Co-production meeting looks at ways to take back domestic market shares

05/02/2010

Bringing to the film industry the great reciprocity between Spain and Italy that already exists in culture and ecomonics, and applying currently existing agreements, to take back market shares occupied by North American films is the conclusion of the conference on film policy held yesterday at Rome’s Istituto Cervantes.

Speakers included Nicola Borrelli, the new director general of Cinema of the Ministry of Culture, making his first public appearance; Ignasi Guardans, director since April 2009 of the Instituto de Cinematografía y Artes Audiovisuales del ministerio de Cultura (ICAA); Riccardo Tozzi, president of producers at ANICA; Pedro Pérez, president of the Federación de Asociaciones de Productores Audiovisuales Españoles; Andrea Occhipinti of Lucky Red; and Gerardo Herrero of Tornasol Films.

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"I don’t believe in co-productions based on simple exchange of actors. We need to stimulate the mutual knowledge producers of both countries have. They must be the ones to discover their common interests,” said Guardans, “for which we must implement the co-production agreement between Italy and Spain singed in 1997" and broaden the field, involving Portugal and France, with cooperation structures that create an idea of Mediterranean cinema. "In Spain we already have a law that supports the distribution of European cinema on our territory, without reciprocity".

While Borrelli feels they need to start from a good existing base (in 2009 there were 10 co-productions between the two countries – download the PDF file with data) to face common problems, Tozzi believes they must concentrate distribution and promotion efforts in some territories. Occhipinti, who has co-produced as well as distributed many Spanish films (from the The Others to the recent The Orphanage [+see also:
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Pérez spoke of the relationship with private broadcasters – “We’d like them to return to investing in Spanish cinema” – and the polemics between filmmakers and politicians. "North American cinema takes up an enormous chunk of the market, over 71%, and Spanish films 16%. In 2008, Spanish films were seen more abroad than at home. Our cinema is doing well, it just needs to take back more of the market".

Herrero, whose Tornasol was 54% co-producer of the Oscar-nominated The Secret in Their Eyes [+see also:
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Interview Juan José Campanella [IT]
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film profile] by Argentinean director Juan José Campanella, said that "cinema is also marketing, audiences have to get to know our films. Naturally, we have to use weapons that differ from those of Avatar, to create an axis with the Portuguese and French".