Participants at the 2022 Locarno Industry Academy São Paulo
In 2015, the Locarno Film Festival—one of Europe’s oldest and most forward-thinking festivals—expanded a core part of its mission beyond the screen and into the heart of the film ecosystem: its Industry Academy. Designed to support and train a new generation of professionals working in the circulation of independent cinema—programmers, distributors, exhibitors, marketers, and entrepreneurs—this initiative quickly found especially fertile ground in Latin America.
Since its inaugural edition in Locarno in 2014, the Industry Academy sparked interest across regions including the Middle East, Eastern Europe, North America, Africa, South Asia, and Northern and Scandinavian Europe. Yet it was Latin America where this interest proved strongest and most sustained. It was from this enthusiastic and consistent demand that the Industry Academy Latin America was born.
Launched in 2015 at the Morelia Film Festival, the Locarno Industry Academy Latin America has evolved into a continent-wide pedagogical and professional network, with five annual programs held across Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Chile.
Shortly after, Cinema do Brasil supported a pilot event in 2016, and in 2017, Australab and the Valdivia Film Festival hosted the Chilean edition. The Industry Academy established strong partnerships with the Morelia Film Festival, Australab, Cinema do Brasil, and the São Paulo International Film Festival until 2019, later collaborating with BR Lab. A partnership with the Panama Film Festival also began in 2019 but was interrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the past decade, the Locarno Industry Academy Latin America has welcomed more than 400 participants from over 20 Ibero-American countries. Each cohort includes 8 to 12 carefully selected professionals active in circulation, often embodying hybrid roles that challenge traditional industry categories. From emerging programmers in provincial cities to independent distributors launching new platforms, from cultural organizers to marketing experts, the Academy centers those who make cinema accessible, visible, and sustainable in their local contexts.
The pedagogical approach emphasizes horizontal exchange and collective learning. Rather than top-down lectures, each edition combines case studies, roundtables, strategic group work, one-on-one mentorship, and critical reflections that value lived experience and peer exchange. Topics range from marketing and rights management to festival programming and distribution politics—always approached through a lens grounded in regional realities and a commitment to rethink outdated or imported models.
Participants at the 2018 Locarno Industry Academy Panama
The Locarno Film Industry Latin America has been led by Project Director Marion Klotz since its inception. Each Academy is curated and facilitated by a Project Manager deeply familiar with their local landscape and connected to the broader Ibero-American industry. These coordinators are educators, mentors, and bridge-builders who work year-round with the project director to shape each Academy’s unique pedagogical journey. They identify tutors, adapt content to participant profiles, and create safe, inclusive spaces for reflection, experimentation, and connection.
The 2023 expansion into Colombia, in collaboration with Proimágenes and the Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM), marked a milestone. Colombia’s vibrant and decentralized industry offered fertile ground to connect Central and South American workshops. BAM—long dedicated to nurturing emerging talent—provided an ideal platform. The first Colombian edition met overwhelming enthusiasm and has become a vital part of BAM’s professional programming.
Each edition is produced through strategic partnerships with local and regional festivals, markets, and organizations—such as FICUNAM, BAM, SANFIC, the Costa Rica Media Market, and Projeto Paradiso—and tailored to the unique realities and urgencies of each context.
Until 2022, Sandra Gómez served as Project Manager in Mexico and Panama; she was replaced by Klotz in Mexico in 2023 and 2024. This year, the Academy was led by Juan Pablo Bastarrachea, a former Locarno Film Industry alum and co-founder of Cine Tonalá. Julia Duarte held the same role in Brazil until 2023. Karina Avellán and Marcelo Quesada lead in Costa Rica; former alumna Lidia Damatto in Brazil; Andrés Suárez in Colombia; and Gabriela Sandoval and Sebastián Avilés, also former alumni, in Chile.
Sofia Lena Monardo is the producer for the Latin American Academies, with Tercer Cine in Honduras serving as the regional partner. Over the past decade, a highly qualified team of professionals has been consolidated, demonstrating unwavering commitment to the project.
In 2024, the Academy received 182 applications for sessions in Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Brazil, ultimately selecting 39 participants from 12 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Portugal, and Uruguay. Across sessions, women made up the majority, and many hailed from historically marginalized communities. The Academy prioritizes cultural and geographic diversity, welcoming participants from outside major urban centers and spotlighting Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and queer voices among both participants and mentors.
Participants at the 2023 Locarno Industry Academy Colombia
This commitment to equity is structural, not just programmatic. Full scholarships cover tuition, housing, meals, and often travel stipends—ensuring access for professionals from under-resourced regions. Sustained support from Ibermedia has been crucial in maintaining and expanding this accessibility, bringing the program to those who need it most and who often offer the most urgent and original perspectives.
The pedagogical model rests on four pillars: training, community, diversity, and personalized mentorship. Each session is locally adapted but driven by shared goals: providing a rigorous space to think critically about the present and future of independent film circulation; fostering lasting peer and intergenerational connections; centering diverse ways of working and thinking; and equipping participants with practical tools, critical frameworks, and actionable feedback on their projects.
Beyond the intensive week of the Academy, participants join a growing international alumni network nurtured year-round through festival meet-ups (including Locarno), regional collaborations, and opportunities to return as tutors or collaborators. In January 2024, the Academy launched the U30 program with the José Ignacio International Film Festival in Uruguay, focusing on professionals under 30. This signals the project’s ongoing commitment to evolving formats and alliances responsive to the shifting Ibero-American film landscape.
Notable alumni of the Industry Academy include Juan Pedro Agurcia, Artistic Director of Tercer Cine in Honduras and Program Director at the Flaherty Film Seminar; programmer, film critic, and distributor Pedro Segura, co-founder and co-director of La Ola Cine; Renato Manganello, founder of Utopia Docs; Isabel Rojas, founding director of Oaxaca Cine and Artistic Director of Seminario Público y Audiencias del Futuro; Daniela Salinas of Centro de Cine y Creación (CCC); and Emiliano Escoto, Executive Director and Programmer of Festival de Cine de Barrio.
“Over these ten years, we’ve built a community of young professionals whom we continue to support. Today’s new generation shows remarkable creativity and a clear understanding of the challenges in the region’s film sector—issues like precarious work, lack of public funding, and limited access to diverse films. Still, we’re proud to see motivated professionals actively tackling these challenges, which highlights the ongoing importance of our program,” says Project Director Marion Klotz.
During the past decade, the Locarno Industry Academy Latin America has not only shaped a generation of professionals—it has helped transform the regional conversation about circulation. The Academy challenges extractive distribution models, de-centers Eurocentric paradigms, and affirms the need for a solidarity-based, regionally rooted, and creatively agile industry. It is a space where participants come to learn—and to reimagine, resist, and reinvent. This is a much-needed exercise to create new models for a failing infrastructure in the film world that struggles to connect filmmakers and their audiences.
