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Colombia’s burgeoning Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM) opens its doors even wider to welcome young wannabe producers from Central America, the Caribbean and Andean countries this year, thanks to an alliance with Netflix.
In past years, only Colombian producers participated in the training and networking sessions. This time, out of the 40 participants, with ages ranging from 24 to 32, half are from other Latino countries.
Aimed at fostering a creative exchange in film, music, animation, documentaries, literature and TV over July 6–10, the 17th BAM edition occupies the sweet spot between the confabs of the Guadalajara Film Festival in the Spring and Ventana Sur in December. To date, some 2,300 people are accredited this year.
Furthermore, BAM is launching a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Unifrance and the French Embassy in Colombia, bringing 12 leading French sales agents to Bogotá to meet with some 30 Latin American distributors. Together, they will explore new opportunities to expand the circulation of French and Latin American cinema across the region. Among the French players are Le Pacte Films, Celluloid Dreams, Good Fellas, MK2 Films, The Pool Films and Les Valseurs.
Through market screenings, curated networking sessions and industry conversations, the initiative aims to forge new distribution pathways between France and Latin America.
“This has been a truly collaborative effort – one built on close partnership, mutual trust and transparency. From the outset, our shared goal has been to create meaningful business opportunities for both French and Latin American cinema, expanding their reach across Latin America,” says BAM director Carlos Eduardo Moreno.
A program called “New Perspectives, New Talent” hopes to strengthens ties between the Andean animation industry and France through a program of talks, presentations and training focused on co-production, IP development, workforce development and audience engagement.
The series of BAM Talks, open to the public, has expanded from last year’s 12 to 15 and will feature insightful conversations headlined by Mexico’s Alonso Ruizpalacios (“The Kitchen,” “Güeros”) and producer Stacy Perskie of Redrum (“Bardo”), Venezuela’s Mariana Rondón (“It Would be Night in Caracas”) and Argentine documentarian Andres di Tella (“Mixtape La Pampa”), among others.
The series will be capped by a discussion on the impact and legacy of Netflix’s ambitious series adaptation of Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”Leading the talk are reps from Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, Netflix and Claudia Triana, head of promotional entity Proimágenes Colombia.
Also expected to draw considerable interest are individual talks on how to co-produce with Italy, Canada, Spain, France, Chile, Mexico and Argentina, hosted by reps from each territory.
“BAM is sometimes like a sancocho – a Colombian soup of everything thrown together: potatoes, cassava, plantains, chicken. Because there are so few meeting spaces for the country’s audiovisual sector, everyone converges here, creating a dense mix of activities,” says Triana.
“There is a very interesting workshop focused on children’s cinema,” she notes. She also points to BAM’s efforts to expand its reach beyond Bogota. “Emerging filmmakers from the various regions come to make contacts here and deepen their learning. We also have Indigenous representation and workshops, along with different events designed both to share their experiences and to help them connect with others, so they are not isolated or left in separate silos.”
According to Moreno, BAM has introduced a new industry track focused on archives and audiovisual heritage. “While it may seem old school, archival material has become an increasingly important creative and memory-making tool,” he says, adding: “For BAM, this reflects a broader trend: across Colombia and Latin America, archival footage is becoming a fundamental creative resource. Its growing international relevance is evident as well – for example, three of the Colombian films selected at this year’s Berlinale included archival material.”
Organized by Proimágenes Colombia alongside the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, BAM will continue to hold critical discussions on AI’s ethical, legal and creative impact across the industry.
This year, BAM welcomes international guests from the video game and immersive media sectors. For the first time, it will present Vaivén, a large-scale immersive audiovisual installation in a public space – free and open to everyone in the city. Created by artist collective Project Aurora, it is being presented in partnership with Bogotá’s Secretariat of Culture, Recreation and Sport.
“Looking ahead, BAM aims to strengthen its industry focus on immersive media and video games, seeing both as key growth areas for Colombia. It also plans to continue bringing leading Latin American creators together with Colombian and international artists, reinforcing the event as a space for regional exchange and recognition,” says Moreno.
“A third priority is rethinking sustainable business models for the audiovisual sector. Rather than assuming success depends on becoming a major studio or partnering with global streaming platforms, BAM wants to explore models of production, distribution and circulation that are better suited to the realities of Colombia and Latin America.”
With the new right-leaning president, Abelardo de la Espriella, coming into power in August, there is some trepidation over the impact this conservative shift may have on the sector. However, the industry is confident that it will ride the changes, as it has in past years.
“It was not smooth sailing when the left-wing government took over some years ago, either,” Triana notes.
“I think our audiovisual sector has changed a lot over the past 20 years and has really become a reference point in the region, with very strong results. The industry is also much more organized now, so I don’t think they’re going to weaken the fund or remove incentives for the sector, because a lot of people understand how beneficial it is for creative expression and for getting projects made,” she says.
“Right now, we’re just waiting – names are already being floated for the transition team, meaning the people who will speak on behalf of the incoming president, or the groups that will review the outgoing government’s reports. That process will run through August.”
