Conecta, Chile’s largest industry encounter, in its sixth version, will be part of an important alliance with FIDOCS, the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival, a joint labor that will take place for the first time between both initiatives and that will be materialized through a collaboration between the Conecta Work In Progress section and the FIDOCS First Cut Latin American competition. Applications for the event, which will be held virtually, will be open until August 16th this year.
Review the requirements here
Review the application form here
This year, FIDOCS and Conecta will call on all national and Latin American directors and producers to participate in Docs in Progress Fidocs + Conecta. The activity will take place in virtual format from November 29 to December 7, 2021, in the context of the various training and networking activities, between the national and international audiovisual sectors, that both events offer every year. “Collaboration and partnership have always been part of the way we work, which is why we are overjoyed to be able to fuse the FIDOCS First Cut section with our WIP section, in order to offer directors and producers a more solid activity, with more feedback and more awards for their projects,” asserts Flor Rubina, Executive Director of the Chilean Corporation of Documentary, CCDoc, the organization in charge of Conecta.
Meanwhile, on behalf of FIDOCS, the alliance and the benefits that it entails for the Latin American and national audiovisual industry are also highlighted. “For the audiovisual world, the connections with different peers in the industry are key because our work is in essence collaborative. Along the same lines, as FIDOCS and Conecta, we’re working in collaboration to create a unique WIP space that unites members of all sectors of the industry: directors, editors, sales agents, programmers, and more,” sustains Marcela Santibáñez, Director of the Industry Area of FIDOCS.
FIDOCS is one of the most outstanding documentary film festivals in Latin America. It is a meeting space and one of diffusion for non-fiction cinema with a broad-ranging program including national and international competitions, spotlights, and special screenings; in addition to Escuela FIDOCS, a training space that calls on students from diverse Chilean film schools, year after year; and First Cut, a distinguished industry section, fundamental in empowering the development of works in progress from Chile and Latin America. This year, FIDOCS celebrates its 25th edition from December 1st to the 7th.
Conecta, which will take place virtually from November 29 to December 7, 2021, has already confirmed two industry sections, whose calls for entries are open and available to those interested in applying. On the one hand, Conectados, aimed at documentary projects and non- fiction series in development or production stages; and on the other, Connect with Distribution, directed at documentaries and series in editing, post-production, or finalized during 2020.
This historic alliance seeks to empower the development and labor of Chilean and Latin American directors and producers in order to provide them support and act as a space for growth for audiovisual sector professionals. “Although production has shrunk, there continues to be an important space to keep developing projects. In that sense, these market instances become very relevant, since they contribute to facilitating the search for financing, distribution, or co-production possibilities,” asserts Flor Rubina at CCDoc.
In addition, the projects selected to this first Docs in Progress Fidocs + Conecta section will be eligible for different awards coordinated by both organizers and chosen by each awarding institution, and among such prizes are the FIDOCS First Cut Award, the Chilean National Cinematheque WIP Award, the SONAMOS Award, and R2MEDIA Award, and the Sofá Digital Award.
Application Details
Those eligible to apply are any and all Chilean and Latin American directors and producers who present themselves with feature-length documentaries or non-fiction films in their editing stages, of which at least eight projects will ultimately be selected. These projects will participate in a screening for distinguished national and international audiovisual professionals, who will provide their feedback regarding the works’ current state, particularly its editing, and the path to take toward its finalization.
Along with this feedback, the projects will receive personalized mentoring on behalf of professionals from the areas of editing, direction, screenwriting, post-production, sales, diffusion, distribution, and exhibition, in addition to participation in individual meetings with different industry agents who will attend the Conecta event. “We have collaboratively designed a custom encounter so that the selected projects may have true growth, both creatively and in terms of the industry,” adds Marcela Santibáñez.
Applying to this section is free of charge, however, once projects are selected to participate in Docs in Progress Fidocs + Conecta, the inscription has a cost of CLP 40,000 (forty-thousand Chilean Pesos) for Chilean projects and USD $60 (sixty US Dollars) for international projects. Grants will also be available for selected projects that require assistance in covering the event’s inscription fee.
Conecta stood out in its previous version after beating its own application record with more than three-hundred forms received, which ultimately culminated in around sixty selected projects. That promising scenario repeats itself at FIDOCS, a festival that brings surprises every year and shines thanks to its national and Latin American premieres of documentaries with big festival trajectories. For this and other reasons, the alliance between FIDOCS and Conecta is expected to further heighten the interest of Chilean and Latin American producers and directors in being part of the industry events organized by both institutions, bringing to light the fact that this Docs in Progress Fidocs + Conecta is fundamental and not to be missed.
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