How Top Spanish Film School ECAM Has Become an Industry Force to Reckon With

variety.com:

Annika Pham Over June 10-14, Madrid is welcoming 300-plus industry delegates for the inaugural ECAM Forum, which is shaping up as the next go-to market for Spanish projects and co-productions, considering the stellar list of projects and attendees lined up.

Hosting the event is not a private company nor the industry arm of an A-list festival, but a film and audiovisual school-Madrid’s prestigious ECAM.

Founded in 1994, the school, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses to more than 300 students a year, is Spain’s leading breeding ground for some of the country’s biggest names in film, television and advertising such as filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen and regular writing partner Isabel Peña (“The Beasts”, “Mother”) or cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“The Road”, “The Sea Inside”).

The reasons for ECAM being so industry-facing comes down to the school’s status and founding principles, as explained by Rafa Alberola, head of ECAM Industria (formerly known as ‘The Screen’), the umbrella regrouping the school’s industry activities to support emerging talent, boost film production and the overall Spanish audiovisual sector. “We are a private non-profit cultural organisation, whose prime focus is education, but also fostering knowledge in the audiovisual sector, and building bridges with the industry to facilitate alumni’s access to the job market.