V International Seminar Women of Audiovisual
On November 15 and 16, 2022 took place in São Paulo, at Instituto Moreira Salles , the V International Seminar Women of Audiovisual, which was held by the group “+ Women of Women’s Audiovisual Leadership” (as part of the Brazilian curatorship), in partnership with the Nordic focus, which was organized by Tatiana Groff, curator of the Ponte Nórdica Festival – oi both curatorship brought to the Brazilian public, through five panels, the experiences of Brazilian and Nordic women ahead of public and private initiatives in their areas, with the goal of expanding the diversity and gender equity in audiovisual production in Brazil and in the world.
Returning to the face-to-face format after two years, after welcoming the participants and opening speech, the event began with the panel “Gender Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Audiovisual Public Policies”, where Anna Serner (Sweden) told Brazilian journalist Ana Paula Souza , who is a PhD in Sociology of Culture, her experiences ahead of the Swedish Film Institute and public policies towards the inclusion implemented by her – Anna is a lawyer and for 10 years acted as CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, where she stood out mainly by her Initiative 50/50, in which Swedish films worked systematically with gender equality, thus increasing the quality of all films produced in the country – the initiative 50/50 was reached in 2014 in Sweden and in 2016 was extended as a global movement at the Cannes Festival.
The second panel of the day was totally Brazilian: “Diversity in practice – Inclusion movements in the market”, where producer Erica de Freitas, who is the creator of the Projeto Visionárias (an executive production course that offers mentoring to new producers and directors) , and the actress, screenwriter, entrepreneur and activist Suzana Pires, who, among her functions, is founder of the Dona de Si Institute (focused on female empowerment), and talks about the challenges and actions to have more inclusion in the market – the panel was mediated by Maria Gal, who is an actress, host, producer and showrunner of the show Preto no Branco.
On the second day of the event, the opening panel had as main guest Felicia Jackson (Denmark), who heads the Nordic – Nordic audiovisual and media festival, which runs the Aarhus Series Series Festival – as well as headed the Copenhagen TV Festival, among others. In it, which was mediated by the renowned Brazilian producer of films and series Paula Cosenza, the theme addressed was “Diversity and Innovation in series narratives”, one of the specialties of both.
And the fourth panel of the event – and second on the 16th – had the audiovisual producer Ylla Gomes and teacher and researcher Alessandra Meleiro, who presented and brought to the debate the results of the “Mapping of the Representative Entities of the Audiovisual Sector in Brazil”, a valuable study which aims to support and guide civil society actions by Brazilian audiovisual in the search for public policies and for the defense of the area in the business sector.
Finally, the last panel and one of the strongest and most impactful moments of these two days with these powerful Nordic and Brazilian women was the invitation made by UN Women – in partnership with the International Seminar Women of Audiovisual – to producers for the second phase of implementation of the commitment-letter for equality between women and men in the audiovisual – the first phase of implementation took place during the “Meeting of Audiovisual Ideas”, that was held at the 46th International Film Festival in São Paulo.
About these two days of meetings and exchanges, curator Tatiana Groff commented: “The meetings in the 5th edition of the International Seminar Women of Audiovisual were potent and iconic; we had the presence of the Swedish professional Anna Serner, a woman of great world relevance when it comes to public policies focused on gender equity, inclusion and qualification that brought in her speech the impact of work for more than a decade on the Swedish audiovisual market. Also, we had the powerful presence of Felicia Jackson who brought the deepening of narratives of diversity and empowerment female in the production of Nordic series and what this implies in impact with the public and the creative industry applied globally in entertainment products.”
The V International Seminar Women of Audiovisual was held at Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo by the + Women of Women’s Audiovisual Leadership, Danish Culture Institute and Festival Ponte Nórdica, was sponsored by SpCine and The Nordic Culture Fund, and had the support of Instituto Rouanet, Instituto Dona de Si and the Embassies of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland in Brazil.