The Vancouver International Film Festival’s Moving Image Institute has announced a new partnership to launch an exchange between the Málaga Talent program and VIFF Catalyst, new talent programs associated with Spain’s Málaga Film Festival.
The first filmmaker selected from this year’s Catalyst participants is Mexican-born filmmaker Diego Minor Martínez, who currently lives in Vancouver. The Malaga Talent program is aimed at filmmakers under the age of 30 and is conducted in Spanish. Martínez will travel to Spain to participate early next year, while a participant from Málaga Talent’s 2027 cohort will arrive in Vancouver for Catalyst later that year. There is no age limit for Catalyst.
This exchange is designed not only to give filmmakers access to new markets and potential collaborators, but also to expose them to a different culture and industry at an early stage of their careers, where international relationships can potentially shape future projects.
“This is a way to offer that participant a new experience, connecting them with a market that might be interesting to explore,” says Ana Belén Asfura, director of the Moving Image Institute. Diversity.
Asfura, who is attending Malaga this year as part of Mafiz, the festival’s industry programme, says the relationship stemmed from discussions with the team there, including Mafiz director Annabelle Aramburu. “Hopefully this partnership will pave the way for other issues we have discussed with Malaga in terms of bringing a delegation of producers and companies from Spain next year.”
This change removes some financial barriers that would make international opportunities such as flights, accommodation and meals inaccessible for new filmmakers.
The Catalyst program consists of 10 sessions, each lasting approximately three hours, covering areas such as production, grants, distribution, marketing and post-production. Attendees will also be able to visit local studios and access VIFF’s full programming, including industry events, panels, masterclasses, the AMP Music Media Summit and film screenings.
Asfura sees international collaboration as increasingly important, not only as a funding strategy, but also because the target audience is becoming more global and culturally diverse.
“If you think about every country, we have a multicultural background everywhere,” he says. “We have to try to meet the needs of the audience.”
He argues that creating new partnerships and relationships around the world ultimately helps meet the needs of the audience.
“I think it’s more of a globalized vision that we have. And we understand that’s what growing as a creator is about. It’s about knowing other cultures, knowing other ways to tell stories.”
There are differences in the way various countries and cultures tell stories, and through posts like this, filmmakers have the opportunity to take new approaches.
This is the first partnership with an international film festival, but Asfura hopes this is only the first step towards bringing more in the coming years.
“We have a great group of Indigenous creators here, and I think it would be extremely beneficial for them to participate in other programs that focus on Indigenous communities in other places, like Norway or Brazil, for example.”
It’s important for him to see filmmakers grab these opportunities at an early stage because “you have more room to grow,” he says.