Spain Invests Over €190,000 in Virtual African Film Festival in Tangier

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent 60,000 euros in 2020 and 2021 to "promote African cinema as an instrument of development within the framework of the Tarifa-Tangier African Film Festival". This, through the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) which signed an agreement with the Al-Tarab Strait Cultural Diffusion Center, reports Ok Diario, specifying that the financing of this year’s edition is currently under negotiation.

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The festival is "essentially virtual", we can read in the agreement, which did not generate costs for organizing cinemas and other expenses. "In this year of changes and restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, this essentially virtual program has made it possible to highlight African talents and has achieved unprecedented international success, both quantitatively and qualitatively," the organizers say.

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These economic aids are in line with the "priority objectives" of Spanish international cooperation policy, which are to "contribute to economic growth and social, cultural, institutional and political progress in developing countries; promote cultural and scientific cooperation between Spain and developing countries and ensure the coordination of development policies".

"The participation of AECID in the Festival will aim to promote the strengthening of the African film sector as an instrument of development and dissemination of the values of development cooperation in film projects," explain sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.