02/03/2020 - BERLINALE 2020: The two organisations are striking up a partnership with a view to providing greater support to WCF-funded projects in the production phase and devising new distribution strategies

(l-r) TFL Extended head Angelica Cantisani, WCF's Isona Admetlla, One in a Thousand director Clarisa Navas and producer Lucia Chávarri and TFL Expert in Audience Design Benjamin Cölle, at Berlin's World Cinema Fund Day

The World Cinema Fund (WCF) and the TorinoFilmLab (TFL) announced during the World Cinema Fund Day at the 70th Berlinale a new partnership in the domain of Audience Design, aimed at increasing the support to WCF-funded projects during the production stage.

Following a successful pilot edition in 2019, the two organisations are joining forces to create the Audience Design Award – by WCF Europe & TFL. Accorded to projects supported in the production phase by WCF, this newly developed prize consists of a scholarship allowing the film team to take part in a special workshop organised as part of TFL Extended, an intensive training programme helmed by the Turin-based lab whose participants get the opportunity to develop their own projects with the help of international trainers.

This new collaborative project will see the recipient of the Audience Design Award – by WCF Europe & TFL participate in a 4-day TFL Extended - Audience Design workshop, to be held in September 2020 in Turin. In parallel, TorinoFilmLab will launch a call for proposals with a view to selecting 4 Audience Design trainees who will work with their teams under the supervision of a TFL tutor. This will prove a unique opportunity for the winning team to discuss distribution strategies and to test out new ideas aimed at reaching, building and engaging audiences.

“We are very happy to partner with World Cinema Fund to keep exploring the possibilities of Audience Design. We are convinced that this important process should start as early as possible in the development phase”, declares Mercedes Fernandez, Managing Director of TorinoFilmLab, which was one of the very first organisations to explore opportunities for Audience Design back in 2011. “With the TorinoFilmLab, we have an ideal partner to develop innovative strategies and concepts for Audience Design with respect to WCF films and contextuale the approach to audiences in different countries and regions”, adds the Head of the World Cinema Fund Vincenzo Bugno.

A pilot edition of this collaboration, which was held in September 2019, brought together 4 audience designer trainees who worked with TFL tutor Benjamin Cölle and the team behind the WCF project One in a Thousand [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], by Clarisa Navas. The film was presented in a premiere at the 2020 Berlinale, in the Panorama section’s opening slot.

The call for the 4 Audience Design trainees will be launched by TorinoFilmLab this April. Their selection will be announced in July 2020. Please click here for more information.

(Translated from Italian)