Editor

LOS ANGELES LATINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (LALIFF) and the IBERMEDIA Program hosted a cocktail party in Santa Monica, within the context of the AMERICAN FILM MARKET. The party was held with two objectives: to introduce the IBERMEDIA Program in the United States and to launch two catalogues produced by LALIFF and geared to support and advance the distribution of Iberoamerican cinema in the United States.

Actor Edward James Olmos, president and co-founder of LALIFF, acted as the
M.C. and introduced Marlene Dermer, LALIFF’s Executive Director and co-founder; Elena Villardel, IBERMEDIA Program’s technical and executive secretary; and José María Otero, president of IBERMEDIA, who introduced the program to the attendees.

The Program, Otero explained, “is actually composed of 13 participating countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela. These countries have committed to contribute a minimum of 100,000 dollars annually; and their contributions, plus repayments on previous loans, make it possible to grant around 4 million dollars each year to applicants from participating countries”. José María Otero explained how instrumental the Program has been, from its inception, in promoting the cinemas of its member countries. He also added that “these subsidies are bestowed in 4 categories: PRODUCTION (supporting co-productions between same area countries), PROJECT DEVELOPMENT, DISTRIBUTION and PROFESSIONAL TRAINING, with the goal of providing participating countries’ audiovisual industries with an infrastructure that will allow their continuous growth”. He also mentioned that during the six years of the Program’s existence, more than 607 projects have been approved.

After that, Marlene Dermer presented the two catalogues produced by LALIFF: “the IBEROAMERICAN MOVIES CATALOGUE is a database containing more
than 700 Iberoamerican films, from the all-time classics to the newest
releases, in all modalities (Theatrical, Video-DVD, Television and Internet) that are available for distribution in the U.S. territory, and the CATALOGUE OF IBEROAMERICAN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES lists more than 200 Iberoamerican companies of production and distribution”.


Edward James Olmos punctuated that these catalogues were created because, “taking into consideration the huge marketing potential for iberoamerican product in the U.S., we at LALIFF believe that the realization of these catalogues will be a fundamental step toward distribution of such product in this territory, especially considering that until now, there has not been a similar resource in the market. We are convinced that this unified information will provide enormous support to the production and distribution of Iberoamerican cinema”.
Marlene Dermer also explained that “from next week on, these catalogues will be available online so that U.S. distributors will be able to access this information and find out availabilities”. She also thanked “the Iberoamerican producers and distributors who supported the project from the very beginning and provided us with information on all their movies. I would also like to thank the IBERMEDIA Program for their help and their total cooperation from the first time we talked to them about this project”.


PHOTOGRAPHY. Left to right: Carlos Saura (Director), Elena Villardel
(IBERMEDIA Program), Edward James Olmos (President of LALIFF), José María
Otero (President of IBERMEDIA) and Marlene Dermer (Director of LALIFF)