Conecta FICTION Reboot Unveils Program Preview

Conecta FICTION Reboot has revealed the first preview of its conference and panel program for the fourth edition of the event, which will take place both online and on-site.

This digital program, which will be exclusively available to professionals and press, will be held online from June 15 to 18. Conecta FICTION Reboot will also have an on-site edition from September 2 to 3, with the Baluarte Congress Center in Pamplona-Iruña, Navarra, Spain serving as its main venue.

During the opening ceremony and welcoming session for the online edition of Conecta FICTION 4, the finalists of the three calls for projects will be announced alongside the Pitch Fundación SGAE selected projects. The finalists of the two international calls for projects for fiction series in Conecta FICTION—Pitch Copro Series and Pitch Short-Form Series—will be presented during the on-site event. The finalist Pitch Clips projects, a call organized with the Spanish Scriptwriter’s Guild ALMA, will be streamed within the main on-site venue.

In September, the Pitch Fundación SGAE pitching session will also take place. In this session, projects in development from the Laboratory of Creation of TV Series of the Fundación SGAE will have the opportunity to be presented in front of an international and professional audience to raise interest and seek funding.

The organization of the event has formally validated 155 projects as eligible to participate in the Conecta FICTION 2020 international Pitch Copro Series and Pitch Short-Form Series sessions. The editorial committees have selected ten finalist projects for the Pitch Copro Series session and five finalist projects for the Pitch Short-Form Series session.

The conference program will begin with the Industry, Co-Productions and Talent Reboot—Rebooting the Industry: Jump the Next Curve of Shooting panel. It will address the international take-off of the first shootings, analyze the conditions under which these shootings will be managed, and the types of productions that will be carried out regarding format, budgets and complexity. There will be a revision of the new state aids in Spain after COVID-19 and the options available for private funding. It will be an analysis of the shooting and recording opportunities in Spain, which will connect live with Paris and New York. Javier Lacunza, managing director of NICDO (Navarre Infrastructure of Culture, Sports and Leisure) will moderate the panel. José Ignacio Pérez de Albéniz, partner and managing director of the Tax Law Firm ARPA; Sara Sevilla, coordinator of the Navarra Film Commission; Pedro Barbadillo, director of the Mallorca Film Commission; Natacha Mora, coordinator of Canary Islands Film; Pere Clavería, manager of the Terrassa Film Office; Denis Pedregosa, co-founder and producer of Babieka Films; and Stephan Bender, general delegate and CEO of Film France, will be featured on the panel.

Lacunza said: “From the department of Culture and Economic Development in Navarra, the Government appreciates how creative and digital industries, particularly the audiovisual industry, are working during this period of crisis, uncertainty, and difficult times, like many other industries. We understand that supporting this emerging industry in Navarra today is more necessary than ever. Moreover, the transformation of Conecta FICTION 4 into this new hybrid version of the event is a very creative and well-thought solution that will benefit not only the audiovisual industry, but also all the areas it directly influences. Conecta FICTION Reboot will be an opportunity to imitate the excellent services offered in Baluarte in a digital environment and to put Navarra again on the calendar of the main film and television events both nationally and internationally.”

The Rebooting the Co-Productions: The Delicate Art of Dating panel will address co-productions as a way of packaging and creating stories, and as a new creative process to take advantage of each partner’s strengths. France will be the main guest of this panel, which will be moderated by Géraldine Gonard, director of Conecta FICTION. It will also involve the participation of Thomas Anargyros, president of the French Producers’ Guild USPA and producer of Storia Television (France); Alice Delalande, head of fiction and animation at CNC (National Center of Images and Animated Images of France); Nathalie Biancolli, head of the international fiction department and acquisitions in the co-production department of France Télévisions; and Nicolas Deprost, producer and CEO of Wild Horses (France). They will share an online space with César Benítez, executive producer and CEO of Plano a Plano (Spain); and Diego Ramírez Schrempp, founding partner and executive producer of Dynamo (Colombia).

Another panel will aim to encourage writers to challenge the status quo to ensure that their voices are heard and to achieve more diversity of stories. It will be moderated by María Cervera, former Netflix content executive for Spanish original series. The panel will include the participation of Anxo Rodríguez, CEO of the talent incubator ESPotlight (Spain), Alberto Macías, president of the Spanish Scriptwriter’s Guild ALMA; and Natxo López, a Spanish scriptwriter.

Under the Conecta Wo(men): Diversity in Conecta FICTION brand, in collaboration with WAWA, an organization formed by female executives with key positions in the television industry in America, there will be a panel named Tips from Top TV Executive Women moderated by Carmen Larios, senior VP of content at A+E Networks (Latin America), and with the participation of Ana Paola Suárez, partner and producer at Jaque Content (Argentina); and Patricia Arpea, international business manager of Publispei (Italy).

Pedro Barbadillo, director of the Mallorca Film Commission, will moderate a case study about the British-German co-production The Mallorca Files, which will involve the participation of Ben Donald, executive producer and founder of Cosmopolitan Pictures (U.K.); and Mike Day, CEO of Palma Pictures (Spain).

The Conecta FICTION Reboot accreditation period for both event formats (online and/or on-site) is now open.