Even although film festivals may have begun to spring up like mushrooms, edition after edition, they are capable of focussing the whole of a city's energies for one week on the cinema and nothing else but the cinema. That, in itself, has meant that they have become established as an art event in their own right, and that they have created a whole cultural industry and circuit in themselves, fuelled by a specific type of 'artistic production' which simply would not exist if it were not for film festivals. The great challenge now faced by all film festivals, in general, is to create a niche of their own, their separate identity, in an ever more competitive marketplace.

In spite of this reality, or perhaps, because of it, the International Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has always attempted to cover the cultural expectations of a large part of the local society by offering them close contact with a wide range of the plethora of film products on offer (which, if we include audiovisuals, is even larger). The Festival of Las Palmas has introduced the general public, year after year, to 'fringe' films from the so-called 'marginal' cinema producing areas such as Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe, perhaps because the Canary Archipelago itself is a 'fringe' region, though advantageously so. Geographically on the outer margin of Europe, and closer to Africa, though culturally and politically close to the heart of modern Europe, the Canary Islands have always had tight historical and emotional bonds with Latin America also and, over the last few decades, has built up a sizeable resident Asian population. Our project, as such, is a product of our reality as a vantage lookout point on the many different realities which together make up the complex world in which we live.

"Come to EuroForum'06. We have production companies from all over Europe who are interested in getting to know you and your projects in the film business."
FOUR YEARS CONNECTING PEOPLE FOR EUROPEAN MOVIESO

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