02/05/2005

800 participants from the 25 EU countries meet today and tomorrow in Paris within the framework of Encounters for European Culture, initiated by French minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. In the schedule, debates on the cultural diversity of Europe begin in the afternoon with a round-table that brings together, notably, the Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana and the president of Unifrance Margaret Menegoz, author of "Culture doesn't inherit, it conquers". Monday morning, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Luc Besson, Kenneth Branagh, Isabel Coixet and Marisa Paredes engage in a dialogue with other artists on the question of "The individuality of Europe in the creative environment". Equally worth noting on Monday afternoon: the filmmakers Patrice Chireau and Andrzej Wajda will be among the speakers in a debate entitled Towards a Europe based on its Culture. This final panel will precede a closing gathering of European Ministers and all the invited artists.
Cinema and audiovisual news: a student workshop will be held at the National Centre for Cinematography, under the presidency of Margaret Menegoz and Marco Tullio Giordana as spokesperson (assisted by Laurent Heynemann). This work group includes filmmakers, producers and European distributors: from Germany Stefan Arndt (X Films), from Britain Laura de Casto (Tartan Films), from Spain Enrique Gonzales (Alta Films), from Poland Roman Gutek (Gutek Film), the Italian Andrea Occhipinti (Lucky Red), the Hungarian Oliver Shiflish (Best Hollywood), the portuguese Paulo Branco (Gimini Films and Madragoa Films) the French Girard Krawczyk, Reni Bonnell et Claude-Eric Poiroux (Europa Cinemas).
The participants have underlined that the progression of domestic European market share is not going to cover up difficulties in the circulation of films(currently restricted to around thirty European directors). This report makes even more vital the reinforcement of national and Europe-wide conventions which encourage the diversity of this proposal and access to it. The work group notably recommended an inducement mechanism which favours the presence of films from another European country in the multiplexes and action to better support distribution through the Programme Media and through bilateral aid agreements for independent distribution. Finally, it estimates that public European television companies must be encouraged to pass bilateral agreements on co-production and the programming of films.

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(Translated from French)