Afro-Indigenous Market Connects Global South Cinema with European Broadcasters

The Miradas Afroindígenas Market, held in Puerto de la Cruz from November 25th to 28th as part of the Canary Islands International Reality Film Festival, aims to uncover new opportunities in the industry for unique and creative non-fiction films.

Valentín Romero, the market's coordinator, highlighted its significance: "Miradas Afroindígenas Market is important because it turns the Canary Islands into a hub and meeting point connecting Africa, Latin America, and Europe, as well as the rest of the world. This is especially true for film productions from what's often called the global south."

The event also provides a platform for Canary Islands productions to be seen by European broadcasters like Arte and Deutsche Welle, as well as ORF and RAI, alongside Spanish channels such as RTVE and 3CAT. While building collaborative ties between continents that share strong connections with the Canary Islands, Romero emphasized the importance of ensuring that "Canary Islands production companies benefit from these relationships with producers from other parts of the world, and with the television channels, funds, and festivals that visit us from across the globe."

This focus is supported by Canary Islands public bodies, including the Proexca internationalization program and the Tenerife Film Commission, which are helping to strengthen this meeting point, bringing significant advantages and positive outcomes for the region's reality cinema.

The market features two key areas for promoting documentary film projects at different stages of development: RealDocs and Afrolatam.

RealDocs is a laboratory and pitching event for filmmakers from Africa and Ibero-America with projects in development that tell stories from countries in the global south. Coordinated by Stephanie von Lukowicz, it has selected eight projects.

Afrolatam is a workshop and pitching event designed for directors and filmmakers from Africa and Latin America whose projects are in pre-production or production and explore themes relevant to these regions. It's intended as a space to build collaborative working relationships that go beyond just financial aspects. Coordinated by Claudia Rodríguez, it has selected seven projects.

In both cases, the selected initiatives are presented to a panel of international experts, marking a crucial first step that can lead to co-production agreements.

This year's event includes representatives from television channels and platforms such as AlJazeera Documentary Channel (Qatar), Arte TV (France), Asharq Documentary (Saudi Arabia), Deutsche Welle (Germany), ORF (Austria), RAI Documentari & RAI Cultura (Italy), RTP2 (Portugal), TVP (Poland), 3Cat (Catalonia), RTVE (Spain), and TVC (Canary Islands).

They are joined by distributors like Bendita Films (Canary Islands), 3boxmedia (Germany), Cats & Docs (France), Digital 104 (Canary Islands), Jambika docs (Spain), Limonero films (United Kingdom), New Docs (Germany), and Preciosa Media (Colombia). Additionally, funds such as Sheffield DocFest (England), Idfa Bertha Fund (Netherlands), The Wickers (England), Europa Creative Media (EU), and IFIC (Canary Islands) are part of this network.