Punto de Vista Festival Network of International Delegates

The Punto de Vista Festival has reinforced its network of international delegates and this year, has created a team of four programmers who are working to extend the scope of the festival and put it in contact with film-makers from diverse geographic areas.  Andrea Picard, director of Wavelengths (section of the Toronto International Festival), and who is responsible for the United States and  Canada; Elena Fortes, director of the Mexican travelling documentary festival and head of Latin America, Nourddinne Ben Driss, director of the Tetouan Documentary Film Festival section, who represents us in Africa. These three professionals have joined the Festival’s delegate in Asia, Asako Fujioka, programmer, until last year, of the Yamagata Film Festival in Japan. 

Elena Fortes (Mexico) is a graduate in Visual Communication from the University of Pennsylvania. She also studied the Career Discovery programme focused on Architecture at Harvard University, and later studied Industrial Design and Multimedia. In addition to her work in visual media, she has developed political and cultural communication strategies for civil associations and public institutions in order to promote citizen participation and expose the violation of human rights in Mexico and abroad. She is currently the General Manager of Ambulante A.C, a non-profit making organisation that she founded along with Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz, devoted to supporting and spreading documentary film as a tool for cultural and social transformation. She has been a member of the jury at diverse international festivals, including Hot Docs, the International Film Festival of Guadalajara, SXSW, Silverdocs, Nordisk Panorama, Sheffield DocFest, DokuFest, Documenta Madrid and Camerimage.

Andréa Picard (Canada) is an independent curator and writer based in Toronto. She has worked for The Toronto International Film Festival since 1999, and was a member of the TIFF Cinematheque programming team for twelve years. Since 2006 she has curated Wavelengths, the Festival’s critically acclaimed avant-garde programme –named in honour of Michael Snow –and has contributed to the Festival’s Future Projections and former Visions programmes. As an independent writer and curator, Andréa has collaborated with local and international institutions such as Art Metropole, The Images Festival, le Centre Pompidou, Vienna’s Belvedere and MAK museums, and the Secession. She writes a regular Film/Art column for Cinema Scope magazine.

Nourddinne Ben Driss (Morocco) graduated in French Language and Literature from the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences in Tetouan, and is a professor in this field at the Lyceo Quadi Ayyad in the Moroccan city. Secretary General of the Film Friends Association of Tetouan, he is the organiser of the Mediterranean Film International Festival (Vice-Director and head of the documentary film programme and workshops of this festival). He is also a film critic and Head of the Editorial Team at the film magazine, Wachma.

Fujioka Asako (Japan). International film festival organizer and distributor. Worked with Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan 1993-2014 as coordinator, director, and now board of directors. Established the New Asian Currents program, a collection of films and videos by emerging documentarists from around Asia during the years 1995 – 2003. Organizer of documentary film workshops with young Thai, Japanese, and Chinese filmmakers 2009 – 2011. Selection committee and advisor for Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund since 2006. Sometime distributor of Asian documentaries in Japan, and Japanese documentaries overseas.