourage the internationalisation of the regional audiovisual sector and provide a boost to the promotion of the industry.

During the three days of Ventana CineMad, the teams behind these projects (made up of seven fiction features, three fiction series, another three documentaries and three animated series) will be engrossed in a busy schedule that will include meetings with potential co-producers, international sales agents, distributors, public funding bodies, television channels and VoD platforms. The application form for industry professionals, granting access to the institutional presentation and the online pitching session for the selected projects, can be filled out here.

According to Mario Madueño, president of the AMA, this hybrid edition “has tripled the value of the prizes set to be given out to the projects. The number of projects has also doubled, and their level is higher than in previous years. The experts in each section have come up with a bespoke programme for each project to help it seek out funding and international co-productions, and a personalised timetable of meetings has been organised for each one, with international and national financiers, such as Atresmedia, Movistar Plus+, TVE and streaming platforms, and with sales agents of the likes of Latido Films and distributors such as Bteam Pictures, among others. The fact is that Madrid’s audiovisual industry represents a high proportion of our national production: here, there are many audiovisual firms, and the arrival of Netflix, among others, has strengthened Madrid and made it the powerhouse of Spain, and this type of forum helps a huge number of projects to make progress and improve in their search for funding.”

Standing out among the selected projects are: the fantasy-comedy Golem, to be directed by the unclassifiable duo Burnin’ Percebes (The Queen of the Lizards [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]); the thriller Asedio by Seville-born helmer Miguel Ángel Vivas; the social drama Ciudad sin sueño by Guillermo García López, who won a Goya Award for his documentary Delicate Balance [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; the psychological thriller Subsuelo by Fernando Franco; the horror flick Waka Waka by the Esteban Alenda brothers; and the series being readied by Gracia Querejeta, based on her film The Invisible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gracia Querejeta
film profile].