Barcelona’s Mobile World Capital and Sitges Film Festival create an event for films made with cell phones

Barcelona (ACN).- Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) and the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia will promote the Phonetastic Sitges Mobile Film Festival, an initiative to develop smart phones as a way of creating films and as a platform for audiovisual distribution. MWCapital, which organises each year the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and the Sitges Festival are organising lectures and workshops on the subject. It will be held during Summer Week, a week of cultural activities related to mobile phones organised by the Mobile World Festival, one of the pillars of the MWCapital, which makes Barcelona one of the world’s main meeting points in the mobile and cell phone industry. At the end of February each year, the Catalan capital organises the world leading congress on the subject, and through the MWCapital and the Mobile World Festival it will also organises related activities throughout the year.

In a press release, Mobile World Capital revealed that the project will involve the participation of the Sr. Watson agency as a founding member. Also the organisers have detailed that the initiative is part of the ‘mContent’ programme by the MWCapital, which will promote new forms of leisure and entertainment using mobile technology.

A new feature will be the Sitges Mobile Film Festival Phonetastic Awards, which gives prizes to the best short films made using mobile phones and touch tablets. To apply, entrants will have to register via Phonetastic’s upcoming website, which will lay out the rules and details of how to submit an entry. The winners will be announced during the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.

According to the Director General of MWCapital, Ginés Alaracón, Phonetastic is “an initiative that fits in perfectly with the goals of mContent, which is centred on the culture and entertainment industry, with a strong mobile component and the possibility for new business opportunities via undoubtedly a world leader in its area, Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival”.

The Managing Director of the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia Foundation, Josep Lluís Galan, said he was excited about the new project as “it represents an essential part of the festival’s strategy for the next few years. An event such as Sitges has to react to the demands of spectators and audiovisual creators, and with Phonetastic, the festival will promote two core aspects of the event’s DNA: creativity and new technology”. The project has the full backing of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries (ICEC) and Sitges City Council.

Phontastic will be under the artistic direction of Angel Sala, Director of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia and the Deputy Director of the event, Mike Hostench.