In the four years it has been in existence DocMontevideo has established a space in the continent for contacts and reflection using the information and communications media. Our mission is to contribute to constructing a market in Latin America that will foster the circulation of top quality audiovisual material.

From the start, the work we do at DocMontevideo as a team and as an organization has spread and evoked ever-wider responses. Our objective is to get a commitment from and encourage various actors in the region involved in transforming and developing the audiovisual sector so as to improve our training, production, artistic creation and commercial capabilities. With this aim we have sought synergies and contacts with other experiences in Latin America and in the world that are developing along the same lines.

The international links we have established over these four years are getting stronger. In 2012 we have consolidated agreements with new markets and festivals. We shall select projects for DocsBarcelona (Spain), DocMeeting Argentina, Visions du Réel (Switzerland) and The Edinburgh Pitching (Scotland). We have set up a new space for cooperation with ITVS (USA) that involves distance tutoring, and we have developed new training and distribution areas jointly with TAL (Televisión América Latina). We have also opened a new cross-media workshop with support from the National Film Board of Canada and ITVS, and we have coordinated for Al Jazeera their first open convocation for Latin American documentary makers.

DocMontevideo 2012 stands on three main pillars: training, networking and commercialization. We offer an intense range of activities including documentary workshops, pitching for Latin American documentary projects, pitching for series, and meetings to commercialize contents. Furthermore, we will host the fourth meeting of associates of the TAL network of television channels and we shall coordinate the forum of Latin American TV channels involved in producing audiovisual content for education. The workshop-competition entitled “One minute on earth” will be held, and in the evenings we will offer a cycle of documentaries called Documentary Week, which the respective directors and producers will attend.

In addition to all this there is also a collection of parallel DocMontevideo activities that express our aim to generate wider points of contact and maintain practical dialogues with a large part of the audiovisual sector productive chain. This involves, for example, a distribution workshop for SMEs in the MERCOSUR, an initiative of the program Mercosur Audiovisual (PMA) with financing from the European Union and the Mercosur, and we will organize the meeting of Film Commissions of Latin America.

DocMontevideo is only possible thanks to institutions, enterprises and people that have made a commitment to this space and taken it on as their own, contributing resources, services and work so we can renew our activities and grow every year. We are most grateful to all these people and to the team that has come together for this fourth edition of DocMontevideo.

We welcome you most warmly and we hope you will find this meeting rewarding and fruitful.