Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I will try to speak in English; I hope you will forgive me, because it's not my first language. My name is Omar de la Cruz, from Dominican Republic. I work for a private, nonprofit institution, founded by Dr. Leonel Fernandez, called Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo, FUNGLODE. It is non-partisan, open to all currents of thought in the Dominican Republic. It's really a place where we are open to all expressions of social, political, ideological, cultural thought in the Dominican Republic.

Since its inception in the year 2000, (FUNGLODE) has promoted the development of the film industry and the media arts in general. It is with this objective that the Global Media Arts Institute (IGM) and Festival de Cine Global Dominicano (FCGD) were created and with which great pride and honor, I command.

The IGM is nurtured by agreements with the School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, in addition to NYU and others. These agreements consist of the provision of teachers in the fields of cinematography.

In 2006, we launched Festival de Cine Global Dominicano and its Global Media Arts Institute, setting as one of its goals to become a key component in the development of the Dominican film and audiovisual industry with an excellent multimedia training and education center for young talent and experienced professionals.

During the year, we offer regular courses from beginner to intermediate to advanced levels. We also organize cultural activities that promote a better understanding of film and media arts through film screenings, workshops, and chats with actors and technicians, among other activities.

We seek to benefit young Dominicans, raising their awareness, proposing solutions to problems and disseminating concepts of creativity and individual opportunity, we also seek to promote the development of the Dominican film industry, highlighting the opportunities the country has to offer to the international film industry and through the development of this sector, contributing ultimately to economic growth of the nation.

Our belief in young people prompted the creation of a short film competition where contest prizes are based on furthering education. Prizes awarded to the winners include scholarships, computers and training, plus the possibility of screening their short films in other countries.

We have various training programs for youngsters and children, such as a program called Global Filmmaking for Peace and Development. In this program, under the auspices of UNESCO, young people are selected from around the world, including eight from Haiti, 12 from Dominican Republic, and 10 from other countries or regions, who, for a month, work together and develop shorts, all this done to ensure that young people can develop their skills in a short period of time.

The best results of all these efforts can be assessed within the Global Film Festival, since 80 percent of people who have been training with us, are now part of the directing team of the festival, in the areas of logistics, technical and production of every moment of the festival, and are also inserting themselves into the film industry.

I have already commented on our institution and our festival, but today I also want to mention all the friends who are with us, that the assembly process and audience-building of a festival is very complex, from the selection of the date, to commissioning projection venues for the films.

All year our staff attends the most important festivals; Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Trinidad and Tobago and beginning this year we will always have on our agenda Guadeloupe, to establish working relationships and friendships. We do so in search of industry contacts, determine valuable guests and to ensure the provision of the films to be exhibited, as well as the development of professional panels to take place during the FCGD.

In this process, and this is not unique to the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival, but of all festivals, we find drawbacks such as high costs of transportation of the films, the subtitling or dubbing of the same, the selection of the guests, the cost for transportation and accommodations of said guests, as well as infinite number of problems, which are solved in every edition but new roadblocks arise and that with good will and desire we are able to eradicate.

All this seems very nice, wonderful and enterprising, but it really takes hard work, dedication, effort, love and resources. Resources that take a lot of effort to get to develop any project, but in the end the results are satisfactory.

The first edition of the FCGD reached an audience of 10,000 spectators. Through the years it has continued to grow substantially, reaching the sum of 50,000 in our 2012 edition.

In our case, capital has been generously provided by the business sector of the Dominican Republic, whose key players have supported us in a generous way, which we appreciate very deeply, for without such collaboration, we could not make the Festival.

But not all the time the same support will be available, so we need your help, the people, politicians, businessmen and all those who in one way or another are a strong part of the economic movement of our countries.

This request also reaches this third ABCD meeting, which also requires, like all of us, that helping hand and people who actually believe, are part of and work with this wonderful project that is the ABCD. This meeting, which is coordinated by our friend and brother Rigoberto Lopez, does not belong to him, it belongs to all of us: African, Latino, Caribbean, Brazilian, and anyone who one way or another feels identified with our African roots. Our friends from Africa are our brothers, for that reason we must remain united for the same cause.

Many make reference to Hollywood, they say the American film invades movie screens, it is true but have we stopped to wonder why? I guess not, since whenever we refer to Hollywood we associate it with imperialism, but the real reason for Hollywood's success is integration, coercion and national understanding that American filmmaking, should go as far as where there may be a human being. All this is achieved because the nation created the awareness that film is a mechanism to promote the famous American dream, politicians, civil society and industry employers defend their products regardless of whether they are good or not, no matter who made them, that product is for all Americans.

I comment on Hollywood so we can see that our big problem is the lack of unity, we always find different opinions, but that does not matter, we must put aside our personal ambitions and create the awareness that our cinema has to go beyond the boundaries of language and that we can and shall.

The ABCD platform, is of all of us, we have to use it, take it to our nations and make each one of the points of the previous agreements find asylum and development in our areas. Some would disagree with my statements but I will tell you that's the beauty and richness of debate. Take the example for the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival and FUNGLODE, during the first meeting we offered that the second meeting take place in Santo Domingo, which was successful and resulted in this third meeting taking place now in the FESPACO framework.

Another point of the agreement was to create a network of Caribbean Film Festivals, a proposal, which I have been carrying with me for several years. It's the creation of an entity that can group all film initiatives, also all film festivals so that they can expand the region around the world. Well I'll tell you now that it is a reality, along with Trinidad & Tobago, Guadeloupe, the Traveling Showcase, and most recently, Martinique we have formed this network, with cooperation agreements and integration of our festivals, I call the attention of all of you to join in this initiative, our doors are open, all we need is to just count on you, because my purpose with this is the film circuit unification of the Region of the West Indies and the Caribbean, regardless of idioms.

A small example of how the ABCD would be a tool of knowledge for all of us would be, what are the steps to make a good documentary? Because here we have Arnold Antolin, he can gladly tell you what steps are necessary for making a good documentary, and you can take that knowledge to your respective places and implement them, that is why we have our email addresses at your disposal, so you feel free to ask about any topic and we can share our experiences.

In the case of the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival, we have behind us six years of hard work. For this 2013 we are entering a new stage with the creation of the Film and Television Market, we also implementing a new competition in our festival, for debut filmmakers, and next November in Santo Domingo among the activities of the Festival will celebrate the first meeting of Caribbean Film Festivals.

In the case of Guadalupe I was able to appreciate everything from a different perspective because I was appointed by the town of Guadalupe and FEMI as the honorary president of the 2013 festival. It has already begun to bear fruit, for that reason we are starting this year to expand our short film competition, we have decided that from this year 2013 Guadalupe youngsters will be able to participate in the Global Filmmaking for Peace and Development program. Also, FEMI Festival that has a space within our festival, so that they can project two or three films under FEMI consideration. And before the end of this year we wish to present in Guadalupe a showcase of Dominican films, subtitled in French and also do this in our country, Guadalupe films, subtitled or translated into Spanish, all this in order to share our culture and our language.

African brothers, Caribbean brothers, Brazilian brothers, we must fight for our culture, our cinema, make cooperation agreements for film education and also use the platform available to us through the ABCD. Friends, we can appreciate that efforts through continuous work and based on unity can yield good results.

Thank you all for your attention, I hope we can meet again at the next ABCD, with new development expectations and desires to turn our race and culture into the best, the most watched, the most loved, the most enriching and we can further enhance of our unity and the future of young people who follow our steps. You must believe in what you do, because you have to do with the heart, to reap wonderful results and benefits for all, I ask you to fall in love with your festival, with cinema and the audiovisual and put heart to it.