“Over the past few years, we’ve focused a lot on fairly one-way conversations with speakers talking to an audience but we’re now also starting to promote more B2B activities during the event: more business-focused opportunities and more spaces for people to meet and connect.”
Iberseries & Platino Industria is also programming meetings with screenwriters, this time in collaboration with the SGAE Foundation, the Spanish collecting society for writers, and with DAMA, its counterpart for audiovisual creators, he said.
14 screenwriters from Recreas, DAMA’s project incubator, will be presenting their projects to the industry. These were selected from nearly 300 submissions of unreleased fiction, documentary and animation projects.
“All of this reflects the strategic shift we’re making this year. I’d like to say that now that we’re in our sixth edition, the event has truly evolved.”
The confab is welcoming new prominent players for the first time, including the BBC, Arte, AppleTV+, Telefe Argentina and Colombia’s Caracol TV.
“The ability to create stories should always be based on a fully human, author-driven concept and development. AI should be used as a tool, not as an end in itself,” Castro pointed out.
‘Pelagius’ Courtesy of Tiki Group
“What’s most interesting about initiatives like ‘Pelagius’ is the conversation they open up about the future of audiovisual creation. Generative AI is introducing tools that could transform development, production and post-production and we’re still very much in an experimental phase,” Alia noted.
For Alia, one thing is clear: the audiovisual business is changing fast, but storytelling remains at its core.
Mexican cinema, this year’s country of focus, is a good example, he said, as it combines creative diversity and production knowhow, backed by deep production expertise, strong technical talent and increasingly well-established international links.
“That’s why Mexico was a natural choice this year. The aim is not only to celebrate its cinema, but to showcase the ecosystem behind it and create opportunities for business, co-production and international reach. Mexico has long been a cultural reference in Latin America; the next step is to make its industrial capacity more visible and better connected to the global market.”
Adriana Castillo, general coordinator, Platino Industria, concurred: “Mexico has highly experienced professionals, strong infrastructure, studios, production services, post-production and VFX and a proven ability to work on both national and international productions”
“We want Mexico to be seen not only through its films or its best-known names, but as a place where projects can be developed, partners found and long-term alliances built.”
