Monday 23 March saw the start of the online edition of the Málaga Work in Progress (Málaga WIP) section of the Málaga Film Festival’s MAFIZ (Málaga Festival Industry Zone). The 23^rd edition of the film gathering should have unspooled in the Andalusian city last week, but like so many other film events, it has been forced to postpone proceedings until further notice (most likely in June), once the ongoing health crisis has passed. In this way, the festival is seeking to maintain its reputation as a meeting place for Ibero-American audiovisual content, as it has been for the last few years.

The director of the Málaga Film Festival, Juan Antonio Vigar, explained: “This is an event that’s better adapted to the current situation, where face-to-face meetings are replaced by virtual communication, by online platforms and workflows that allow us to make further progress with our objective: promoting, circulating and selling Spanish-language film abroad.” And so, Málaga WIP is presenting movies in the post-production phase to film professionals with the ultimate aim of topping up their funding, and it is doing so across three sections: Málaga Spanish WIP (for Spanish films at the final-cut stage, which are in search of international distribution), Málaga Latam WIP (Latin American films that find themselves in the same situation as the aforementioned Spanish ones) and Málaga WIP – DOC (for non-fiction films, whether Spanish or Latin American).

The 22 titles taking part in Málaga WIP are being hosted by the Veo Málaga platform, and professionals can ask the festival for permission to watch them between 23 March and 10 April. The jury for the Spanish titles (both fiction and documentary) comprises Paz Lázaro, the director of Panorama, a curator and a member of the Berlinale selection committee; Kristina Konrad, a filmmaker and producer at German outfit Weltfilm; and Ricardo Apilánez, a programmer for the Gijón Film Festival. The jury for the Latin American side is made up of Fernando Vílchez, the co-director of the Filmadrid Festival; Lucero Garzón, the coordinator of BAL-LAB (the industry section of the Biarritz Latin American Festival); and Mercedes Martínez Abarca, a programmer for International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Málaga WIP – an event organised by the Málaga Film Festival together with the city council, in partnership with EGEDA – will hand out the following prizes: the gathering will award €5,000 to a Latin American project and €5,000 to a Spanish one; partner company Aracne Digital Cinema will give out a post-production award; Damita Joe will confer a national distribution prize; sales agent Latido Films will hand out a distribution advance of €15,000; and Yagán Films will award a sound post-production accolade worth €13,000. In addition, partner festivals have promised to select a project from Málaga WIP to take part in their own industry labs: in detail, they are SANFIC INDUSTRIA - Santiago International Film Festival, FIDBA - Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival, ABYCINE – Albacete International Film Festival, and REC – Tarragona International Film Festival.

Standing out among the projects that can already be seen on the Veo Málaga platform are the Spanish documentary Camino incierto by Pablo García Pérez de Lara (Producciones Doble Banda); the comedy-drama Things to Do Before You Die [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Cristina Fernández Pintado and Miguel Llorens, which is being produced by Spanish outfit The Fly Hunter; the documentary Black Out! by Alejandra Almirón, staged by Spain, Norway, Argentina and the USA; the non-fiction title Muyeres, helmed by Spaniard Marta Lallana (Ojos Negros [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Marta Lallana, Ivet Castelo
scheda film]) and produced by Corte y confección de películas); the Brazilian drama O accidente by Bruno Carboni, funded by Paola Wink; and Portrait of a White Woman With Grey Hair and Wrinkles by Spaniard Iván Ruíz Flores, starring Blanca Portillo, Imanol Arias, Manuel Morón and Ana Wagener (Potenza Producciones).