The General Meeting of FERA, Federation of European Screen Directors, organised by ACCIÓN, an association of film directors, at the 27th Malaga Festival, concluded with a wonderful participation and a great acceptance of all the activities programmed. They congratulated and thanked the incredible welcome given to them by the organisers, especially Juan Antonio Vigar and all his team at the Malaga Festival.

The event opened with a welcome by Juan Antonio Vigar, Director of the Malaga Festival, and Fernando Méndez Leite, President of the Spanish Film Academy. Antonio Muñoz Vico gave a conference offered by the ICAA on artificial intelligence, which was warmly applauded. It was based on the principle 'The right to read is the right to mine', which means that we have the right to access information and use it creatively, as long as copyright is respected. Moreover, only works made by humans can be protected by copyright.

The round table on 'The situation of moral and economic rights for directors in Spain' was also very well received by the audience. It featured the participation of Amparo Arenas, from SGAE Andalucía; Ana Arrieta, legal advisor of ACCIÓN; Ricardo Gómez, general secretary and director of legal services of DAMA and moderated by Pilar Pérez Solano, president of ACCIÓN. The European directors had the opportunity to learn in-depth about the particularities of copyright and the moral rights of Spanish directors, as well as the collection system of the rights management societies.

The round table on 'Reconnecting with audiences in Europe. The role of festivals' was of special interest due to its superb composition: Juan Antonio Vigar, director of the Malaga Festival; Manuel Cristóbal, director of the Seville Festival; Enrique Iznaola, director of the Almeria Festival; Eduardo Escudero, from A contracorriente Films; Mattias Nohrborg, from TriArt Film. It was moderated by Elisabet Gustafsson and Pilar Pérez Solano.

We learned that of the 180 films produced in Spain each year, only 11 can be selected by the Malaga Festival in its Official Section. Festivals have the huge challenge of returning to the pre-pandemic era and continuing to be the main meeting point between the industry and the audience. They are also a particularly interesting and necessary showcase for emerging talent.

Distributors, on the other hand, must design the approach for each film, but the festival is still crucial for them, not only to bring their films, but also to find others that they can bring to their territories.

To close the activities, the table of Directors of ACCIÓN featured the participation of Salvador Simó, Giovanna Ribes, Antonio Hens, Liz Lobato and César Martínez Herrada. This round table was particularly interesting for FERA's European colleagues, who wanted to know first-hand about Spanish directors.

Among the problems that were discussed, one of the most important was the time it takes to get funding for a project in Spain, time that is unpaid, as well as the time it takes to promote a project or the time between one project and another. This leads to some directors having to give up their personal projects and work on TV series.

The differences in film funding between the different Autonomous Communities were also discussed. In addition, the Spanish budgets for film funding were compared with those of other European countries. At this point, the European directors expressed their solidarity with the Spanish directors and gave their support for the creation of a National Film Agency with a larger budget, similar to the bodies that exist in other European countries.