On 11 December 2015, UNESCO announced that it was awarding Barcelona the City of Literature seal. As a result of this recognition, the city has continued to back initiatives that promote literary activity in Barcelona. In 2024, Barcelona City Council approved the government measure linked to the “Barcelona City Council strategy to drive the audiovisual sector”, implemented by the Barcelona Institute of Culture, point 5 of which proposed the “Reactivation of the LAAB, a meeting space for publishing companies, scriptwriters and audiovisual production companies”. The Barcelona Audiovisual Adaptations Laboratory (LAAB) programme responds to the task of a literary city generating a programme that fosters the development of audiovisual rights of top literary works in the city of Barcelona.

To foster audiovisual creation generating a catalogue of published works that can be adapted to the audiovisual sector. The seven works selected will each get €6,000, with two corresponding to the genre of children’s literature, young people and animation, to produce a first version of the adapted script and the costs involved in producing it. The call offers three tutoring sessions for the project and a presentation session for projects before industry representatives. The purpose is to foster ties between editorial and audiovisual production in the city of Barcelona.

Applicants. Authors, publishers, literary agents and audiovisual producers of any nationality within the European Union who own the audiovisual rights to a published work can apply for the subsidy, providing it meets the conditions set out in the description for the call.

The period for receiving works will run from the day after the publication of the document “Terms and conditions of the call” until 14 March 2025.

You can consult the rules and register for the project here.

If you have any questions, you can write to agarciat@bcn.cat.