The heads of the Seville, Malaga and Huelva festivals inaugurated the SEFF's 'Coffee with...'
Seville, 6 November 2021 - The directors of the film festivals of Seville, José Luis Cienfuegos; Malaga, Juan Antonio Vigar and Huelva, Manuel H. Martín, grouped together in the Profestivales21 coordination, led the first " Coffee with..." this Saturday, moderated by the journalist Begoña Piña. Twenty-three European filmmakers, including Nino Martínez Sosa, ismaël, Ted Fendt, David Pantaleón and Álvaro F. Pulpeiro, will meet at these gatherings, which are open to the public and will run until November 12th.
The Andalusian film festivals' directors began the presentation by assessing Cinephile Window, which is one of the first joint activities undertaken by the network and which in its first edition attracted more than 40,000 spectators in Andalusia and Castilla y León. In this, its second year, the cinema in the classroom programme is running from October 23rd to November 23rd, in collaboration with Filmin. Primary schools as well as secondary and high schools are taking part in the programme.
Development aid
After the toughest phase of the health crisis and the increasing demand for online consumption, film festivals are facing a new scenario, dominated by the challenge of maintaining a face-to-face and virtual connection with the public and being useful to the film sector. Thus, the three leaders have shared a new initiative, which will be their first joint action focused on the industry: the Profestivales21 Creation Lab, which is expected to be launched at the end of 2021. "We have to invest for the stories to reach the screens. Development aid is key," said Vigar.
Recovering audiences
The three directors agree on the need to " bring back audiences and get young people used to seeing films on the big screen", according to H. Martín. The director of the Huelva Festival also stressed that although the box office figures were good the year before the pandemic, "audiences have now become homier". A point taken up by Vigar, who maintains his doubts about the sustainability of the current model. "Sixteen films are being released, which is causing one screening for each feature film, and these films have no audience. We have reached a point of collapse".
For his part, Cienfuegos went into the definition of "new audiences". The director of the Seville Festival concludes that "even the senior audiences have been completely forgotten. There is a large number of older people who, once they have retired, started to enjoy art-house films, something that also needs to be taken care of". They all agree on the need to coexist with the new platforms, a model that is compatible with big-screen cinema and, for this reason, should not lead to a loss of spectators.
