South Beach Screenings. (World).

For its fifth year as one of the premier markets for Latin American program buyers, the South Beach Screenings (March 2730) is partnering with the Miami Film Festival (MFF) and streamlining its focus to include only feature films.

"What we were doing before is inviting the Latin American buyers and sponsoring the whole event," explains president of LAIN International and organizer of South Beach Screenings Julio Neri. "But since we are co-sponsoring the event with the Miami Film Festival this year, we'll only be dealing with film." He added that the same Latin American buyers would be attending, and that any interest in deals for TV programming would more than likely be catered to by other markets.

The new format, which essentially changes the screenings from an exhibition to a sister festival of the MME also expands the clientele to include companies from Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and Canada. Among this year's participants are Alliance, Vista International, APA International and Intraroyal.

Neri said that the decision to ride shotgun with the MMF was made in part to better serve the interests of distributors and producers, who want to expand their film programming. "Since I've been working with the MFF on its organizing committee for two years, the partnership made sense," he added.

While the venue has not been finalized for this year's three-day event, LAIN is close to reaching an agreement with the Shelborne Hotel in South Beach to serve as headquarters.