The Federation of Latin American Audiovisual Authors' Associations (Federación de Sociedades de Autores Audiovisuales Latinoamericanos) (FESAAL) will hold its annual meeting from November 1 to 3 in the city of Santiago de Chile, with its local partner ATN hosting the event.
This time, Authors, Directors and Screenwriters representing all Latin America in this Federation will be part of the event: ARGENTORES and DAC (Argentina); GEDAR and DBCA (Brazil); DASC and REDES (Colombia); AGADU (Uruguay); CREADORES Py (Paraguay); DACAP (Peru); EDAP (Panama) and SOGEM (Mexico).
It is important to remark that FESAAL decided to hold its Annual Assembly in Chile with the aim of supporting the actions promoted by ATN after the Act Larraín was passed in 2016, granting audiovisual creators their rights as such.
Negotiations between ATN and users are at an advanced stage, considering that many users are meeting their payments and also collecting and distributing copyrights to their legal beneficiaries locally and from foreign associations holding reciprocal agreements.
FESAAL helped Chile, among other countries, to pass its own remunerations Act for audiovisual rights of screenwriters and directors, as it happened in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Panama and Brazil in the future, which is about to pass a digital media remuneration Act, among other ongoing initiatives, the same as Paraguay, Peru and Ecuador.
FESAAL General Secretary, the Director and Argentine Screenwriter Horacio Maldonado (DAC) highlighted that “this is a meeting of utmost importance, since it keeps all the Latin American Region together with the Collective Management Associations for authors, screenwriters and directors, setting a path and always aiming at the possibility of passing remuneration laws that will strengthen the profession and the lives of our audiovisual creators".
He also added that "there has been a significant increase in the audiovisual creators' income throughout the region in those countries where this right is in full force and where collection and distribution are applied. In addition to this meeting, the aim is to plan future actions for the creation and strengthening of new management companies throughout the Latin American region".
Daniella Castagno, President of the Association of Audiovisual Directors, Screenwriters and Playwrights of Chile (ATN), stated that “We feel honored to host this event, since it allows us to receive delegations from the countries that make up the Latin American audiovisual association, which has become a real family".
The head of the organization expressed that ‘’this meeting is essential for us, since it makes us stronger in each territory and at the same time it allows us to build better protection networks for authors, share experiences with fellow associations, boost copyright management skills and increase the value of authors in our territory".
Daniella Castagno concluded by saying that “It is key for authors to get involved in the protection of their rights, since the associations emerging today do not yet have this vision about what the mission of copyright is for the authors themselves. In addition, we believe it is essential to have a working instance to reflect on the valuable efforts made by our directors, screenwriters, writers and in general, all the Latin American women representing our organizations”.