Inaugural Ciclope Festival

In early December I attended the inaugural Ciclope Festival which was held here in BA, on a large, luxury motorboat moored inside 1 of the lochs at the newly redeveloped barrio of Puerto Madero.
It was an interesting hybrid of part Cannes/part AICP but was marketed directly to the production community. The attendees were appreciative of the input from & content shared by the visiting speakers, most of whom were also members of the larger jury.
There was a gala ceremony held on the upper deck of the boat on the 2nd night, where the Ciclope trophies were presented to the winners of each craft category. There was a good mix of LatAm winners amongst the international winners, particularly in the animation & original music categories. Not all LatAm finalists were Argentinian either, many were from Brazil & some outstanding submissions from Colombia.

The revelatory insight for me was how loathe the Argentine producers were to support this festival. The reason given to me was ... "it's only the 1st year for this Ciclope, so we'll wait & see if it's a success before we decide if we'll support it or not". Well, tell me then: how do expect to see a Ciclope next year if you don't support it at all?? The general response to my question was a shrug of the shoulders, a smirk & something about 'This is Argentina. This is how we are. You will learn this.'
There were more Brazilian attendees than Argentinians. That's a disgrace. Also producers came from other LatAm countries - Mexico, Colombia, Chile, even Venezuela! The Producers World Summit was alone well worth coming to the entire event for - the heads of the 3 big international producers' assosciations were present (APA, AICP, CFP-E) as they are in Cannes for this same event & moderated the open discussion. The absent Argentinian producers would have learned a lot had they the sense to come!
However, I must add that the Argentinian producers who did attend proved to be an open-minded, positive group of fun people! Several of them had 1 common trait, they'd lived & worked in other foreign markets, which is why they appreciated the opportunity Ciclope presented to meet their fellow LatAm production community. I'm sure we initial Ciclope attendees are going to become the basis for a local film production community here, despite the general apathy & widespread resistance to such a notion! Ha!