931 projects will be eligible for the 2nd edition of the Film Academy Residencies program

Of the applications received, 84% (784) are linked to Madrid and 38.2% (356) have been submitted by women.

A total of 931 projects will opt for the second edition of the program Film Academy Residences, an initiative to help film creators that is carried out with the support of the Madrid City Council.

After the application submission period ended last Tuesday, the participation data shows the following figures: 1,194 applicants were registered, of which 931 presented the required documentation, which translates into an increase of 20% compared to the year past since in this second call, short or medium-length film projects were not admitted, which in the first edition accounted for 20% of the registrations.

Of the 931 proposals, 571 have been presented by men (61.3%); 356 by women (38.2%), which represents a slight increase compared to 2019; and 4 by people identified with another gender. Furthermore, 784 (84.2%) of the projects are artistically linked to the city of Madrid and 52 (5.5%) correspond to academics. Due to the nature of the two entities that promote the program, the bases include priority for projects related to the city of Madrid and advantages of access to the program for academics.

And 78.3% of the projects presented are feature films (729) and 21.7% are television series (202), the latter format which has registered an increase of 4% compared to the first edition. Fiction (768 projects), documentaries (100) and animation (63) are, in this order, the categories chosen by the applicants, of whom 86.1% (802) are of Spanish origin, and the rest come from countries such as Argentina (16), Italy (15), Venezuela (15) and Mexico (12).

The president of the Film Academy, Mariano Barroso, and the vice mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, have shown their satisfaction with the number of proposals registered and the countries represented, 30. Record figures that confirm the success of the program "at a time when film activity is experiencing an unprecedented strike," they highlighted.

Professionals from the sector will form the two evaluation committees of the proposals presented and will select the 20 finalist projects that will benefit from this second edition, which will take place from September 2020 to June 2021. The chosen projects will be announced before July 31 of this year.

The Film Academy Residencies will provide 20 emerging or professional filmmakers (directors and screenwriters), national or foreign, with scholarships for the development of their audiovisual projects.

For the second consecutive year, the Academy headquarters in Madrid will be the space in which this program will be held, which will offer amonthly economical transportation to the creators; support for travel expenses for those residents who live outside the community of Madrid; advice from mentors, physical work space, immersion in the activities of the Academy, Madrid Film Office and Cineteca, and permanent meetings with the industry, among other facilities. The mentors will be chosen based on the profile of the selected projects.

As a novelty, in this second edition the number of selected residents will increase from fifteen to twenty. It also increases the monthly financial contribution they will receive.