18/01/2006

The associations of exhibitors (ANEC and ANEM) and distributors (UNIDIM), respectively, have reached an agreement-in-principle on distribution windows. On the basis of this agreement, the period of time between the release of a film in cinemas and its subsequent exploitation by other media will be 15 weeks for important films and 12 for less important ones.

For Managing Director of RAI Cinema, Giancarlo Leone, the agreement draft will have to go through further modifications. “We producers,” said Leone to trade paper e-duesse, “have supported this agreement but we must discuss the entire range of the distribution of rights. We cannot exclude the possibility of intermediary areas between theatrical, home video, pay and free TV. Areas that are advantageous to the product, both for those who produce it and those who distribute and present it in cinemas”.

UNIDIM president Paolo Pozzi has, in fact, fought for the implementation of a committee capable of following the market’s quick changes and monitoring the situation as well. Says Leone: "This is necessary, precisely in order not to rigidify the commercial exploitation of films that, for reasons of box office intake or seasonal distribution, can be subjected to variations with respect to the established 15-week window”.

Gianantonio Furlan, Multi-Cinema Director of ANEC, considers this agreement to be a compromise: “We exhibitors ask ourselves why we have to accept a window inferior to the one that exists in France and the US. The distributors say that we exhibitors pull films out of cinemas too quickly. We can easily respond to that. If they avoided releasing 7 or 8 films per weekend, the theatrical life of a film would be longer ".

In order for the proposed agreement on a film’s distribution window to be transformed into an operative agreement for all intents and purposes, the approval of the anti-trust board will nevertheless be needed, as was stressed by Davide Rossi, president of Univideo (the umbrella organization for all the main companies within the Italian home entertainment industry). "If the agreement intends to place on the same plane all forms of exploitation other than theatrical releases, including home video, our position before the anti-trust board will certainly not be enthusiastic". For Luciana Migliavacca, Managing Director of Medusa Video and Vice-President of Univideo, "It is only right that there be some protection of theatres, which undoubtedly play the central role in a film’s launch, but it is necessary to create protection for the further exploitation of a film, which is home video". She is perplexed over the enforcement of a window for films with lower box office intake: "There are films that remain in cinemas for short periods of time and gross very little at the box office. In this case, waiting 15 weeks for the home video release seems absurd to me. All the more so in the case of most films that do not have great visibility, for which it becomes important to be able to take advantage of the theatrical marketing for home video as well".

(Translated from Italian)