The era of digital information fulfils the objective of being at the reach of everybody. It is enough with some words, phrases and images, and just with one click, we find what we are searching. However, this one brings with it new needs, maybe the same inquiries as always, represented in other words, other questions, and other contexts that prevail.
How to achieve that a message is sufficiently divulged and consumed by the goal public? How to locate creative proposes in the market so they can be widely distributed on the networks and, at the same time, it propitiates feedback and resonance in public?
We have sophisticated search engines through Google and social networks, we would believe that they read our thoughts in tags. We have intelligent search engines programmed to decipher our interests and wishes — 100 % hyper-connected.
We are citizens of visual communication, and we enjoy comprehensive programs that allow us to develop images that go beyond all concept. The utopia transformed. Questions come back. Speed of the information makes us saturate of it, and it is ephemeral, transitory; it is gone in a blink, to the speed of light.
These are some reflections that concluded Jorge Rivera, Gabriel Muelle and Juan Sebastian Murillo, creators of BMVF, the Festival de Videos Musicales de Bogotá.
As producers, they regret that all this effort in quality and production is dissipated in an amount of “views” or quantified in thousands of “likes”, perhaps in a not so reasonable time — just a few months — and from there, these projects that resulted from the unimaginable go to the universe of the forgotten, making the memory in a temporary and passing souvenir.
So, from 2016 and each following November, musicians, producers, video makers, visual artist and fans meet every year, to see the last video clip national and global productions. A proposal that also is looking to increase the divulgation, increase the audience and promote spaces of communication that diversify the relation between the musical video workers and the public in general; plus, it is looking to impulse musical proposals of young bands that could have more acknowledge and expansion.
Inspired in the international festival of music video and horror movies, Morbido Fest from Mexico, they decided to take advantage of Bogota, as its inhabitants, creating and organising the unique video clips festival of the city and generating a full community of the local and the national scene.
The tactics of the strategy are as simple as the nature of the hyper-connectivity: use social networks, messages, e-mails, databases and specialised contacts. There is an open call to different musical groups from Colombia and the world to participate. Then, a pre-selection is made from the received material. Finally, a more rigorous selection is made, where the criteria are defined as in visual quality as in the pertinence of the musical production.
In 2018, the 3rd edition of the festival closed. They got around 2000 proposals, from which 175 were shown, among video clips, music-related documentaries and fashion and dance films.
Auditoriums from the Museo Nacional, Universidad Tadeo de Colombia, the Cinemateca Distrital, cultural centres and specialised pubs among others, were opened for the mediatic experimentation lab, discussion panels, business roundtables and pedagogic workshops. A proposal made from self-management, strategic allies and all a collaborative social network.
Gabriel Muelle considers that video clips are in a golden age, not only on the excellent fracture in their productions, but in the creation of new transmedia experiences that allow a bigger joy: digital tools transcend the format and live projections in which, as an example, the work of the VJ proposes a considerable field of possibilities; these processes and results make this experience, not only for watching it and admiring it but also, a cocktail of multiple activities that give to the viewer a rich and vary experience; the public is at the same time part and protagonist of the video graphic experience.
The selection of the year is classified into six categories with a symbolic prize: national, Latin-American, international, fashion and dance films, live and music films.
Since 2017, BMVF decided to open a new category called Fashion and Dance films. It is a new genre of short films that has a big reception worldwide; if well, the BMVF is centred in divulgation and promotion of musical videos, the excellent quality of their productions and great offers of videos were able to have a significant influence space in the festival realisation.
The fashion films are specifically audiovisual productions which apart of being a model of a short film is also a publicity strategy to the service of a trend. A format that comes growing fast, their qualities are a mix of fashion, filming and publicity.
They do not necessarily have an explicit narrative. They are very strategic for significant trends, but also they are an opportunity of merchandising for small and medium-size producers of fashion and art market.
The visual richness and quality to tell or to experiment with images, sounds and movements of the body prevail in fashion and dance films. Some people call them auteur film productions.
The genre of fashion films is due to pioneers as Diane Pearnet. From here, the ASVOFF (‘A Shade View On Fashion Film’) was born in 2008.
This festival was presented for the first time in the national gallery Jeu de Paume, in Paris, France, having as a second location the Lunario in Mexico, then it travelled to museums and institutions like the Guggenheim of Bilbao, the Cinema Rise X in Tokio, The Chelsea Arts Club in London, Alta Moda in Rome, Festival 9 in Viena and the Bienal of Arnhem, to mention only a few of more of the twenty-two locations.
Currently, Fashion films festivals go around the big fashion meccas like Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Miami, Milan films festival, they are charged with micro-histories that promote interest communities, magic and visual quality captive public.
In Colombia, it is just an ambition for many minds that defy budgets and go for the creation in a land ready for exploration.
In the BMVF 2018, we attended to the discussion forum and the projection of fashion and dance films with Nicolas Caballero Arenas, Natalia Gw, Gazzo, Agnes Saint, who spoke about the market, fashion and production in Colombia, which, if well, it is not much, it is a proper field for creation, also for watching some of their proposals in photography.
There is some interest to develop proposals, all that depends on the strategic alliances and the capacity of handling for the realisation.
For 2019, the BMVF promises to expand with more significant projections through the year, not only in November, profiting that there is material, especially documentaries that are of significant utility for the history of music. If well, it is a self-managed project, they look forward to creating more prominent connections with the universities and cultural centres of the city.
