The UK Music Video Awards has collaborated with m-v-f-, the music video festival based in Sao Paolo, Brazil - to create Music Video Social Club, a series of online discussions that brings together filmmakers and artists from around the world to discuss the creative process, the challenges and joys of the music video artform, and how current world issues are impacting upon them.

Recorded in June and July, there are three Music Video Social Club episodes available to watch now on a showcase page on Vimeo, featuring music video-making talent from South America, Africa, the US and the UK. 

The first episode of Music Video Social Club is a conversation between UKMVAs' event director Louise Stevens, m-v-f- festival director Lia Visotto, and the team behind last year’s MVAs-nominated video for Heavy Baile’s Ciranda, including director Alex Tiernan, Heavy Baile’s Leo Justi and Jonathan Neguebites (the star of the video), and Cave Productions’ Rafael Kent, about the making of that groundbreaking Brazilian video.

The second episode focuses on representation of the Global South in music videos and music films, and features UKMVA 2019 winner Baloji, Brazilian/American director Gandja Monteiro and Brazilian artists Rico Dasalam and Xênia França, in conversation with UKMVA winner and Academy Films’ head of music, Maurizio von Trapp, and m-v-f curator, Duda Leite.

The third episode features four award-winning directors - Zoe Guglielmoni, Savanah Leaf, Lucrecia Taormina and Christine Yuan - in conversation with Louise Stevens and Lia Visotto about the music videos which have brought them attention and creativity in the face of the pandemic.

UKMVAs' event director Louise Stevens says: "Not being able to stage live events, screenings and discussions for the past few months is something we share with all of our international festival and awards partners this year. Our response was to ramp up those partnerships, and make sure we were broadening the platform for discovery for filmmakers, especially from the Latin American territories.

"This particular initiative with m-v-f- in Brazil - our partners for two years now - came about when we realised there were a number of filmmakers we had both celebrated in 2019 who shared common challenges and experiences. We thought it would be fascinating to get them together in the form of a Social Club.

"We kicked off with the team behind Heavy Baile’s Ciranda video – a film we discovered through our partnership with m-v-f last year, and which was a finalist at the UKMVAs in 2019. Lia Visotto, m-v-f-‘s Festival Director, led with the artists and producers in Brazil, while I joined from London and director Alex Tiernán joined from Algeria.

"Following that, our very own Brazilian-in-London, Maurizio von Trapp, stepped into the frame to host episode 2. Featuring UKMVA 2019 winner Baloji who Maurizio has recently signed to his roster at Academy Films, alongside artists Rico Dalasam and Xênia França, and filmmaker Gandja Monteiro, their conversation centres on the representation of artists from Brazil and Africa in music videos – and the magic and miracles required to bring them into being.

"The third episode [above] was a great chance to meet some of the breakthrough directors whose work we celebrated at UKMVA and m-v-f- 2019 and whose next projects we’ll be seeing in this year’s Awards," adds Stevens. "I’d encourage filmmakers to watch these discussions. We certainly learnt a lot – not least in terms of navigating multiple languages in a single event recording – and the openness and honesty shown by the Social Club members was inspiring. I have no doubt we’ll be re-opening the Club doors again soon."

Meanwhile, the first round of judging is now underway for the UK Music Video Awards 2020 in categories for best video by Music Genre, Technical Achievement, Live, Lockdown, Special Projects and Music Film, with hundreds of Jury Members from the music video industry now invited to enter the judging platform at the UK Music Video Awards website, view the entries in their allotted category, and choose their favourites - usually six entries, but more in some categories - in order of preference. The first round voting must end on September 7th in most of these categories. 

Jury Members' votes will determine who makes it to the second round of voting next month, when panels will meet - almost certainly via video conferencing - to decide the shortlists for this year's UKMVAs. Judging in the Individual and Company categories will be open from Wednesday, August 26th, and again Jury Members will be asked to judge in allotted categories in a judging process that runs to September 21st.

Following the second round of judging in September, nominations for the UK Music Video Awards 2020 will be announced on September 29th. Then the annual UKMVAs ceremony is scheduled to take place at the legendary Roundhouse in London on Thursday, October 29th. More information coming shortly. 

• UK Music Video Awards website