BUENOS AIRES — The Rio Film Festival’s industry sidebar RioMarket kicked off Friday, one day after the festival’s Opening Film, Thierry Ragobert’s 3D Amazonia, premiered in the Odeon Theater in Rio de Janeiro’s Cinelandia district.
Rio Market’s program slate features workshops and seminars, business rounds, and the RioScreenings, for commercialization of new projects — a key venture for Brazilian sales given the festival’s display of local world premieres such as Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimaraes’ The Man of the Crowd, Kiko Goifman’s Periscope, and Vicente Ferraz’s Road 47 – The Mountain.
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Close to 100 industry experts will host workshops and seminars on issues such as production, special effects, digitalization, design and marketing. The international guest list includes sound specialist and three-time Oscar winner Christopher Newman (The Godfather), RealD 3D’s Gary Sharp, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, composer Tod Machover from MIT Media Lab, production designer Alex McDowell, Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman and Latin American Training Center CEO Steve Solot.
Free, open seminars will also be lead by Matthew Libatique (Iron Man, The Black Swan) on cinematography; Daniel Parker (Cloud Atlas, Zero Dark Thirty) on make-up design, and Judy Smith (inspirer of TV show Scandal) on Communication Strategies.
Brazilian co-productions are to be a strong subject in this year’s RioMarket, with panels focusing on specific cases with countries like France (Amazonia), Mexico, South Africa, Vietnam, Argentina, and the U.K. (Stephen Daldry’s Trash, shot in Brazil and co-produced with Fernando Meirelles’ 02 Filmes). England will be a particular star of the Rio Market, as a party of a dozen British film professionals will land in Rio as part of a BFI special delegation.
Regulation, the future of the business, and even business-ready strategies for the upcoming World Cup will also be present in the conference list. The new Law 12.485 that forces TV networks to buy local programming will be the focus of a panel, together with issues like digital piracy, new opportunities for 3D, and the market growth of VOD.
Rio Market will run Sept 27 – Oct 9, at the Armazem da Utopia, Rio Fest’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.
