Ibermedia to award EQZE $40,000 to establish scholarships for Latin American students

The Latin American Support Fund, Ibermedia, has once again selected Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE) within its Framework for Supporting Training Programmes (2022 Call), which is open to film and television schools, universities, specialist professional training centres, private companies and professional associations from the entire Latin American audiovisual industry.

The assessment commission responsible for this scholarship programme highlighted, among other aspects, ‘the sound and innovative training system’ offered by the project, which ‘strikes a good balance between theory and practice’. The commission also pointed out the importance of the emphasis placed by the project ‘on accompanying emerging filmmakers during their efforts to generate new cinematographic realities’, a challenge that it described as ‘stimulating'. It also attached value to the synergies generated between EQZE and institutions such as the Basque Film Archive, Tabakalera and the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The institution's training structure, syllabus contents, faculty and experience were also rated very positively, obtaining the highest score permitted by the assessment process.

After ratifying the resolution published at the beginning of this month, the fund will provide EQZE with a sum of $40,000, earmarked for the establishment of grants and subsidies to cover enrolment fees. The school will distribute the money in the form of twelve scholarships, each to the value of $3,333, which will be awarded to selected candidates from any of the 23 countries that form part of the programme: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy (as a guest country), Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The application will be made during the pre-enrolment process at EQZE (the application period will start on February 1), through the application form. The candidates will have to attach a letter arguing the suitability of their application, with as much information as they think necessary to support their candidacy. The scholarship is linked to the acceptance of the place and will be communicated jointly.

Elías Querejeta Film School is one of two schools in Spain (the other being the Madrid Autonomous Community Audiovisual and Film School - ECAM) that have obtained the support of the fund in this category, which includes 18 other training projects from 9 different countries, selected from a total of 30 initial proposals. The aim of this specific programme is to foster the ongoing training of professionals working in the Latin American and Italian audiovisual industry.

Without counting the projects selected in Bolivia and Mexico, which will be announced shortly, a total of 104 projects will benefit from Ibermedia funds as a result of the 2022 Call, in the four categories (coproduction, development, TV show development and training) that accompany the stimulus programme. The Ibermedia programme of scholarships for the Latin American film and audiovisual industry was set up in 1998. Since that time, there have been more than 30 calls for applications, resulting in support being provided to 1,049 coproduction projects and 1,130 audiovisual projects under development. Furthermore, over 2,950 training grants have been awarded to students in 23 different countries. In total, the programme has invested $118 million in grants awarded to nearly 3,300 projects.