Paulina Urrutia, Chile’s Minister of Culture, announced the creation of a new public fund for theatre dedicated exclusively to its promotion and diffusion abroad, during a meeting with international programmers that attended the Festival Santiago a Mil. This Fondart fund, called “Ventanilla abierta”, will be open throughout the year and sets “to give more opportunities to many” as a government policy, stated the Minister. It will allow Chilean theatre to relate with international production.

Twenty representatives of foreign Festivals from Europe, Latin America and the US attended attended the work meeting, with the objective of getting to know the plays offered and to start planning the exchange.

The Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón was among the ones who received more attention. His play “Neva” toured scenarios in Korea, Italy and Spain in the year 2008. His trilogy (“Neva”, “Diciembre”, and “Clase”) will be part of Buenos Aires Festival 2009 and is also invited to Mexico, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia and Poland.

This year “El Capote”, creation of Milagros company lead by Aline Kuppenheim, will attend Moscow’s Festival.

At Santiago a Mil take parte thirty-three programmers coming from Cadiz Festival (Spain), Der Welt Festival (Germany), Edinburgh’s Festival (Scotland), Bahia’s Festival (Brasil); Cervantino Festival (México), and Buenos Aires Festival (Argentina), among others.

The Minister presented Chile’s current initiatives on public support to the performing arts. These are lead by the Council and the Ministry of Foreign Relations through its cultural embassies. She also highlighted the support given to Santiago a Mil Festival, especially that given to street theatre, which intends to take theatre to a wider public.

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