EULAC Cinema: promoting audio-visual cooperation on youth, gender and diversity

The EU and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have vibrant audio-visual sectors. Their co-creation projects already count on multi-award winning movies and show the many values that the two regions shares. The EU-LAC Cinema campaign will support audio-visual cooperation between the two regions with a focus on youth, gender and diversity.

Activities include opportunities for young talents, online and in-site screenings of EU-LAC co-productions, exchanges and networking opportunities among EU and LAC film professionals and policymakers in some of the major international film festivals.

We aim to strengthen synergies among the many events and organizations that already bridge the two continents creative industries in the cinema and visual sector.

This campaign is an international cultural relations initiative included in the Bi-regional Roadmap 2023-2025 of the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

EU-LAC Cinema is one of the initaitives of the EU-CELAC Bi-regional Roadmap 2023-2025, presented last year at the Summit between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Brussels.This roadmap is an important milestone ahead of the forthcoming Summit  in 2025 in Colombia.

EU-LAC Cinema supports, promotes and gives visibility to EU-LAC co-creation and collaboration in the audio-visual sector (cinema, animation, tv, etc) with a focus on youth, gender and diversity. It is based on shared values, intercultural and policy dialogue and long-lasting people-to-people networks among the two regions.

The overall mission of this initiative is to reinforce EU-LAC bi-regional cooperation in international cultural relations, promoting the visibility and relevance of the EU-LAC bi-regional partnership, its shared values, its socioeconomic and people-to-people dimensions.

Objectives include:

1.    Support and promote European and Latin American and Caribbean contemporary cinema and wider audio-visual co-creation and collaboration, including by fostering exchanges and networks among EU and LAC film-makers, film professionals and policy makers, with a focus on emerging talents.

2.    Increase the visibility and the access of the public (local and online audiences) to EU-LAC cinema productions with a focus on youth, gender and diversity.

3.    Contribute to strengthen synergies and provide visibility to ongoing EU cultural relations and cultural diplomacy efforts between the EU and the LAC regions.

Actions include:

Collaboration with relevant EU-LAC cultural events for large audiences (particularly International Film Festivals), with the EU European Film Festivals organised by EU Delegations, and with LAC and EU countries’ cultural initiatives with an audiovisual component.

This includes projections and activities relevant to the thematic focus on youth, gender and diversity, as well as workshops, events and other spaces for dialogue, collaboration, co-creation and professional / people-to-people networks.

Online tools have also been developed to promote the objectives above, to encourage people-to-people exchanges and to reach out to new audiences in both regions.