The seventh edition of Conecta Fiction & Entertainment was presented this morning at the IMEX-Instituto Cultural de Mexico en España. The event, with Mexico and Poland as this year's focus countries, will be held from 26 to 29 June at the Palacio de Congresos El Greco in Toledo. The press conference was introduced by Jaime Vigna, Deputy Director of IMEX, who welcomed media members, authorities representing Castilla-La Mancha's government, and other collaborating entities and institutions. The Regional Minister of Economy, Business and Employment of Castilla-La Mancha, Patricia Franco, said that Conecta 2022 "has had a significant impact on the growth of the audiovisual industry in our territory: so far in 2023, we have managed 53 productions in Castilla-La Mancha, a third of them entertainment programs".
Event's Director, Géraldine Gonard, then gave an overview of the program, highlighting that "we will offer an in-deep analysis of Mexico and Poland as focus countries; workshops to optimize budgets and develop new funding models; keynotes in which trends such as eSports, gen Z or audio series will be discussed; and panels dedicated to the so-called warrior platforms, i.e., local and regional platforms that compete with global streamers."
Finally, Gonard passed the floor briefly to the representatives of the institutions and entities collaborating in this seventh edition of Conecta Fiction & Entertainment: Fabia Buenaventura, Head of the Audiovisual Sector Department of ICEX-Invest in Spain; Carlos Rosado, President of the Spain Film Commission; Silvia Pérez de Pablos, Institutional Director of Audiovisual at Fundación SGAE; Curro Royo, Vice-President of DAMA; Ana Pineda, Managing Director of ALMA; and Carmen Amores, General Director of the public broadcaster CMMedia and President of FORTA. Gonard thanked all of them for their support and collaboration to make possible what is expected to be the best-attended edition of all those held to date.
2023 HIGHLIGHTS
The leading Spanish content distributors have confirmed their participation in this pioneering section of the Conecta Fiction & Entertainment 2023 program. Executives from Atresmedia Televisión, Filmax, Movistar Plus+ International, Onza Distribution, and The Mediapro Studio will showcase their latest content to a select delegation of top-level buyers and programmers from Europe and America. The Showcase will be completed with several exclusive networking activities encouraging dialogue and interaction between Spanish sales agents and international delegates.
A special session before the Awards Gala of Conecta Fiction & Entertainment (to be held on Wednesday, 28th at 7:30 pm at the Auditorio Eurocaja Rural de Toledo) will exclusively premiere a sneak peek of "Time Zone," a new entertainment format created by Zeppelin and Endemol Shine Nederland (Banijay) for HBO Max, to be launched on the platform this summer. The presentation will feature Miguel Martín, Managing Director of Zeppelin, and Miguel Salvat, VP of Original Programming and Commissioning Editor HBO Max Iberia, to discuss this all-new show with a video game aesthetic never seen before on television.
Moreover, music and entertainment company Warner Music Spain will recognize a project from the Pitch Music, Copro, or High-End sessions with a prize consisting of three days of Dolby Atmos sound studio at its creative hub The Music Station in Madrid, to contribute to the creation of promotional materials (teaser, trailer, music over end credits) for the winning project.
Finally, the Balearic archipelago, specifically the island of Ibiza, continues collaborating with Conecta Fiction & Entertainment to promote itself as a privileged maritime territory for audiovisual production. Through a unique collaboration in this seventh edition of the event, the island will highlight the uniqueness of its offer to attract filming, which includes 30% tax reimbursement, more than 200 km of coastline, nine lighthouses, seven ports, and fifty sandy, rocky, and gravel beaches.