02/04/2012 - Thirty-five Catalan documentary producers have come together to form an association to represent the sector to television channels and institutions.

Faced with the enormous uncertainty that has permeated the audiovisual sector throughout the last months, 35 Catalan documentary film producers have come together to form the Pro-Docs association. Presented on March 26 in Barcelona, the association aims mainly to act as a mouthpiece for the sector’s interests to television channels and institutions.

“In these moments of uncertainty, it was important that the voice of documentary be represented,” the association’s president, producer Tono Folguera (pictured), told Cineuropa. “We mainly rely on public television channels and nowadays the situation is very worrying. For example, the budget cut at Televisió de Catalunya, a great engine behind documentaries over the last years, has left us at about 50% [of the previous documentary budget]. No other sector in the industry has suffered cuts to this extent.”

To improve this complicated situation, the association is demanding documentary programming on private television channels, work with film schools and universities, a solution to the distribution problem, and new forms of collaboration with private capital. They are also focusing on the international market, where Spanish documentary productions, and especially Catalan productions, “have been moving for a while and continue to play a role,” according to Folguera. They would however be even more attractive if they discussed “less local issues, which would help us to reach other markets.”

In the words of Folguera, "the documentary sector is prepared and knows how to adapt itself. Now with the real danger of damaging all that we have achieved so far, we have to defend the importance of documentaries and remind society that a country without documentaries not only has no memory but also lacks sufficient critical capacity to see the future.”

(Translated from Spanish)