The audiovisual industry in the whole world it is in a moment of fullness, it does not stop growing and diversifying. The crisis resulting from the pandemic made it clear that countries require new engines of the economy and the creative sectors, particularly the audiovisual sector, have the possibility of moving large amounts of money in a short period of time. For that reason they meet the profile to become economic engines.
However, for this growth to be healthy, it must be accompanied by public policies that are not only solid but also flexible, in such a way that they can adapt to the changing reality of the industry and the potential of its contents, formats and scope.
This was discussed this Saturday in the conversation “Public policies for a robust audiovisual industry”, which took place within the framework of the 37th edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival and was attended by Pierre Vandoorne, Netflix’s director of public policy affairs for Mexico; Jorge Riggen, filmmaker and director of the Filma program in Jalisco; Manuel Mandujano, head of Technologies and Creative Industries at the British Embassy in Mexico, and Steve Solot, associate for Latin America at the specialized consultancy agency for creative industries Olsberg SPI.
In order to understand the public problems on which political decisions will have to be made, said Pierre Vandoorne, it is necessary to develop data collection mechanisms, that is, to generate increasingly focused information that allows an in-depth knowledge of the industry, its needs and public policies necessary.
“We all have opinions about what is right, what is wrong, about what the audiovisual sector or the cinema of a country or the industry needs and what has to be done to promote it. No solid public policy is going to be effective if it is not based on some type of verifiable evidence”, said the representative of Netflix. The issue, he added, “has to be prioritized, there has to be a political decision, there have to be people in the regional and federal governments who consider this a priority.”
Largely thanks to the emergence of content platforms On demand, audiovisual consumption has become heterogeneous, that is, it seeks diversity. We audiences have reaccustomed ourselves to diverse content.
“Diversity is an intrinsic value but it is also an important economic value. Despite everything, the impact of the audiovisual industry in our countries is not sufficiently recognized in the field of public policy in a field that could be promoted and multiplied with adequate public policies, and it is largely due to this lack information,” he remarked.
For his part, Steve Solot declared that “we are witnessing a boom in the production of audiovisual content and that boom was already happening before covid-19, precisely with the arrival of the platforms of streamingalthough they increased dramatically during the pandemic and the demands for content production continue to increase.
The Olsberg SPI representative launched an approach: “yes, we are going through a production boom, but are there crews, are there enough teams to meet the demand? There are no teams trained to meet the demand. This point is a fundamental part of the ecosystem equation in order to guarantee a favorable environment to sustain a robust content industry.”
The 37th edition of the FICG organizes a series of tables on the film industry and on the gender perspective within it, which will take place throughout the week.