11/12/2002

Unanimous agreement. Directors, producers and industy experts confirm the fundamental importance of international festivals as special places to meet and talk, create, produce but above all, promote films.
The 5th edition of the Eureka Screenings - an inter-governative pan-European organisation that includes 36 member countries that was set up to support the circulation of European films beyond national borders – took place in Skopje, Macedonia. The Eureka Screenings were a welcome opportunity to discuss the best ways to promote the European product. The keynote speakers included Pierre-Henri Deleau, the delegate-general of FIPA (International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes) and the former director and founder of Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, Dejan Pavlovic, the director of the Skopje Film Festival and Macedonian director Svetozar Ristovski who made a documentary entitled The Joy of Love.

Most festivals distinguish themselves for the variety of visitors they attract. “An international festival like Cannes, that also has a market, brings together a huge variety of industry figures in one go; producers, the distributors who draw up the sales deals with exporters and production companies; journalists and critics who see and talk about the films, many of which do not have an international market. Last but by no means least is the public. Over time, ordinary people have become more familiar with cinema and are now active participants in these kinds of events.
“Jean-Henri Deleau is pessimistic about the creation of an increasingly European circulation of films, “I feel that Europe is gradually losing its identity in the race to conquer the American market. A difficult market because it is closed and difficult to break into because it is run by unwritten rules that cannot however be broken.”
The future does not bode well for a market that refuses to accept subtitled films and prefers to serve its audience remakes of European films re-wrapped according to its own “modus operandi”.
“In order to have universal appeal, a film must have a commercial potential rather than just a national and, at the same time, it must be as personal as possible,” added Deleu. “A contradiction in terms it is virtually impossible to find an answer to.”
Problems that are common to Europe, and beyond, according to young film director Svetozar Ristovski. “An American independent film encounters the same problems as any European counterpart when searching for a distributor. For a film like mine, for example, that was wholly produced in the Balkans, it is absolutely essential to find the right market.”
The film and audiovisual professionals who took part in the round table discussion all felt that European cinema will manage to extend its horizons, and welcomed the idea of films that were slower to show commercial returns but were more attractive from the cultural point of view.
They also had a word for today’s youth who will be tomorrow’s audience: “We cannot ever allow ourselves to forget them,” concluded Deleau. “We have to think very seriously about teaching them about cinema and the extraordinary opportunities for expression it offers.”