- In the Isla MECAS section, the prize has been granted to the project La viajante, by Miguel Ángel Mejías, which will have a grant to participate in the international market
- Fifteen active experienced professionals of the international audiovisual industry made up the committee of experts who has judged the high level of the selected projects
- The first edition of the Market of Almost-Finished Films has created a new meeting point among filmmakers, entrepreneurs and professionals within the sector to the exhibition of unfinished works, workshops, meetings and round tables
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Monday, April 3, 2017. The Market of Almost-Finished Films’ committee of professionals and experts, held within the framework of the 17th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival from Saturday, April 1, to today Monday, April 3, has made public this morning that the Spanish project Mi espía íntimo, by Ana Schulz and Cristóbal Fernández, will be granted this first edition’s award, worth 8000 euros for supporting the post-production and distribution in festivals of independent works, aimed to creative experimentation.
Furthermore, in the Isla MECAS section, the prize has been granted to the project La viajante, by Miguel Ángel Mejías, which will have, thanks to Canarias Culture in Network’ collaboration, a travel grant to participate in the international market.
The committee in charge of judging the eight works submitted to the international section and the two Canarian ones submitted to the Isla MECAS section is made up of fifteen experts and professionals directly related to international film production and distribution: Inge de Leuw, from the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s selection committee and the person in charge of Stray Dogs’ acquisitions, a Dutch international independent production and distribution company; Diana Santamaría, of Capricci Films, a French company devoted to art cinema; Hanna Horner, in charge of Doc&Films International’s; Montse Triola, founder of the production company Anderground Films, whose projects directed by Albert Serra have won multiple awards ; Jerome Vidal, of Noodles Production (Snow White, Nobody Wants the Night); Felipe Lage, head of Zeitun Films, a production company born as a marked cultural and artistic compromise; Manuela Buono, of Italian Slingshot Films, a producer, consultant and sales agent specialized in independent fiction and non-fiction films; Paco Poch, producer and founder of Mallerich Films; Alberto Sedano, cofounder of CineBinario, a distribution cooperative of arthouse cinema; Mercedes Martínez Abarca, Rotterdam Film Festival’s programming consultant since 2009; Paz Lázaro, a member of the Selection Committee for Competition and Panorama Program Manager for the Berlin International Film Festival; Ramiro Ledo Cordeiro, head, shareholder and cofounder of Numax Spain an international distribution company; Sebastián Álvarez, founder of Volcano Films, representative producer of Sogecine for Intact, by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and associate producer in Chaotic Ana, by Julio Medem, among others; Diego Rodríguez Blázquez, head of RiverLab, a distribution and film programming company specialized in Spanish auteur cinema, and founder and director of Márgenes, an exhibition and distribution platform specialized in edgy and innovative Spanish and Ibero-American cinema; and Luis Renart, head of Canary Islands Connection, a local international sales agency founded in 2014 as a strategic project of Cluster Audiovisual in the Canaries, which he also directs.
These fifteen experienced professionals, active in the international audiovisual industry, have agreed in stressing the quality of all the projects participating in this market of films still in edition and post-production.
The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival’s market pursues becoming a meeting at a European level for projects in their editing phase. In its first edition, MECAS received a total of 34 works from countries such as Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, Dominican Republic, Argentina, France and Spain. Out of these thirty titles, the selection committee of the Festival selected eight works.
MECAS had in its first edition the support of the Gran Canaria Film Commission and the Gran Canaria’s Society of Economic Promotion, on behalf of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, as well as the collaboration of CLAC (Audiovisual Cluster of the Canaries) and Canarias Culture in Network, of the Canarian Government. Besides, the Microclima Association of Canarian Filmmakers has participated in the organization of a meeting in collaboration with the Festival.
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