07/03/2006

Organised alongside the Malaga Spanish Film Festival, the Malaga Markets will for the first time this year split into two groups and take place at two different times.

While the sixth edition of Market Screenings (March 23-25) and the second edition of ARTTV (March 21-23) will be held during the festival (March 17-25), both the Mercadoc and the TV Market were postponed for the following month (April 23-29).

Targeting international distributors aiming to buy the rights to the most recent Spanish titles, the Market Screening programme includes the 14 domestic titles presented in official competition at the festival, films from sidebar section ZonaZine, as well as a selection of titles produced in late 2005/early 2006. Most of the films will be world premieres. Simultaneously, ART TV aims at fomenting a process of discussion, exhibition and dissemination at the market, created as a result of the development of fibre optic and digital technology.

In April, Malaga Markets will focus on documentaries and TV productions. Organised in association with the European Documentary Network (EDN), the Mercadoc specialises in European and Latin American documentaries, whose themes are somehow related to Spain, Latin America and Portugal, as well as to the Hispanic community in the US. Finally, the TV Market will allow Spanish audiovisual companies to meet with European broadcasting channels aiming to buy local products for television.

Malaga Markets is the film industry side of a festival set up to enhance the promotion and distribution of Spanish films and co-productions, both fiction and documentary.

The ninth edition will open on March 17 with Bienvenido a casa by David Trueba. 2006 Goya winners Oscar Jaenada and Candela Peña will host the festival’s opening gala, which this year will pay tribute to Spanish actress and singer Ana Belén.