This morning, by way of an official email, the national entity hushed rumors that had caused so much worry throughout the Chilean audiovisual industry regarding one of the most important — and necessary — grants of the year for independent production.
(Cover image: series "Dignidad" by Invercine&Wood)
In a letter signed by Ignacio Villalabeitía, the National Television Council of Chile (CNTV) attests that they have already received official word from DIPRES, Budget Office of the Ministry of Finance, which confirms that the full amount will be maintained for its 2020 CNTV Grant, a convocation that coincides with the Council’s 50th anniversary. “Although we will have to modify some dates on our original calendar, the stages of the competition will remain unmodified,” reads the communication.
President of the Association of Film and Television Producers (APCT) Sebastián Freund comments, “It’s very good news. It was a large, collective measure led by the APCT (and its directorate), since the absence of this grant — which we had just recently managed to rescue from its decrease of almost 29% in 2019, equivalent to 1.4 billion pesos [approximately 2 million USD last year] — was a debacle for the audiovisual sector. The grant, approximately 4.7 billion pesos, creates jobs for around 2,000 professionals, technicians, actors, and service providers, therefore its cancellation would have meant that these two thousand workers and their households would have been shut out of these projects, which are partially financed by CNTV. Not to mention it’s the only grant that allows quality programming to be made for open television; we’re talking about the most emblematic series on national TV (Los Archivos del Cardenal, Los 80s, El Reemplazante, 31 Minutos, El Bosque de Karadima, and A Necessary Story, among many others). Thanks to this grant, today, the new channel Educa TV is being programmed with practically all content produced by independent producers and the grant.”
Thus the news was pleasantly received by trade guilds and all those who work in the audiovisual area, professionals and technicians who, like most Chileans, have seen their jobs and income hit hard following the crisis provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The creativity and everything that independent production is doing in the international field relies on this grant; it’s vital in order for important projects like those of Parox (“Invisible Heroes”) or those of Invercine&Wood (such as “Dignity”), or of Fabula (such as “The Pack”), and those of many other production houses, can be co-produced internationally and travel around the world, since without this contribution, probably none of these projects would have been possible. For each peso that the CNTV International Co-Production Fund has put in, corresponding production companies have managed to raise 10 times or more of the financing for the production of a series. Having defended this fund is really a very relevant deed in the reactivation of the economy and work in the audiovisual sector; without forgetting that this fund had recently closed its call for entries on March 30th with 299 applicants, of which 201 correspond to Santiago and 98 to other regions, and in each of these, the producers had to invest in making teasers and hiring technicians and professionals. So we applaud the fact that CNTV’s 2020 Contest has been maintained. It’s great news for the audiovisual sector, which is suffering just like many other sectors that can’t produce until labor protocols are activated, as long as the pandemic continues with borders closed and in quarantine.”, adds Freund.
