The Lau Haizetara Documentary Coproduction Forum of San Sebastian and Treeline Distribution have renewed the agreement which they signed in 2013 with the aim of continuing to boost and consolidate their backing of the documentary industry. For the ninth consecutive year, the distributor will grant the Distribution and Festival Consultancy Prize, consisting of 2 advisory sessions for the project: a first consultancy session during the documentary development stage, and a second one once the documentary is finished.
This initiative aims to offer the best commercial distribution strategy to follow (selection of distribution company or sales agent, television, internet, cinema, etc.) and suggest a guide to which are the most appropriate festivals, depending on the content and style of the documentary. Elena Mera, representing Treeline Distribution, will be attending the pitching sessions which will take place on 22nd September, in the San Telmo Museum of San Sebastián. She will evaluate the documentaries’ quality, subject matter and treatment, so that they can be sold to different channels around the world and will aim to identify the best strategy for each of them.
TREELINE DISTRIBUTION is an international documentary and non-fiction programme sales agent (TV, theatrical, home video, digital platforms, etc.) that carefully selects the titles to represent, granting each title the attention it requires and taking into account key internationalization criteria, the fruit of the experience accumulated over many years of working in the industry. Also, Treeline works with all the new platforms, widening the range of exploitation possibilities of any production, preparing individualised sales and promotion plans.
The project “The Dusk of the Amazon” (Peru), produced by HdPerú and Anakaa Films and directed by Álvaro Sarmiento, took the prize in 2020. A documentary which, through the lives of three inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon, investigates the region’s history of colonialism and questions the present-day situation, which is still affected by the voracious exploitation of resources and the slow and agonising death of the region’s cultures. The struggles and quests of these three characters draw a parallel between the past and the present, showing that the violence of the rubber era did not come to an end, but took on a different appearance. Discrimination against Amazonian cultures, the pollution of rivers and the felling of forests are the modern expressions of the colonial mentality of the rubber cycle. While the western approach to the Amazon does not change, the violence will not end.
The winner of this edition will be made known during the prize-giving held on Wednesday 22 September at the Kursaal Congress Centre.
More information: www.lauhaizetara.eu
