FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2019
“Overview and Development Perspectives of European Film Circulation in Portugal”
LUIS CHABY VAZ President of the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, Portugal.
Luís Chaby Vaz has been the President of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual of Portugal since June 2017 and he is also the President of the EFADs. He began his professional activity in 1993 as a lawyer before entering the cultural sector where he held several public management positions. He also worked in the Advertising industry and in the movie post production sector as CEO of Tobis. He was the Cultural Counselor of the Portuguese Embassy in Spain between 2010 and 2013. After that, he worked in a venture capital firm and as a private consultant.
NUNO FONSECA Internationa Affairs Advisor, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, Portugal
Nuno Fonseca is an Advisor for International Affairs and Policy at the ICA (the Portuguese national film agency) since 2000. He is regularly involved in international coproduction and financing aspects and has a wide experience in advising and evaluating projects, as a member of the Directing Committee of the EURIMAGES Fund and of several jurys. Between 1997 and 2000, he was an advisor of the Secretary of State for Culture, after a career in an EU institution in Luxembourg. He translated literary and philosophical works and wrote creative texts for radio and other media. Nuno is a visiting professor at ESTC (the national Theatre and Film School) and a member of the European Film Academy.
OPENING
NUNO ARTUR SILVA Secretary of State for Cinema, Audiovisual and Media, Ministry of Culture, Portugal
Nuno Artur Neves Melo da Silva was born in Lisbon on October 5, 1962.
He has a degree in Modern Languages and Literature from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon (1985). He was a Portuguese teacher in Secondary Education (1985/1992). He has authored several books, especially comics and poetry. He is the author and producer of several plays and cultural events as well.
Author, producer and host of numerous radio and television series and programs on different Portuguese channels. He was founder, editor and director of Produções Fictícia, creative agency (1993/2015). He was founder and publisher of the satirical newspaper «O Inimigo Público» (2003/2015). He was founder and director of the entertainment channel «Canal Q», (2010/2015). He was creative advisor to the RTP Program Directorate (1996/1997). From 2015 to 2018, he was administrator of RTP in the content department. Between 2018 / 2019 he was the chronicler of the Diário de Notícias and commissioner of the events «O Gosto dos Outros» and «O Fascínio da Histórias» for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2019 he was also commissioner of the program of the Feira do Livro do Porto.
NICO SIMON, Exhibitor / President of Europa Cinemas, Luxembourg
Nico Simon worked as a teacher from 1976 until 1991. During that time he participated in the creation of Luxembourg’s first “artplex” and organised a network of regional theatres across the country under the aegis of a Ministry of Culture Programme. In 1991 he embraced the film profession and was a decisive figure in establishing Utopia Company, where he worked as CEO from 1994 to 2015. Nico Simon was also a founding member of Europa Cinemas network and is the association’s current President.
GABRIELE BERTOLLI, Policy Officer Creative Europa MEDIA
Gabriele works for the Creative Europe MEDIA Unit at the European Commission. He follows, in particular, the political negotiations for the future programme 2021-2027. Prior to that, he was coordinating the Commission’s team dealing with media freedom and pluralism. He also worked for several years as EU public affairs consultant. He has a background on media and communication (University of Bologna) and European affairs (College of Europe).
CLAUDE-ERIC POIROUX General Director of Europa Cinemas, France.
Film producer and distributor in Paris for 12 years, he worked with Assayas, Beauvois, Carax, Desplechin, Jarmusch, Lars von Trier, Kieslowski, Gus van Sant, Manuel de Oliveira among others. In 1982 he founded and is still running the cinema theatre Les 400 coups (7 screens) in Angers. In 1989 he created the film festival Premiers Plans of which he is the general delegate and in 2005 he launched Les Ateliers d’Angers, together with Jeanne Moreau. In 1992 along with 45 exhibitors and with the support of MEDIA and the CNC he creates Europa Cinemas, a network that gathers more than 2,990 screens in 43 countries.
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SESSION 1 – Re-imagining The Cinema Experience (plenary session)
Panel 1 – Investing in our future: Innovation, Diversity, Communities
VALERIO CAROCCI President of the Association Piccolo America, Italy
Valerio Carocci was born and raised in Rome, in the eastern outskirts of the city. In 2011, among a group of boys and girls his age, he founds the assembly that will occupy the Cinema America in Trastevere to safeguard it from the demolition and the reconversion into parking lots and apartments. Once obtained the ministerial bond that binds it as a building of historical interest, the group of kids is forced by the owner of the property to abandon the building that can no longer be demolished but is still abandoned and closed to this day. In 2014 he founds the association “Piccolo Cinema America” along with the festival “Il Cinema in Piazza”, with three different screens of open air cinema, from the center to the outskirts of the city. In the last edition only, there have been a 100.000 attendees, giving a job to 40 boys and girls among 20 and 30 years old, with guests of the caliber of Paul Schrader, Mathieu Kassovitz, Paolo Sorrentino, Debra Winger, JR and Jeremy Irons.
The association Piccolo Cinema America is currently committed to the reopening of another historical theatre, the Cinema Troisi, a cinema of 300 seats with a library/study room that will be open 24/7. Since 2015 Valerio is also a selector for the Festa del Cinema di Roma, directed by Antonio Monda.
RAMIRO LEDO CORDEIRO Exhibitor NUMAX/DUPLEX Cinema, Spain
Lugo (Galicia-Spain), 1981. Founder of the cooperative NUMAX in 2014 (Cinema, Bookshop, Video & Graphic Lab), where he’s the Cinema NUMAX director and programmer. NUMAX gathers arthouse theatrical releases, new restored classic films and avant-garde film premieres in a new built single screen and 70 seats venue in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia – Spain). Since January 2019 he’s also founder and CEO of Nocturama SL, which includes NUMAX Distribución (an independent distribution company responsible of the Spanish release of the latest films by Nobuhiro Suwa, Rita Azevedo Gomes, Pedro Costa, Oliver Laxe, Jean-Gabriel Périot or Angela Schanelec, among others) and DUPLEX Cinema in Ferrol (Galicia – Spain) a two-screen arthouse venue from the mid 90’s reopened in October 2019.
SUZANNE BOS Head of Marketing and PR, Focus Film Theatre Arnhem, the Netherlands
Suzanne Bos is Head of Marketing and PR at Focus Film theatre, a new, state-of-the-art film theatre with five screens, one open air cinema and a café-restaurant in the heart of the city of Arnhem. Previously, Suzanne worked as a project marketer for ‘Toneelgroep Oostpool’, one of the five largest theatre companies of the Netherlands, and as a marketing coordinator for film theatre LUX Nijmegen. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in General Arts of the University of Utrecht (Film Studies, New Media, Journalism, Communication and French) and graduated from the Master Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image at the University of Amsterdam. Her master thesis ‘The sky is the limit(?) – The City as Exhibition Space’ focused on the (increasing) use of screens and other moving images in public space.
PEDRO BORGES Exhibitor/Distributor, Cinema ODEAL/Midas Filmes, Portugal
Pedro Borges was born in 1957. He studied History and worked as a highschool teacher, journalist and film critic.
Between 1990 and 2005 he worked at Madragoa, a group of Production, Distribution and Exhibition companies. He worked on the production of more than one hundred films, on their international circulation, on the release of more than five hundred films, of which more than one hundred were Portugese. He was also involved in the programming of theatres that deeply transformed the independent exhibition landscape in Portugal back then (cinemas King, Nimas, Monumental). During that period he became member of the EFDO Advisory Board (European Film Distribution Office) and of the EUROPA CINEMAS board, two programmes supported by the MEDIA Programme of the European Commission.
In 2006, Pedro Borges founded Midas Filmes, originally a distribution company which extended its activities to production (about 20 feature films and documentaries) and exhibition. In fact, five years ago Midas re-opened the Cinema Ideal, the oldest movie theatre in Portugal (1904), after a complete renovation.
Panel 2 – Next generation of Cinema-goers: More than just films
PENNY MILLS Consultancy Director, The Audience Agency, UK
Penny Mills is Consultancy Director for the independent, not for profit, consultancy The Audience Agency. She works with organisations, agencies and collaborations to develop their audience engagement and development strategies. The focus of her expertise is on using research and insight to drive change.
Her work spans artforms and sectors supporting organisations and cultural providers to explore new approaches to collaborating with audiences, participants and communities. Clients have ranged from the Wellcome Collection and Historic Royal Palaces, to the Royal Shakespeare Company and Without Walls Outdoor Arts Consortium.
She is also lead consultant for the impact evaluation of Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture, London Borough of Culture for the Greater London Authority and a number of place based partnership projects focused on culture-led regeneration. Joining The Audience Agency in 2006, she previously worked in strategic marketing roles at the Royal Court Theatre in London, Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Festival.
JAELA ARIAN Founder of LA RIOT, Rialto, The Netherlands
Founder of film platform LA RIOT, which makes world cinema accessible to a younger audience. LA RIOT works in collaboration with cinema Rialto in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Passionate about and fascinated by cinema, she developed this platform at the age of 18 and led it for six years. Her aim is to enthuse people for film and she is continuously aiming to engage the audience with world cinema and arthouse film. Jaëla also works at the Heerenstraat Theater in Wageningen. She was a jury member of the World Cinema Exchange Award of World Cinema Amsterdam 2019 and took part in 28 Times Cinema in 2015. Besides being intrigued by film, she is studying for her master’s degree in biology at Wageningen University & Research.
MATTHIEU BAKOLAS Director, Cinema Quai10, Belgium
Matthieu Bakolas is 37 years old and holds a University Degree in Economics, a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and a complementary degree in Hospital Management. After working 6 years in the cultural sector, he joined the private sector first as a Project Manager for a mutual company and then as a business controller in charge of optimising the performance of operating rooms in the hospital sector. Those different experiences allowed him to become Director of Quai 10 in Charleroi since late 2016.
DANIEL SIBBERS Yorck Kinogruppe, director of marketing
As Yorck Kinogruppe’s Director of Marketing since 2009, Daniel has been responsible of comprehensive rebranding and repositioning measures at Germany’s largest network of arthouse cinemas. He has been a lab leader at Europa Cinema’s Audience Development & Innovation Lab in Bologna since 2016. Before joining Yorck, Daniel was the Head of Local Marketing for CineStar, Germany’s largest exhibitor, and a European representative for Material Connexion Inc., a material research library for creative industries based in New York City. Daniel holds a master of public administration at the University of Potsdam. He started his cinema career at the box office in his hometown of Lübeck.