Paraguayan Congress begins working on a law for Audiovisual Promotion

By Berkemeyer Attorneys & Counselors

A draft law for the Audiovisual Promotion in Paraguay began last week to be analyzed by the Congress of Paraguay. A first meeting took place in the Chamber of Deputies between several lawmakers and the head of the National Secretariat of Culture (SNC), Fernando Griffith.

According to Griffith, the government is working on a similar law that the one that created in 2012 the National Symphony Orchestra, an institution with legal status and artistic and functional autonomy, related to the Executive through the SNC. "We believe that the country’s cinema industry has everything to take off", argued Griffith, according to Prensa Latina, in its public defense of the draft, mentioning the international success of national cinema and the growth of Paraguay’s cinema market.

Although cinema on Paraguay has historically been small, currently the country has 18 cinema complexes with 70 rooms, representing a total of 11,992 seats, and in recent years national productions have had striking critical acclaims and box office records.

Among those production is 7 cajas (7 boxes), released in 2012 and a unanimous decision winner of the “Films in Progress" award at the International Film Festival of San Sebastian, Spain. The film also participated at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2013 and was nominated at the 27th Goya Awards for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film representing Paraguay.