Cinesud Network

CINESUD is an international project in which film societies and film society federations all over the world take part. Such a relevant project needs a full explanation to give sense to the whole idea in order to introduce you to the diverse possibilities in the fields of distribution and showing for the film societies of the world. CINESUD is not new for all film societies because some of them have already shown films in their film festivals inCatalonia (Spain), FIKE (ÉvoraPortugal), RegggioCalabria (Italy) and Medellín (Colombia). But after the Film Society International Meetings inMatera (Italy) 2004 and the Latin American Film Society Meeting inSao Paulo andSanta Maria (Brazil) 2005, many countries have shown their interest in this project and the number of available films on catalogue has also increased as well as the theoretical and philosophical framework that surrounds this project.

WHAT IS CINESUD?

Introduction CINESUD was an original idea from the Catalan Federation of Film Societies to ensure the distribution of independent films with the aim of showing them free of charge in Film Societies and other alternative cinemas. Inheriting the spirit and the name of this project, a group of Latin American Film Societies have taken up again the idea of creating a distribution network of independent films to be shown free by Film Societies in our countries. Currently Film Societies and Federations from Catalonia (Spain), Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Nepal, Brazil, Morocco, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Peru, New Zealand, and others.

Methodology.- Each Film Society or National Federation of Film Societies chooses several films (feature films, short films, animation films, video clips, etc.) and proposes their authors to give up distribution and showing rights with non-profit making aims. Our suggestion is to use Creative Commons licences.

–         Each Film Society presents to the remaining members their selected films to be added to the CINESUD catalogue. To do so, they provide DVD copies, film credits and any other material (pictures, trailers, etc.) suitable to introduce the film to Film Societies.

–          The above information is added to a catalogue available athttp://plataformacinesud.wordpress.com  under the “Catalogues” section.
– Film Societies or other associations interested in the films available in theCINESUD catalogue should contact directly the Film Society or Federation of Film Societies referred in the credits of each film and agree the distribution mechanisms of the film copies. In the public showing of the films the original credits of the author should be kept and shown (as agreed in the Creative Commons licence). Also CINESUD network should be mentioned as well as the name of the Federation or Film Society that proposed the film in question.

This is a worldwide project and we hope many nationalities see themselves represented in it. 

CINESUD TECHNOLOGICAL MEANShttp://plataformacinesud.wordpress.com

The web page where CINESUD catalogue is published and is constantly updated is http://plataformacinesud.wordpress.com, the worldwide film society web. This catalogue, updated on a daily basis, will be soon improved to include new menus to allow film festival programmers to search for films by nationality, author or other key word filters. 

WHAT ARE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCES?

Everybody is concerned about showing rights and nobody wants to have legal trouble. CINESUD project, under the same philosophy of free software, is based on freeing some rights on behalf of the author.

Creative Commons licences are an alternative way of distributing contents (texts, pictures, songs, films).  According to these licences, the authors can free some of the rights related to their works while they keep some others for themselves. This process opposes to the traditional “all rights reserved” copyright model allowing a greater freedom in the use of contents and permits a wider access to cultural goods for everybody.

One of the licences available at Creative Commons is Non-Commercial Attribution – No derivations in which the author allows to copy, distribute, display, and perform his work under the following conditions:
– To attribute the work as specified by the author or licensor.
– To not use his work for commercial purposes.
– To not alter, transform, or build upon his work.

More information
– Official Creative Commons web page – http://creativecommons.org/

– Open Source Movies.  www.archives.org/details/movies 

AVAILABLE FILMS SO FAR

The number of available films is continuously increasing.  An itinerant Film Festival will also be created and added from the suggestions that came out from what each Film Society or Federation considers the best of the catalogue.

We are always dealing with non-commercial cinema, basically with documentaries and short films where the keyword is UNPUBLISHED. Some works have won international awards at film festivals, but they have never had distribution outside their countries of origin. You can also appreciate a huge number of Latin American titles in the catalogue, but this will change as soon as Asian countries start to contribute to the project. Subtitles are considered a handicap that needs to be solved because not all works are subtitled in English or French.

In any case, CINESUD will become a source of contents for all those Film Societies all over the world interested in the project. The next step will be to open the catalog to more organizations, using different kinds of membership to support, finance and develope the project.

Somos una red de difusión audiovisual, encabezada por un grupo de cineclubs iberoamericanos bajo el auspicio de la Federación Internacional de Cine Clubes

Visión

Creemos que existen miles de películas que no encuentran una salida para ser vistas y que se quedan en los cajones sin la posibilidad de encontrar su espectador. Por lo tanto queremos reunir a creador y exhibidor para hacer circular un material de gran calidad que, de otra manera, no llegaría a ser exhibido fuera de su país.

Objetivos

– Favorecer la libre circulación de materiales cinematográficos entre los cineclubes y otros espacios de difusión del cine.
– Dar visibilidad internacional a las obras de autores locales que no tienen cabida en los circuitos tradicionales de exhibición.
– Retribuir a nuestros autores económica, estadística y documentalmente sobre dónde, cuándo y cómo se exhiben sus obras.

Presentación en imágenes del proyecto CineSud (via Flickr)

Estrategia

Mantener una buena política de comunicación entre CINESUD, los cineclubs y otros exhibidores y los autores tanto los que ya forman parte del catálogo como los posibles candidatos.

Integrar las nuevas tecnologías con el objetivo general de que todos los que participen en CINESUD tengan la posibilidad real de intervenir en todos los procesos.

Promover nuestra concepción de “sesión integral cineclub” para las proyecciones CINESUD. Nosotros la entendemos como una sesión que debe incorporar una hoja de sala, en la que debe realizarse presentación y en la que, con posterioridad a la proyección se debe realizar un debate en el que el público pueda expresarse con total libertad.

Creative Commons es un tipo de licencia que permite liberar algunos derechos y que es para nosotros el marco ideal para difundir nuestras obras siempre bajo el concepto del “non theatrical”. CINESUD se acoge a la campaña internacional por los Derechos del público, basada en la Carta de Tabor firmada en Checoslovaquia el 18 de septiembre de 1987 por más de 75 países en una reunión internacional de la FICC. Es quizá uno de nuestros principales objetivos, el defender los 10 puntos de la carta. La materialización de todo el proceso llega con las presencias y proyecciones de los films del catálogo en diferentes partes del mundo. Es lo que finalmente da sentido a todo el trabajo realizado.

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