10.30.06

» BNDES announces a list of the 20 films selected for support in 2006


The president of BNDES, Demian Fiocca, announced this Monday, October 30, along with the minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, a list of the 20 films selected in the process of Public Selection of Cinematographic Projects for 2006. For support in current year, R$ 12.8 million was destined to feature films of the styles Fiction, Animation and Documentary, under categories Production and Finalization. This is R$ 2.8 million over last year. Since 1995, when the program was created, the Bank has invested R$ 93.4 million in cinematographic production, through the Audiovisual Law.

The solemnity of presenting the selected films was attended by the secretary of Audiovisual, Ministry of Culture [MinC], Orlando Senna; the executive secretary of MinC, Juca Ferreira, and the director of Sponsorships of Secom, Roberto Nascimento. The solemnity was also attended by the members of the Selecting Commission and selected moviemakers. 

Fiocca praised the Commission's selecting process, highlighting the participation of technicians of the sector, persons not belonging to the institution, which in his opinion contributed to a critical evaluation and from different points of view, necessary to the success of a film. 

The president of BNDES commented that one of the factors that most influenced the selection was the public potential for the films and its perspective of performance in the market. For him, a work of art only fulfils its function on the extent that it is well accepted by the public. Demian emphasized, however, that BNDES performance in the culture field, as well as in the social field, is more connected to the mission than to the financial return. "The Bank invests with incentives from the federal policy to Cinema, obtains a reimbursement from Income Tax, but its is mainly the return on restructuring the sector that moves us. Cinema in Brazil has a great quality, and although it has suffered during some periods, like in the beginning of the 90's decade, it has been growing, with an annual production of good films." 

Fiocca reminded that within the ten years of existence of the BNDES program it has already supported over a hundred films with quality, some of them even competing to the Oscar. 

For the minister Gilberto Gil, the merit of the selection presented today was "the list of standards, which accomplish this capacity of comprising the whole range: in the creative sense, in the economic sense and in the regional territorial sense". 

In the opinion of the minister, the BNDES program for Cinema "strengthens the position of the Bank and other state companies as institutions responsible for taking a more republican and more horizontal view of the Culture, including the various sectors of the society into this discussion of what is an Audiovisual and Cinema policy". 

Each producer could enroll up to three films (two under Production and one under Finalization); and each director could participate of up to two films enrolled (one in Production and one in Finalization). In addition to the script - or storyboard, for the Animation style - and the curriculums of the producer and the director, the participants addressed to BNDES a Business Plan and an Institutional Return Plan. 

166 projects were enrolled, and the external members of the Selecting Commission chose 30 films. The persons responsible for the finalists did an oral exposition of the projects to all members of the Commission, which selected the 20 winners. 

The standards for analysis were the quality and awarding to the script or the storyboard; the potential to attract the public, and cultural impact; capacity of performance and history of success of the producer; professional capacity and adequacy of the technical team; consistency and adequacy of the Business Plan; consistency and adequacy of the Production or Finalization Plan; confirmed existence of other investments and partnerships, including agreement or interest in distribution to movie theaters in Brazil; and Institutional Return Plan for investments. 

From the 20 films selected, 16 have guaranteed distribution and another 4 have letters of intentions from distributors, which guarantees that the films will be presented to the public. 

In accordance with the rules of the announcement, the Commission decided to establish two levels of support. R$ 1 million was given to films of high budget of the category Production, of the styles Animation and Fiction. Films enrolled in the category Finalization, films in the category Production of the style Documentary and films of the same category of the style Fiction and with a lower budget received a support of R$ 400 thousand. 

The result of the announcement follows the regional balance, of the style and category of projects enrolled. Of the 166 initial competitors, 52% came from Rio, 33% from São Paulo and 15% from other States. Received support: 11 projects from Rio de Janeiro, 6 from São Paulo, 1 from Rio/SP, 1 from Rio/Bahia and 1 from Rio Grande do Sul. 

Among the films selected, there are names renowned on cinema and TV, like Guel Arraes, Daniel Filho and Sandra Werneck, and also representatives of the authorial cinema, like Jorge Bodanzky, Lucia Murat and Sérgio Bianchi, and also moviemakers that began gaining space, as it is the case of Cristiana Grumbach, who was launched with the successful Documentary "Morro da Conceição". Of total projects, 14 were for Production and 6 for Finalization. 

Grumbach expressed her satisfaction with the selection of her film, "As Cartas". There, the documentarian will approach the history of persons that received letters written by the spirit of Chico Xavier. "To be supported by BNDES is definitive for the realization of the film. This selection qualify us so that other institutions and enterprises support us, too", she said. 

The projects selected will have to present all the documentation required within 30 days, counted from the disclosure of this result. 

Selection of the projects was in charge of a Commission composed of nine members, of which three are from BNDES, one from the Ministry of Culture and five selected among professionals from all segments of the audiovisual industry. In the first phase of the selection participated only members outside the Bank. 

The current year Commission had the following attendance: from BNDES, the assistant to the president for matters of Culture, Sérgio Sá Leitão; the head of the Department of Economy and Culture, Luciane Fernandes Gorgulho, and Marcio Bernardo Spata, from BNDES Capital Market area. 

External representatives: 

Leopoldo Nunes (DF) - Assistant to the Executive Secretary and former head of Cabinet of the Secretary of Audiovisual, Ministry of Culture. Author of various awarded short films, was also president of Associação de Documentaristas de São Paulo [ABD-SP] and national ABD. 

Marcelo Cajueiro (RJ) - Journalist expert in cinema and TV with a master degree by the School of Journalism of the University of Columbia, New York. Since 1995, he is the correspondent in Brazil of the American magazine Variety. He was one of the creators, in 2003, of the award Prêmio de Cinema da Associação dos Correspondentes de Imprensa Estrangeira no Brasil [ACIE]; he integrated the selecting commission of feature films of the Project Petrobras Cultural of 2004/2005; and received the Telecine Award 2005 for the international correspondent that most contributed for the dissemination of the Brazilian culture abroad. 

Isabela Cribari (PE) - Documentarian, cinema producer and director of culture of Fundação Joaquim Nabuco since 2003. She recently launched the book "Produção Cultural e Propriedade Intelectual". She is also a director of SET Produções Audiovisuais, by which she accumulated over 150 awards in her productions. 

Bruno Wainer (RJ) - He performed several functions at the production of films until he started to dedicate to the distribution sector. In 1991, he associated to Lumière, a company leader in independent distribution of films in Brazil, which, in 2002, reached the leadership in the market of national films in the country. In 2006, he founded a new distributor, DOWNTOWN FILMS, which has already distributed several films. 

Adhemar de Oliveira (SP) - Sociologist, for over ten years he worked as a cinematographic expositor, first at the distributor Filmes do Estação and presently at Mais Filmes. He is one of the partners of the chain Unibanco Artplex, which has 28 movie theaters in the Cities of Porto Alegre, Curitiba, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. 

Kleber Mendonça Filho (PE) - Movie critic for "Jornal do Commercio" and also a moviemaker. Among his works are documentaries, commercials, video clips, experimental films, among them the medium film "Enjaulado" (Super8/Betacam). Double awarded ("A Menina do Algodão" and "Vinil Verde") at the festival of Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal, where were exposed his latest films: "Noite de Sexta, Manhã de Sábado", and the documentary "Crítico". 

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