New Audiovisual Event FestCampos Launches in Brazil

In Campos do Jordão, the inaugural FestCampos Cultural launches this year in tandem with the 13th Winter Show, Brazil's CinemaCon.

New Audiovisual Event FestCampos Launches in Brazil

Taking place over May 13-22 in Brazil’s highest city, the verdant mountain resort town of Campos do Jordão, more akin to a northern European city thanks to its architecture and pine tree forests, the maiden FestCampos Cultural has launched this year in tandem with the 13th Winter Show, an annual Brazilian audiovisual industry event not unlike CinemaCon where exhibitors and distributors tout the latest releases.

The free activities include screenings of current releases, video projections and panels.

A key component of FestCampos is a series of 18 online interviews, FestCampos Talks, kicking off on May 21, comprising conversations with prominent international film and TV industry players who will expound on the practices and trends in content production and distribution.

“With the content boom generated by streaming platforms, it’s crucial to educate and empower producers to look into global business models,” says Fernanda Martins, curator and producer of FestCampos Talks.

“It’s not only for Brazilian professionals but is also for international players who want to learn how to tap the Brazilian marketplace,” she pointed out.

The 30-minute interviews have four main strands that aim to answer the questions below:

Narratives: With the advent of streaming platforms driving a boom in audiovisual content production, what are the challenges to creators and artists? How are local cultures becoming part of the new narratives?

Innovation: What will the new platforms that produce and distribute audiovisual content be like? How is the market organizing itself in terms of technology and financing?

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance):

How to use audiovisual tools to promote perse stories? Is it possible to sensitize society about global themes and foster real change in the world?

Music and Sounds for Audiovisual Content: What are the opportunities available for composers and creators when working with audiovisual content? What does the advent of the podcast and the audio series represent to the creative industry?

Among the highlights of FestCampos Talks is an interview with Henry Jenkins, conducted by Brazilian documentary filmmaker Leonardo Brant.

Jenkins, an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California, is deemed one of the most influential media and entertainment pundits of all time. His new project, Civic Imagination, advances the idea that in order to build a better world, we need to be able to reimagine it. He discusses how audiences, especially young ones, are progressively consuming more perse narratives and culturally representative content, in a phenomenon called “Pop Cosmopolitanism.” Skeptical that we will live in the metaverse, he posits that narratives will exist through “multiverses” or multiplatforms.

XR Entertainment Media Group CEO Jeff Andrick, interviewed by L.A.-based entertainment lawyer Fabio de Sa Cesnik, founding partner of the CQSFV Law firm and vice president of institutional relations in the Brazil-California Chamber of Commerce, discusses his three-decade experience in the financing of audiovisual content, explaining the original models of financing in Hollywood and new opportunities that have risen with the emergence of new streaming platforms, explaining the exponential growth in demand that has seen the industry become the billion dollar juggernaut that it is today.

Jon Kanak, CEO of Activist Artists Management, in a conversation with environmental lawyer Pedro Baracui, discusses, among other issues, how the growing awareness of creating “green sets” and adapting other common-sense measures in productions can contribute to the protection of the environment.

Other salient talks include one with Pedro Kos, the director of the Oscar-nominated Netflix doc “Lead Me Home” about the homeless crisis, particularly in California, who discusses how he secures financing, presents his projects to studios, the importance of international festivals in securing distribution and his thoughts on new narratives and formats.

Martins stresses the importance of changing the mindset of some local producers who have been used to public incentives, which have been struck down by the current government. “Many are now considering more global business models including equity, pre-sales and co-productions. The creation of FestCampos Talks as part of FestCampos has exactly this goal: To educate and empower Brazilian producers,” she notes.