The consolidation, collaboration and investment in the European audiovisual ecosystem will be discussed this weekend at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in the day promoted by the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU

The San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF) will host next Sunday, September 24, a day on consolidation, collaboration and investment in the construction of the European audiovisual ecosystem and its digital leadership.

This meeting, organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure, will be held at the Kursaal Press Club and will be inaugurated by the Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño.

The day is of a professional nature and will focus on key aspects for the construction of a European audiovisual system that is based on collaboration and economic sustainability with the support of the public and private sectors.

The objective is to maintain within the framework of the Festival a space of dialogue and growth in full development of the plan "Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe" with which the Government of Spain is firmly investing in the sector to increase audiovisual productions in our country by up to 30% in 2025. To date, more than 1.2 billion of the 1.6 billion budgeted for the audiovisual sector by 2025 have been mobilized.

The acting Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, María González Veracruz, has expressed the importance of promoting this debate within the framework of the European Presidency: “We want to take advantage of the tremendous potential of our audiovisual sector and value our model to build a sustainable and resilient European audiovisual system.”

In this sense, he considers that “digital transformation and convergence implies that areas such as gaming, eSports, virtual reality or digital video are emerging strongly to stand alongside more traditional subsectors such as television entertainment or theatrical works.

Audiovisual content is now being consumed globally and we are going to analyse the challenges for Europe to continue to be at the forefront of this digital era.”

Meeting program

The day, which will begin at 9:30 am, will be inaugurated by the first acting vice-president, Nadia Calviño, and will give way to discussion tables with the presence of top professionals from the Spanish and European audiovisual industry. High representatives of the State and European Public Administration will also participate addressing different aspects of business, creativity, collaboration between cultural industries and financing models.

The first panel of analysis will deal with the ‘Consolidation of the business models of the European audiovisual sector’ with the moderation of Cristina Morales (Deputy Director-General of Audiovisual Communication Services of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation). Mario Gianani will participate in it, CEO off Wildside; José Antonio Antón, Director of Content Atresmedia Television; Jan Motjo, CEO off Beta Films; Domingo Corral, Director of Fiction and Entertainment Content at Movistar Plus+; and Pilar Benito, General Director of Morena Films.

Next, the second table will deal with the adaptation of the formats under the title of ‘Promoting collaboration in various sectors and format’. Moderated by Henar León, Project Manager off Podium Podcast, and will count several milestones of productions in the field. The writer, Javier Castillo, and the director of original content for Netflix in Spain, Verónica Fernández, will delve into ‘La Chica de Nieve’. On ‘Tadeo Jones’ they will analyze Daniel Sánchez, CEO de Gamera Nest; and Nico Matji, Co-founder of Lightbox Studiosv. And in the case of the production of ‘The Three Musketeers’ will participate Yolanda del Val Guilabert, director of the Fiction department of DeAplaneta; and Marie Laure Montironi, EVP International off Pathé Films.

The last table will revolve around ‘Investment models in the European audiovisual sector’, moderated by Alberto Sanz, Director of Finance and Investor Relations of Spain. ICEX-Invest in Spain. Nathalie Cholet, responsible for the Media Invest Fund in the European Investment Fund (EIF); Ramón Garnica Arocena, partner of Nazca Capital; Olivia Sleiter, will take part. head of Production Global Drama de Fremantle; and José Carlos García de Quevedo, president of the Official Credit Institute (ICO).

The event will be closed by Ignasi Camós, Director General of the Institute for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) of the Ministry of Culture and Sport; Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director General of CNECT of the European Commission, and María González Veracruz, Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures in office.

The information of the day is available in this link