The Mobile World Capital and the Sitges Festival create Phonetastic to promote the cinema from the mobile

September 7, 2012

The Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) and the Sitges – International Fantasy Film Festival of Catalonia are promoting the Sitges Mobile Film Festival, an initiative designed to develop mobile devices -smartphones and tablets- both as cinema production tools and a new audio-visual distribution platform. With the participation of the Sr. Watson agency as a founding member, this project falls within the MWCapital’s mContent programme, which will promote new forms of leisure and entertainment through mobile technologies.

In order to promote this cinematographic discipline, MWCapital and the Sitges Festival will be organising conferences and workshops on audio-visual production through mobile devices. These sessions will be run by film directors during the annual Summer Week of mobile-related cultural activities, which will be organised within the Mobile World Festival, one of the MWCapital pillars.

Another event will be the Sitges Mobile Film Festival Phonetastic Awards for the best short films shot with mobile phones and tablets. Entrants will have to register on Phonetastic’s future website, which will publish the contest rules and details as to where the films have to be delivered. The names of the winners will be announced during the Sitges – International Fantasy Film Festival of Catalonia.

According to the CEO of MWCapital, Ginés Alarcón, Phonetastic is “an initiative that fits in perfectly with the goals of mContent, which focuses on cultural industries and entertainment with a very pronounced mobile component and which will give the possibility to develop new business opportunities via a world reference, the Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival“.

The CEO of the Sitges – International Fantasy Film Festival of Catalonia Foundation, Josep Lluís Galan, expressed his excitement over this new project, saying: “It is an essential core element of the festival’s strategic plan for the next few years. An event such as this has to respond to the demands of spectators and audio-visual creators and, with Phonetastic, the Festival will promote two essential aspects in the event’s DNA: creativity and new technologies“. The project has the full support of the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC) and the Sitges Town Council.

The director of Sitges – International Fantasy Film Festival of Catalonia, Àngel Sala, and its deputy director, Mike Hostench, will be in charge of Phonetastic’s artistic direction. Creativity will fall to the Sr. Watson agency, Base Zero will prepare the sponsorship strategy and sales dossier and DICOM Events will be responsible for the Festival’s design and architecture.