Merci, Valladolid International Film Week’s Independent Film Market, enjoyed a 20% rise in the number of professionals attending this year.
Merci, which ran from October 25-27, provides an opportunity for Spanish independent distributors to meet with platforms, TV networks and distributors, and to show them selection of their recent acquisitions.
Among the 24 titles being screened by distributors at Merci Valladolid this year were Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot Au Feu, Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest.
Streamers attending the event this year included Spain’s Movistar Plus+, Filmin and HBO Max.
Producer-distributors Enrique Costa and Lara Pérez Camiña say they are pleased with Merci’s growth in numbers this year. They are co-presidents of Adicine, the Spanish Association of Independent Film Distributors, which organised Merci jointly with the Valladolid International Film Week, also known as the Seminici.
“Of course, there is always room for improvement, and we do hope that more streamers get involved in future editions, including Amazon and Netflix,” say Costa and Camiña. “We’ll keep on inviting them. But the bottom line is how fruitful these three days of industry meetings in Valladolid have proved, helping business for the members of Adicine.”
Merci organiser Olimpia Pont notes that deals are not necessarily closed at the market itself. “But distributors can get important feedback from streamers, in that they can gauge a film’s potential to eventually feature on their services or in the theatres, in the case of exhibitors”.
Calibre of films
For the platforms, the calibre of the 24 films on offer was impressive. “This has been an exceptional year, probably because it has been the first year of getting back to normal after the pandemic,” says Jaume Ripoll, co-founder and head of content, acquisitions and development at Filmin. “This shows in the harvest. You only have to look at the shortlist of films competing for the European Film Academy awards to prove it.”
Movistar Plus+, the pay TV/VoD service of Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, also attended Merci.
Movistar Plus+ releases more than 365 features a year, comprising fiction but also feature documentaries, says Iñigo Trojaola Gonzalez, head of content for premium channels at the streamer. “Most of the titles we offer have had a theatrical release in Spain. However, we also can premiere titles that have not have that chance but have proven commercially interesting or have had awards at national or international film festivals”.
Since August Movistar Plus+ has widened its offer of independent films, explains Trojaola, with its Indie por M+ section, “which spotlights Spanish and international auteur cinema, prestige films that have won awards and are very relevant.”
In the case of Spanish releases, Movistar Plus+ buys at the screenplay stage and helps to finance around 40 projects a year, working directly with the producers of each film. Recent examples of this include Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s As Bestas; Carla Simón’s Alcarràs; Alaúda Ruiz de Azúa’s Lullaby; Álvaro Gago’s Matria; Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20.000 Species Of Bees; Carlos Vermut’s Manticore, and San Sebastian’s Golden Shell winner The Rye Horn, by Jaione Camborda.
In terms of buying international films, Trojaola says: “We look for cinema for all audiences. Our interests range from commercial with a well-known cast, for a mainstream audience, to prestige cinema, perhaps for a smaller audience, but also key for that particular segment of the audience. It’s essential to be able to offer cinema that makes it worthwhile to sign up with us and stay.”
Among recent acquired titles Trojaola highlights The Kings Of The World, EO, Holy Spider, Close, Decision To Leave and Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All At Once. “We manage to be a window for most of the relevant international independent films. In general, the films that work best for us are the ones that have worked best in theatres. It’s proportional, not so much about where they are from.”
Spanish independent SVoD streamer Filmin “usually acquires about 40 titles a year, of which we release 30% theatrically” says Jaume Ripoll. Most of them premiered in festivals, including the Atlantida Mallorca Film Fest which is run by Filmin.
Filmin has weekly premieres, “some of them from Spanish distribution companies but a lot of them from international distributors like Charades to mk2, Protagonist or Altitude, Studio Canal, Rocket Science, Alpha Violet, Luxbox, to quote a few”.
Recent acquisitions include Gábor Reisz’s Explanation For Everything, from the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival; Venice competition title Lubo by Giorgio Diritti; Locarno’s Special Jury Prize winner Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World by Radu Jude; and Blaga’s Lessons by Stephan Komandarev, which won the Grand Prix and best actress award at Karlovy Vary.
Asked about the titles that work best with subscribers, Ripoll says: “If you have a remake of a Kurosawa film written by a Literature Nobel Prize winner [Kazuo Ishiguro] like Living, you can hardly go wrong. There have also been surprises like Aleem Khan’s After Love, which has been very successful. And other titles that have done really well are Radu Jude’s Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn or Dominik Moll’s The Night Of The 12th.
Ripoll says its viewers are similar to theatrical audience for independent films. “They look for good films. Filmin and the Atlantida Film Fest prioritises European cinema but we are also open to films from Asia or Latin America whether they are European co-productions or not, like Pham Thien An’s Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell or Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, to quote two recent examples from Cannes.”
Merci also invited Spanish TV networks to the table, as well as representatives from the country’s autonomous communities’ TV stations as well as Radio Televisión Española (RTVE).
Mila Mayi, director of programme acquisitions at RTVE, welcomes the opportunties that Merci offers to learn more about the latest acquisitions of independent Spanish distributors.
She says the natural programming slot for independent films on its network is the channel La 2, on Saturday evening. “On average we buy under 50 titles yearly. What tends to work best is European cinema, in particular French, British and lately also Scandinavian cinema like The Worst Person In The World, American indie cinema and some Asian titles with hits like Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite.”
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