Associação Cultural Videobrasil

North And South Wishes And Limitations

Now we come to the 8th. Fotoptica Video Festival - prior known as Videobrasil, a pioner of this area in our country - with a main innovation: internationalization. To the already traditional events of our festival we have the pleasure to add videos coming from the Southern Hemisphere. With that we intend to make possible a good interchange between South and North Hemispheres, through meetings of people from different origins, with debates about whishes and limits of this relationship. We also hope to open the way to producers that otherwise would not have access to the international circuit.

We are pleased to note that we had 200 works entered, the majority from Latin America, but also from Africa and Australia. We wish to thank all those that believed in our first competitive showand gave us their support, entrusting, us with their work.

Due to the need to select a limited number of programs for the competitive show we had to leave aside some very good work, for a choice had to be made.

The Festival's Program Council chose 32 video works, always through an unanimous voting process. These works show, not only the creativity, uniqueness and daring of the Southern Hemisphere producers to conquer the market of domineering images, but also the full usage of electronic media in our side of the works, capable of proposing new roads for television.

The videos will be assessed by a jury made up by 5 people from different countries, with a deep video language knowledge and experience. The winners will be awarded with the Fotoptica Trophy. It is a multiple sculpture, created by the sculptor Roberval Layus de Souza, based on the theme of the 8th Fotoptica international Video Festival and made of Brazilian most typical natural materials: rock crystal and wood.

Four videos will be chosen at each category: musical, fiction, documentary and art video. All of them shall receive an award. We plan a special award for Brazilian producers, tanks to the sponsorship of Tecnovideo Productions, Studio Tesis Sound Studio and Magnetoscope showroom. Those companies are going to provide all the necessary support for the production and diffusion of the awarded video maker's next work, who shall have acess to all necessary facilities, including exhibition at the Magnetoscope Show Room, in Rio with total rights to all profits derived thereof. This was the greates prize that we found, together with said companies, to invest in the creative process of a videomaker.

Due to economic difficulties we were inable to do all we had previously planned, as for instance bring to Sin Paulo the authors of the 32 selected videos. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to be able to carry out this Festival at such critical moment, furthermore as this is its first international version. To keep an annual Festival is an accomplishment only possible thanks to Fotoptica 's help - and of other companies as well - which has, in spite of all crisis, continuously invested in the diffusion of video in Brazil.

Anyhow, it is with the greatest pleasure that we carry out this first international video festival in Brasi/, always trying to add innovations to its traditional format - as the video library, where the public have full acess to the works entered at all segments of the show, even the ones that were not chosen for the competitive part. May this be the beginning of a very fruitful North-South interchange. Now the door is open.

(8th Videobrasil catalogue). ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL. "8th Fotoptica International Video Festival": November 9th to 15th, 1990. São Paulo, 1990.