Merch for Mexican producers at ICOFF-Gasteiz — International Short Film Festival of Vitoria-Gasteiz

Merch programme for Mexican producers at ICOFF-Gasteiz

Current edition

May 2026 (official dates and section programme confirmed by the festival in the quarter before; the 2025 reference edition ran 5–10 May)

Venue

Vital Fundazioa Kulturunea, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain

Organiser

Fundación Vital, with the support of the Ayuntamiento de Vitoria-Gasteiz, IDARTE and Gasteiz On, co-directed by Sonia Pacios and Kepa Sojo

Use case

Basque cultural merch, European programmer follow-on, shipments to Vitoria-Gasteiz, Bilbao, San Sebastián, Madrid and Mexico City

The International Short Film Festival of Vitoria-Gasteiz — known as ICOFF-Gasteiz — is one of the reference audiovisual festivals with international reach in the Basque Country, and the only sustained international festival in the province of Álava. The combination of a national short-film competition, a curated showcase of award-winning shorts from the world's top festivals, and a dedicated Basque and Alavese cinema section makes ICOFF an ideal testing ground for Mexican producers that have been working the European short-film circuit for years and want to ground a sustained merch strategy in the Basque calendar. Mexican short-film and animation producers already running a stand at ICOFF, when they arrive in Vitoria-Gasteiz, do so with a mix of confirmed guests (European programmers, independent catalogue distributors, journalists from Spanish and European film magazines) and to-be-confirmed guests (San Sebastián programmers, TVE and ETB catalogue buyers, and international sales agents landing for the occasion).

The operational venue is Vital Fundazioa Kulturunea, in central Vitoria-Gasteiz, with parallel sessions in collaborating spaces run by the Ayuntamiento. The choice of Vital Fundazioa as the single venue gives the festival an Alavese cultural-cinema atmosphere and concentrates qualified guests within a few square metres — which makes stand merch particularly important, because qualified guests walk through the Vital Fundazioa foyer several times a day and the technical conversation with Mexican producers usually starts at the foyer café, not in the screening room. Mexican producers running a stand at Vital Fundazioa typically ask for three categories: a premium catalogue line for European programmers who come by the stand and use the material as a reference for their next-year selection decisions; an operational gift line for distributors evaluating the award-winning shorts in direct conversation; and a VIP line for the artistic directors of San Sebastián, Zinemira and the Catalan festivals who confirm pre-sales and licensing during ICOFF week.

Merch production for ICOFF-Gasteiz follows the standard rule for European short-film festivals: produce little, produce expensively, produce so that the qualified guests remembers the stand three months later, at their festival's selection committee meeting, when they no longer remember the names of half the producers who came through their room. The mistake we keep seeing with first-time Mexican producers at ICOFF is showing up with generic tees in industrial quantities, cheap gifts that run out on day one, and VIP boxes that never get delivered because nobody confirmed the European recipient's office address. The successful ICOFF stand is the one that understands the Alavese audience is demanding, the European guests are sector professionals, and the merch has to age well to be useful three months later.

The planning cycle for Mexican producers running a stand at ICOFF starts ideally eight weeks before the current edition. In week 8 we confirm the line-item mix against the number of expected guests and the week's programme (official section, parallel sections, Q&A, industry meetups). In week 6 we issue the MXN purchase order with CFDI 4.0, lock production of the apparel and gift boxes, and route the shipment as one consolidated order with carta porte 3.0 to your European hub of choice (Bilbao, Madrid or Vitoria-Gasteiz). In week 4 the shipment lands at the European hub, and between weeks 4 and 2 we route the merch to Vital Fundazioa with receipt confirmation by the festival office.

The post-ICOFF retention leg is run as its own programme, with its own purchase order and its own calendar, because the products, quantities and destinations usually look nothing like the stand programme. The mistake we see is treating retention as an extension of the stand: using the same invoice, the same supplier, the same carta porte — and then the VIP boxes ship to the recipient's home address instead of the festival office the artistic director represents. Post-ICOFF retention has three critical windows: the two weeks after the festival closes, to arrive before the next-year selection committee closes its conversations; the July block, to arrive before the San Sebastián Festival and the Catalan summer festivals; and the pre-summer block, to arrive before European programmers head off to their autumn juries.

Cross-border shipment for Mexican producers running a stand at ICOFF usually consolidates under a single MXN purchase order with CFDI 4.0 and carta porte 3.0, using your preferred European carrier or a US routing hub under USMCA provisions if the apparel was produced in Mexico under an IMMEX programme. The Basque leg of the shipment usually pairs with a separate European retention leg for the air-shipped VIP kits to San Sebastián, Madrid, Lisbon and Berlin. The Vital Fundazioa and Ayuntamiento de Vitoria-Gasteiz offices are the logistics anchors that let you consolidate the Alavese hub without a permanent Bilbao warehouse.

Production and logistics for a stand at Vital Fundazioa

The merch production cycle for Mexican producers running a stand at ICOFF-Gasteiz starts ideally eight weeks before the current edition. The post-ICOFF retention leg is run as its own programme, with its own purchase order and its own calendar, because the products, quantities and destinations usually look nothing like the stand programme. We route under a single MXN purchase order with CFDI 4.0 and carta porte 3.0, using your preferred European carrier or a US routing hub under USMCA if the apparel was produced in Mexico under an IMMEX programme.

Frequently asked questions