On Monday, the most important event for film industry professionals opened in the Colombian capital with the 8th edition of Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM). This year, the invited guest nation is France, and as expected during the on-going Colombia – France Year celebrations.
Organized by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce (CCB), the four-day BAM hosts conferences and workshops on topics relating to film making by national and international experts. The main networking over drinks and chance to meet location scouts, directors and actors, takes place on the grounds of the Gimnasio Moderno school. The event is sponsored by the country’s film promotion entity Proimágenes Colombia and national fund for cinema Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico (FDC).
Held in various venues across the capital and with screenings in the Multiplex Cine Colombia theatres (Avenida Chile), BAM has positioned itself as the second most important audiovisual market in Latin America, after Argentina’s “Window on the South” – Ventana Sur.
Among the international guests who will discuss careers in film as part of the Bam Talks series, 50 aspiring young film makers have been asked to participate and present 46 projects that are still in the works. The festival will screen 13 completed, or in post-production, features as well as 105 titles that are available for international syndication.
Besides a once-a-year chance to meet industry professionals and show your reel, BAM is a business opportunity that offers 100% Colombian talent and storytelling projects to production studios from across South America, Mexico, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, among many others. One of Europe’s leading film distribution companies, MK2 Films is participating in BAM 2017.
For the opening ceremony, BAM invited French directors Alexis Ducord and Arthur de Pins to present their animated feature Zombillenium, and released for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. French producer-writer David Rosier of “Salt of the Earth” and Academy Award winning director Nicolas Schmerkin join 100 international guests invited to participate in this year’s event.
The driving force of the CCB is to convert Bogotá by 2025 as the main generator of Spanish-language content in Latin America and position the capital as a benchmark for the audiovisual sector. According to the Chamber’s president Mónica de Greiff, this year’s event is expected to raise US$35 million in revenue from film distribution sales.
This year’s version includes the official BAM Projects (feature films and television projects and films in development), Screenings (feature films in post-production), Bammers (new young talents) and Video Library (finished productions and premiered productions). In BAM Stories, 16 screenplays were selected.
When BAM winds down, the city’s independent film festival IndieBO, kicks off. Running from July 13 to 23, this fest started in 2014 by cultural entrepreneurs, Paola Turbay, Alejandro Estrada and Juan Carvajal will present a host of shorts, documentaries and homegrown features across Bogotá in cultural spaces such as Los Héroes monument, the district’s Cinemateca, and alternative movie theatre, Cine Tonalá.
