14/11/2013 - At Europa Distribution’s annual conference distributors discussed chances and new digital distribution channels

Piracy, day-and date release, video-on-demand, children’s films for art house cinemas as well as the new distribution support by MEDIA were the key issues at the annual conference of Europa Distribution in Estoril which was organized by new manager Christine Eloy and Olivia Le Dain (photo). Piracy is not only a hot topic for the major studios but also for independent distributors. “The illegal download of films, music and video games comes down to US $ 775 bn per year,” reports Christopher Elkins, co-founder of British service company Muso that developed software that can track and remove illegal content in the Internet. “67 percent of all file hosters are based in Western Europe and the US,” states Elkins.

“You need a lot of money, people and equipment to fight piracy,” states Daniel Melamed, CEO of Israeli art house distributor New Cinema. “I care less about piracy because even when art house movies are commercial they are still aiming at a certain demographic group which is not so much into watching films online.”  Even if his films are available for free via download or streaming websites, the Israeli distributor is not afraid of losing any of his target audience. “These people would not come to the cinema or buy a DVD anyway,” underlines Daniel Melamed. “I don’t care about the revenues, I only care about the buzz. Sometimes it is good for the buzz even if people are pirating a movie.”

According to a recent survey for which 300,000 online users between the age of 18 and 34 were questioned, 15 percent download films illegally unwillingly and 40 percent occasionally. The main problem is the availability of films. “If people hear about a hot title in Cannes, they want to see it right away,” says Daniela Elstner, CEO of Doc & Film International. If a film is pirated, it gets harder for the world sales agents to sell it. “It is difficult to track films,” underlines Daniela Elstner. “We have to work together.”

As some experiments show, day-and-date releases aren’t the perfect solution for the film industry to fight piracy either. The concept of a simultaneous theatrical, television, video and online release that should cross-fertilize is not always working very well. The results of the Swiss movie Viramundo [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was released within The Tide Experiment (read the news) as a day-and-date release in eleven European territories, was not as successful as the European distributors had hoped. “It is too early for an evaluation,” says David Cabannes, VoD manager at French company Under the Milky Way, which coordinates The Tide Experiment. “We will publish results of The Tide Experiment at the Cannes film festival.”

“Cinema is still the ultimate event for films,” states Dragoslav Zachariev, Secretary General of the European Federation of Independent Cinema Video on Demand Platforms (EuroVoD), “but it makes sense to release certain films in a different way.” In Great Britain the day-and-date release was already practiced with films such as A Late Quartet and What Maisie Knew. “The British Film Institute did several reports on that which are published on their website,” says British distributor Edward Fletcher from Soda Pictures. “The day-and-date releases received big attention in the United Kingdom but several exhibitors boycotted it because they didn’t want to show a film in their cinemas which was already online or released simultaneously on television.”

In order to generate a cinema audience for art house films in an early stage, several distributors created a label for children’s movies. Since 1992, Swiss film club Laterna Magica shows children’s movies to their worldwide members in several European countries but also in Morocco, Palestine, Senegal, Argentina and Mexico. With the Polish distribution company Gutek Film, Jakub Duszynski created the children label Gutek Kids. “With our small marketing budgets it is not easy to compete with the big family entertainment films from Hollywood,” outlines Jakub Duszynski. “Many parents are not aware of our films.”

Therefore the distribution support within the new MEDIA programme will include special attention for children’s movies as Gaele Broze from EACEA in Brussels pointed out. Right now, the team works on the guidelines for the working programme for 2014. “A huge part of the distribution support will become automatic support in order to have a structural effect,” explains Gaele Broze. “Our aim is to support cultural diversity in Europe.”