In a coup for the still growing film-TV event, Rome’s October MIA Market will host the second Spanish Screenings on Tour, Spain’s biggest international industry platform launched last year at Ventana Sur.
Forming part of Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), the Screenings mark one testament to governments’ attempts around the world to leverage the world’s content production revolution to help power post-pandemic recovery.
MIA’s Spanish Screenings will pack several dozen Spanish titles and a weighty delegation of Spanish producers and creatives to Rome. If the Screenings play out as they did at their first edition in Argentina’s Ventana Sur, attended by a 100+ Spanish delegation, they should help galvanise proceedings at this year’s MIA Market.
Banner events look set to repeat the successful Ventana Sur gambit. A maximum of five projects, whether fiction, non-fiction, animation feature films and series, will pitch at MIA Market’s Co-Pro forum. Four Spanish feature in post-production will also be unveiled at MIA via 10-minute presentations and brief pitchs.
A Spanish Remake Day will focus on five films with reversioning potential. Four more films receive market premiere screenings; a Spanish session at MIA’s Comin’Up will allow Spanish sales agents to present trailers or teasers of films currently in production scheduled for release date for 2024.
The Spanish Screenings on Tour are backed by Spain’s Ministry of Culture and Sport through ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones, the Malaga Festival and the San Sebastian Festival.
Care will be taken when making the final selection to ensure the inclusion of projects and films that reflect the diversity of subject matter, format and genre found in Spanish audiovisual production, the backers announced Thursday.
That meant in practical terms at Ventana Sur a strong emphasis on first features with series and a large presence of titles with female protagonists, reflecting the large number of young female directors and producers breaking out in Spain.
Whether that will be repeated at Rome remains to be seen. The Spanish Screenings on Tour’s call for applications runs through July 25.
