Colombia’s Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM) has concluded its 17th edition, boasting a significant increase in attendance. A total of 2,336 accredited participants attended the five-day event, which featured 271 industry activities and 882 one-on-one business meetings connecting selected projects with international guests, advisors, and potential partners.
According to BAM director Carlos Eduardo Moreno, the market once again demonstrated that Colombia has world-class stories to tell and the talent to bring them to global audiences. ‘We’re confident that many of the projects that came through the market leave stronger than they arrived—and one step closer to becoming the films, series, and audiovisual experiences audiences will see in the years ahead,’ he said.
The event was packed with panels, masterclasses, and training sessions, showcasing a dizzying array of activities. The only break in the action was when Colombia played against Switzerland in its failed bid to make the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup on July 8. Even the traffic-clogged streets of Bogotá went virtually silent during the match.
This year’s edition awarded 70 in-kind prizes from national and international partners to selected projects and emerging talent across various categories, including Fiction Films, Documentaries, Series, Rough Features, Animation, Rough Shorts, and Bammers. Among the big winners was José Luis Rugeles and Ana María Tarazona of Rhayuela, who took home five awards for their TV series project, ‘Rookies’ (‘Oficina de Detectives’).
The documentary feature contenders, ‘La Sombra de Yolüja’ by Hanz Rippe Gabriel and Fernanda Pineda, and ‘De la Villa’ by Mónica Taboada and Beto Rosero, split the prizes. Meanwhile, Agamenón Quintero’s ‘De naranjas y otros demonios’ snagged the most awards in the fiction feature section.
Organized by Proimágenes Colombia and the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, BAM remains a key engine driving Latin America’s audiovisual sector. The event has become a platform for industry professionals to connect, collaborate, and showcase their work to a global audience.
The VFX company Folks Bogotá, run by Andrea Espinal, has attracted a slew of international projects to its studio, lured by its highly competitive rates. The company has serviced shows such as Netflix’s epic ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ Taylor Sheridan’s ‘1883,’ and ‘Lioness’ (Seasons I and II), Rodrigo Prieto’s directorial feature debut ‘Pedro Páramo,’ AppleTV’s ‘The Morning Show,’ and survival horror pic ‘Boiúna: Legend of the Amazon,’ formerly titled ‘Titan,’ which shot in the Colombian Amazon.
Another burgeoning VFX company, Loma, with deep roots as a family-owned rental equipment company, has expanded into the virtual production business. Its 200-square-meter virtual production studio combines custom LED volumes with real-time technologies, including Unreal Engine, camera tracking, and media servers, to deliver in-camera VFX and extended reality (xR) productions.
Run by COO Francisco Forero, the Bogotá-based facility supports feature films, series, commercials, live broadcasts, and R&D projects, offering filmmakers a state-of-the-art environment for virtual production and next-generation visual effects workflows. Among some of the shows they have serviced are Netflix’s fact-based skyjacking series ‘The Hijacking of Flight 601,’ SPT’s ‘Hasta que amanezca,’ and ‘Como perderlo todo’ from Dago Prods., as well as BAM’s Vaivén, a large-scale immersive audiovisual installation created by artist collective Project Aurora.
