Events
By Dafydd Young
An international team of high end organizers of film festivals around the world is in place for the launch of the Panama International Film Festival.
Henk Van Der Kolk, discussing the upcoming festival with Canadian Ambassador Sylvia Cesararro
Added together, their combined experience, adds up to at least a century of successful presentation.
For starters,there's the festival’s spearhead, Henk Van Der Kolk, a filmmaker with a long film pedigree. He co-founded the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) some 38 years ago and supervised it over the years as it grew to be one of the biggest and most important festivals in the world. Add to that the experience of Panama’s own renowned documentary filmmaker Ortega Pituka Heilbron. She will co-direct the festival with Van Der Kolk to deliver Panama’s leap onto the world festival circuit.
Joining the formidable duo will be Diana Sanchez, a recognized specialist in Latin America cinema who will be artistic director. Sanchez has been the Ibero-American film programmer for the Toronto Festival since 2002. Along with the choice of films in Spanish and Portuguese for TIFF, Sanchez was also responsible for the co-scheduling of the program City to City Buenos Aires in 2011, and the programming of Novo Life: The new Brazilian cinema, TIFF National Spotlight 2003.
She is a consultant for the the Festival of Rotterdam program and principal consultant of the Ibero-American program International Film Festival of Miami. She is also in charge of programs for Calgary Latin Wave, a series of films from Latin America, Fundación Proa in Argentina.
IFF Panama also has the support of Denise Hughes, a professional associated with international film festivals who has worked for the Miami International Film Festival, International Film Festival Cartagena de Indias, and Documentary Film Festival in New York (NY DOC ).
Hughes has extensive experience in organizing, developing and structuring film festivals for Latin American markets.
And of course IFF has the advice of prominent figures from the Panamanian local cultural scene including the director of Chance, Abner Benaim, president of the Panamanian Association of Film Producers (ASOCINE), Luis Pacheco, leading painter Olga Sinclair and Yasser Williams Arosemena, lawyer who serves as Chairman of the Board, among others
Panama IFF sees its mission to create a cultural bridge between its people and the best of the world’s films and build an event that will promote a local film industry and film education while adding another incentive to increase Panama’s tourism. It has the support of the National Government through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Film Commission, the National Institute of Culture (Inac).
Panama IFF Panama will run from April 26 to May 2. It’s going to be a celebrity studded event, and Newsroom Panama will be your daily source of information in English. All stories will be filed under Entertainment.
