Spain's Valencia-based Intercartel, co-producer of this year's foreign-language Oscar candidate for Venezuela, is stepping up its co-production plans and shaping up as a key player in the growing Valencia media market.

"My objective is to make three or four films per year between national and international co-productions," says Intercartel president Miguel Perello, pointing favourably to a government policy which commits to backing at least five feature films per year in the autonomous region. Perello helped lobby for the policy as president of the Valencian Producers' Association (PAV), which he helped found and presided over from 1998 to 2001.

An off-shoot company of Madrid-based Cartel, Intercartel launched in 1995 as a film and TV co-producer. Among its forthcoming cinema projects is Perello's own feature film directorial debut, All The Lies (Todas Las Mentiras), described as a Short Cuts-esque story about the complicated relationships between eight thirtysomethings living in Valencia.

Lies will roll next spring on an estimated $1.6m (pts300m) budget with co-producers Emilio Oviedo of Nisa (La Isla Del Holandes) and Antonio Perez's Maestranza Films (Solas). Raquel Aparicio, Oscar Plasencia and Criso Renovell wrote the script, adapted from the Maria Garcia Lliberos novel Equivocos.

Following the co-production of this year's Venezuelan Oscar candidate A House With A View Of The Sea (Una Casa Con Vista Al Mar) with Canada's IMX Communications and Venezuela's Cinema Sur, Perello says plans are underway to organise an annual Canadian-Spanish co-production mini-market targeting a different Latin American country each year.