– Update 06/25/2016 –
Yesterday Friday, one week after the publication of this post, the Film Academy published a new corrected list of festivals.
The new list includes international documentary festivals and adds the Mostra de Cine Latinoaméricano de Lleida to the list of Spanish festivals, increasing from 31 to 32 festivals.
Yesterday Thursday we learned about the new Rules for the Goya Awards for short films and the new festival lists, which are increasingly important for designing festival strategies.
As has been customary in recent years, they are changing again, both in general requirements and in festivals. Let us proceed step by step.
In the general requirements we already find an important change:
2.2. It will be an essential condition for the registration of a short film in any of the three categories that the date of the nationality certificate be prior to the start of the festival where the award was obtained or the first selection of the festival that allows registration, according to articles 4, 5 and 6 of these Rules.
That is, we must have the nationality certificate before the festival takes place, this is already a problem for many short films. Most wait to apply for the classification license and nationality certificate until they achieve preselection, but this year they would be excluded. For example, if a short film selected at Gijón or Seminci in 2015 did not have nationality before the start of these festivals, even having won the Award, it could not compete for a Goya.
Furthermore, with this measure, many short films that applied for the classification license and nationality “after the fact” would no longer request it, with the resulting detriment to maintaining control of annual production and encouraging producers to apply for the classification license and nationality from the ICAA.
In the requirements for Fiction short films, we find several changes:
- A success: In the list of national festivals for fiction, the Award that preselects at each festival is mentioned, thus ending misunderstandings.
- The number of festivals has also been reduced, now all festivals are active and exist.
- The possibility of being selected in the “Official Section” in at least 6 festivals on the list is opened: although in principle it is a good idea, it may cause some problems, for example, the Official Section at Seminci usually includes very few Spanish short films, which have their own space in La noche del corto español, which is now excluded from the Goyas.
- The selection in a list of international festivals is maintained, which coincides with the Oscars list.
The most significant changes are found in Documentary and Animation. Now, like Fiction, they must also win an award at a festival from a list, or at least three selections at festivals on the list (three fewer than in Fiction).
Let us examine the case of Documentary:
- The list of national festivals is very similar to that of Fiction, only with some festivals dedicated to the genre, of the 29 festivals on the list, only 4 are specifically documentary: Alcances, DocumentaMadrid, MiradasDoc and Punto de Vista. In the case of general festivals, there is only a Documentary award at 5 others: Málaga, Huesca, Lanzarote, Octubre Corto and Torrelavega. That is, of 29 national festivals on the list for documentary short films, they are only guaranteed to win an award at 9 of them.
- The case of the international list is even worse: it turns out that the Oscars list for Fiction and Animation short films is taken as a reference and not the Documentary list, as would be logical and reasonable. Therefore, the most important festivals such as IDFA, Leipzig, Vision du Reel, Cinema du Reel, Hot Docs, etc. are excluded.
In the case of Animation something similar happens at national festivals:
- The festivals dedicated to the genre are also 4, 3D Wire, Animac, Animayo and Mundos Digitales; with specific awards only at 6: Alicante, Málaga, Lanzarote, Sitges, Torrelavega and Octubre Corto. Therefore, as with Documentary, the animation short film is only guaranteed entry to the Goyas through 10 of the 33 festivals on its list.
- In the case of the international list, like Fiction, it coincides with the Oscars list.
In short, we return to a new change of rules, with some successes, but with problems and serious errors that should be corrected as soon as possible.
What do you think of the new changes? (you can comment on the post).