Executives from Alazraki Entertainment, Cinema 226, Cinépolis, Lemon Studios, Perro Azul and VCS Capital will attend CDMX Film Pitchbox, a new movie project pitching forum that will take place in Mexico City on Nov. 29, organizer Filmarket Hub announced on Wednesday, opening a call for applications.
Focusing on Mexican fiction feature projects, CDMX Film Pitchbox will unspool at the installations in Mexico City of Cinecolor, the event’s principal partner. Cinecolor Mexico and Shalala Estudios will offer a prize of Pesos 500,000 ($25,000) worth of post-production image and sound-design services to the winning title.
In all, seven movie projects will be unveiled – via seven minute pitches – to an industry audience of producers, platforms and distributors. In line with the now established Filmarket Hub format, the pitching session will be followed by a networking lunch
The call for applications runs through Oct. 31. Selected projects – as well as 10 other titles receiving special mentions – will be revealed by Filmarket Hub on Nov. 8.
Based out of Spain, Filmarket Hub is an online market making available to its users – 20,000 in Europe and Latin America – details of both film and TV projects. The cream of new projects are featured at Pitchbox events.
Highlighting emerging talent, Filmarket Hub has focused traditionally on Europe, organizing Pitchboxes in Madrid, London and at the Sitges Film Festival, whose Sitges Pitchbox, focusing on genre projects, has had special guests such as Guillermo del Toro in 2017, Ron Perlman last year and this year’s Vincenzo Natali.
The CDMX Film Pitchbox – CDMX stands for Ciudad de México – is Filmarket Hub’s second incursion outside Europe, following on a FICG TV Pitchbox last month organized in collaboration with Mexico’s Guadalajara Film Festival, where eight Latin American drama series were presented to an audience taking in executives from companies such as Amazon Prime Video, Fox Latin America, HBO Latin America, Televisa and Turner Latin America.
A Pitchbox return to Mexico is no coincidence, said Filmarket Hub co-founder Bernardo Gómez.
“After the excellent reception for the FICG TV Pitchbox, we want to go on consolidating the platform in Latin America. This international expansion will without doubt be heavily focused on México, where audiovisual production continues to grow exponentially,” he said, adding that “Filmarket Hub can play a key role helping companies to find the projects and talent they need.”
That necessity has become a major industry issue in Mexico where demand for high-quality TV projects currently surpasses supply, placing a premium on locating best-of-its-class new talent able to create it.
In film, Mexico’s Imcine film institute has reduced or suspended support for festivals and Mexican film promotion as part of its government’s austerity measures. One consequence has been the cancellation of Mexico’s pan Latin American Fénix Awards.
in contrast to Argentina, ravaged by currency exchange, and Brazil, savaged by a hostile government’s ongoing attacks on the industry – Mexico’s major public sector film financing lines – Eficine 189 tax incentives and government investment schemes – have substantially survived austerity measures, though the industry fears significant cuts in the future.
One major question is the extent to which established and new SVOD and pay TV players will drive into film financing to complement exponential investment in drama series which may have a ready audience not only in Mexico but the Hispanic market in the U.S.
Over 15 years after Carlos Reygadas broke out with 2002’s debut “Japón,” Mexico is still the source of a steady stream of noteworthy young filmmakers. Last year, those included Lila Avilés with “The Chambermaid,” now Mexico’s submission in the best international feature film Oscar category, and this year David Zonana with “Workforce,” which world premiered in the Toronto Film Festival’s Platform section before playing in competition to an upbeat reception at San Sebastian.
