• Conecta, the most important industry meeting in the country, uses the network to connect creative teams and their documentary projects with industry professionals from all over the world through an international meeting that will run until December 7th with exclusive activities.
• More than 100 guests will be present at panels and workshops that will help to boost documentary film projects selected at Conecta. Some of the highlighted guests are the French-German channel ARTE, NatGeo LA, Campus Latino -a training organization with different locations throughout the world, and others.
• For this sixth edition, Conecta celebrates the new partnership for the Docs in Progress section with the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival FIDOCS, a festival with 25 years of experience that takes place simultaneously with this meeting.
• The general public will have access to 12 open panels transmitted on the social media of the Chilean Corporation of Documentary CCDoc, the organization in charge of Conecta.
Conecta, an initiative organized by the Chilean Corporation of Documentary, will be held until Tuesday, December 7th, to boost links between different national and international documentary sector actors. In its VI version, Conecta will display a series of industry activities in which the selected documentary projects will showcase their audiovisual pieces on the Latin American scene.
At the same time, relevant workshops will be held, such as Connect with the Roots Workshop; Boost your Documentary in Development Workshop, and Connect with New Media, just to mention a few. However, the last one stands out because it will be conducted for the first time in Conecta by the National Film Board NFB of Canada. In that sense, the projects will interact with a pioneer, and leading institution in New Media, which are defined as the new visual and communication languages with the use of technologies whose critical, experimental or innovative intention redefines them as creative and artistic media.
NFB is a Canadian public organization that seeks to produce and distribute films to boost them worldwide. «Producing engaging documentary work is always a challenge. Reaching the heart and imagination of the audience even more. Engaging in events where people come together from different realities and paths will always be something we look for. You never know what can come out in the short or long term,» explains Louis-Richard Tremblay, National Film Board executive producer.
Another workshop that stands out is Connect with the Roots Workshop, for creators from indigenous communities with documentaries in development or early production stage. This space seeks to strengthen the project’s narrative proposal and their identities. Sundance Documentary Film Program will be in charge of the formation of this space. Sundance is an American nonprofit organization that supports nonfiction filmmakers from all over the world in producing cinematographic documentaries on contemporary issues. «In this third year of Connect with the Roots Workshop, our association reflects a bigger support to emergent creators, contributing to a vibrant ecosystem for independent cinema,» points out Carrie Lozano, Sundance Documentary Film Program’s director.
The nine sections consider the participation of exhibitors and members of professional institutions in their fields. Active actors in this meeting will be available to speed up the national and Latin American documentary industry.
GLOBAL REACH
Germany, the United States, France, and Austria are some of the more than 30 countries that will be present and that will have representation in this great meeting. For example, La Lucarne will connect to the occasion. La Lucarne is from the French-German channel ARTE of the European Economic Interest (AEIE), financed by both French and German parts, and which co-produces bold programs with TV channels from all over the world.
Another guest to highlight, and who is assisting Conecta for the first time, is the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers of Canada, an organization promoted and integrated by science and factual documentaries’ producers, broadcasters, and content providers worldwide.
FESTIVALS
One of the segments that sparks the most interest in every documentary cinema lover are the film festivals. Because of this, in this new edition, Conecta also invites delegates of national film festivals such as Antofacine, Aricadoc, BioBioCine Festival Internacional, Femcine, FicWallmapu, FicValdivia, among others. The latter will be represented by Raúl Camargo, director of this cultural event and social phenomenon that places Valdivia as the city of Chilean cinema. «FicValdivia continually collaborates with Conecta because it an unparalleled opportunity at a national level as a way of getting closer to the films of the future,» Camargo assures.
A commitment set in stone because, in the years that FicValdivia has participated in Conecta, films that have also been part of this meeting have subsequently participated in this famous festival, such as the case of Travesti Odyssey directed by Nicolás Videla and produced by Nicole Bonilla, and Story of my name directed by Karin Cuyul and produced by Joséphine Schroeder, Dominga Sotomayor y Ana Alice de Morais.
PARTNERSHIPS
This industry meeting is built upon a network, and for this purpose, strengthened partnerships focused on complementary purposes in pursuit of the Latin American audiovisual are essential. FIDOCS and Conecta have always been two collaborative institutions. This year, they have joined efforts for integrating both spaces in a new version of Docs in Progress, benefiting the selected projects.
On the other hand, the University of Santiago USACH Television Unit, carried by StgoTV, in signal 50.1, strongly values the partnership with Conecta and this regional digital tv channel. «For StgoTV is crucial to connect with other cultural institutions. Moreover, partnerships as CONECTA allow us to open more spaces in our public institution for the promotion and diffusion of the documentary,» explains Ingrid Ormeño, from the USACH’s Television Unit.
Aiming to strengthen international ties and based on their previous experience, different organizations from around the world participate again in Conecta because of the results it has brought them. «Nonfiction cinema can be a solitary and arduous task (…) Spaces like this make that work visible, but also it creates a community that filmmakers enormously need to keep on working,» expresses Carrie Lozano, Sundance Documentary Film Program’s director. At the same time, Louis-Richard Tremblay, NFB producer, says that «sharing knowledge and joining network to create an imaginative canvas for creators and their interactive project to emerge.»
CATEGORIES
Besides the guests from film festivals, other guests from different areas will allow each participant to focus their time and enhance this week of the meeting to the maximum. Among them, sales agents, distributors, exhibitors, specialists in formation, markets, and producers.
«Is very important for FicValdivia to share with the different professionals that participate in Conecta. We always thank the special invitation the organization makes us so we can be aware of what’s upcoming in the Latin American cinema,» synthesize Raúl Camargo, director of the Valdivia’s film festival.
StgoTV also appreciates the permeability of the industry meeting. «Conecta is a crucial space for the documentary industry in our create because it allows the development of new content and collaborative models,» argues Ingrid Ormeño from the USACH’s Television Unit.
@copyright Corporación Chilena del Documental CCDoc