Quality speakers, a rather dizzying reflection on the interaction between new media and cinema (signed by Domenico La Porta), presentation of the work of fifteen service providers who excel in today’s and tomorrow’s technologies: this is the kind of conference that, if organized in Paris, would only be accessible to a few elected officials for a few dollars. But Belgium is unique and in Namur, all those who responded to the (free) invitation were a few months ahead of their absent colleagues.
Some of them even walked away with a lot of money to carry out particularly interesting CrossMedia initiatives. This grant, initiated by Wallimage, was open to digital promotion projects of films co-produced by the Walloon fund.
Each producer already approved by Wallimage could propose a file which was examined by a group of six people: Philippe Reynaert, director ofWallimage, Stéphanie Hugé in charge of Wallimage-Coproductions, Virginie Nouvellewhois in charge of Wallimage-Entreprises, Pierre Colle (expert at the Walloon Telecommunications Agency), Philippe Deville (ExecutiveCommitteAdvisor for the ICT sector at S.R.I.W.) and Philippe Pierquin (in charge of the virtual communication of Wallimage, of the Magritte of the Belgian cinema and editor in chief of Cinevox)
The conclusions of this jury were transmitted to the board of directors of Wallimage which designated the winners.
This first very original session for Wallimage was a real success: out of 25 films that could claim a digital promotion grant, twelve were presented, which is almost 50% of the potential candidates. Not bad at all for a call for projects. It is also the first time in its history that Wallimage offers a grant. The only obligation is to spend this money in the Walloon Region with regional companies. This is a logical obligation, since the objective of the fund has always been to boost the activity of Walloon audiovisual companies and this operation is part of the Creative Wallonia strategy initiated by Jean-Claude Marcourt, Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Foreign Trade, New Technologies and Higher Education.
Out of the twelve files in the running, six were finally selected after a long afternoon of passionate debate. The CrossMedia projects that will benefit for their promotion from a Wallimage grant are
Approved for Adoption, produced by Artemis. The service providers who designed the project are Dogstudio (Namur) and Fishing Cactus (Mons)
Il Était une fois une Fois, co-produced by Scope Picture. Provider : Creaxial (Wavre)
Dead Man Talking produced by NexusFactory. Service providers: Belle Production (Genval) and Défimédia (Gembloux)
The Suicide Shop co-produced by Entre Chien et Loup. Service providers: Globule Bleu (Embourg), Kweb, Yakafaire, Défimédia, Aftertouch (Liège)
Torpedo produced by K2. The providers are Dogstudio (Namur) and Fishing Cactus (Mons)
Bye Bye Blondie produced by Frakass. The service providers are Kweb, Yakafaire, Défimédia, Aftertouch (Pôle Image de Liège)
Tasty on paper, these proposals should lead to spectacular CrossMedia achievements in the coming weeks. We can’t wait to see the results… and to see what effect they will have on the films’ commercial careers.
All the pictures of this afternoon in Namur are available for download HERE
