Cordoba, Argentina. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)´s Philippine Trade and Investment Center (PTIC) in Latin America, together with the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) and Agencia ProCordoba of Argentina organized a two-day conference of a virtual roundtable and online business meetings between Philippine and Argentine companies to discuss opportunities in co-production, distribution, content, and intellectual property exchange in the film and television production industry.
Mr. Jorge Marcotegui, President of Agencia ProCordoba opened the event with welcome remarks and a brief of the strengths of the Cordoba region. Philippine Ambassador to Argentina, H.E. Linglingay Lacanlale, in her remarks, stressed the importance of the event given the common colonial past of and the cultural similarities that bind both countries. Vichael Angelo D. Roaring, Commercial Counsellor and Head of the Philippine Trade and Investment Center, mentioned the efforts made in recent years to strengthen commercial ties with Argentina through business missions to the South American country and the interest in exploring opportunities in the audiovisual sector ¨We are opening up a new frontier for the Philippine Creative sector. We have seen how Philippine content has had a good market reception in countries like the Dominican Republic, Ecuardor, and Peru. With this forum, we want to open up our sector to more opportunities for distribution and partnership with their Argentine counterparts.¨ An attached agency of the Philippine Embassy in Mexico, PTIC Mexico is the DTI´s trade and investment promotion office covering the entire Latin American region.
Ms. Liza Diño, Chairman and CEO of the FDCP opened her presentation describing the common cultural heritage, the Latin TV series that arrived to the Philippines in the 90´s and the consequent development of the Philippines´own home-grown television series. Ms. Diño presented an overview of Philippine cinema and briefed the group on the current co-production incentives available. Contenido Filipinas (Philippine Content), a specially-curated showcase reel of works by the Philippine companies participating at the roundtable was shown. This was followed by Ms. Diño´s roll-call of the Philippine e-delegation.
Adding spark to the first day session was the presence of industry luminaries including internationally acclaimed director Brillante Mendoza and filmmaker Quark Henares.
The event was attended by 28 Philippine companies from the sector as well as over the same number of Argentine counterparts. Among companies represented were ABS-CBN, Epic Media, Viva Communications, Solar Pictures, Black Ops Studios Asia, Solar Entertainment Corp., Artikulo Uno, Center Stage Productions, Betsy D Film Entertainment, MZet TV, Globe Studios, Spring Films, UXS, Reality Entertainment, Star Cinema, The Idea First Company, GMA, Daluyong Studios, Ten17P, and TBA Studios.
Information on programs and incentives from the Argentine and Cordoba side was covered by Ms Cecilia Hernandez, President of Polo Audiovisual de Cordoba and Ms Lorena Quevedo, Director of the Camara de Productores Audiovisuales de Cordoba (CAPAC), the Chamber that gathers Cordoba´s Film and TV companies, which showed a counterpart reel of Argentine content.
The second day was devoted to a series of online business meetings between the Philippine firms and their Cordoba counterparts.♦
Date of Release: 19 March 2021