EFP's Film Sales Support takes stock
by Cineuropa
European Film Promotion’s (EFP) marketing tool, Film Sales Support (FSS), has successfully backed European films at selected non-European film festivals and markets since 2004 with the continuous support of the EU’s MEDIA Programme. Resulting in a sales success rate of 45%, FSS helped with marketing and promotional campaigns for 546 films from the whole of Europe between 2004 and 2009.
During this period, FSS supported 82 different European sales agents and a great number of producers with a budget of €2m, to cover 50% of the companies' costs for promotional material, hiring of publicists and other activities.
"FSS has become an important incentive for European sales agents – as well as for production companies without an agent – who are selling Europe's diverse film culture to the world", says Renate Rose, managing director of EFP. This is particularly true for companies handling films from "smaller" countries.
On average, 40% of the annual FSS funds go towards films from countries with a lower audiovisual production output. These are films representing Europe's diversity, for example, from Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia or Romania, to name just a few. Around 39% of these supported films get sold.
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