European Film and Television Co-production: Policy and Practice (2025)

The circulation of European co-productions and entirely national films in Europe 2001 to 2007

2008

Report prepared for the Council of Europe Film Policy Forum co-organised by the Council of Europe and the Polish Film Institute (Kraków, 11-13 September 2008)

The European Connection" Does the audiovisual support system MEDIA empower the cross border circulation of European audiovisual productions?

2014

Between state-led and corporation-led co-productions: how has film co-production been exploited by states in Europe

Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 2020

Co-production was developed by several European countries to revive their film industries and has become increasingly popular, spreading across the region and beyond. However, this scheme should be carefully examined as to whether it is truly beneficial to the film industry. In response, this paper proposes two new concepts, “corporation-led” and “state-led” co-productions by distinguishing them from the prevailing notion of “(international) co-production.” Corporation-led coproduction is to achieve the best outcome through the optimal utilization of production (or creative) factors and business activities. By contrast, state-led co-production has been used to enhance the national image and has been supported by financial incentives. As such, this type of co-production becomes a hindrance for the optimal utilization of production factors. All of these aspects can be found throughout the history of Europe’s co-production efforts. In the future, such an instrument should be redesigned in order to promote the film industry more effectively.

The Europe-Hollywood Coopetition: Cooperation and Competition in the Global Film Industry

2007

Every issue offers an original research work, longer than a journal article, which focuses on the analysis of media and communication markets, from a variety of perspective. The Media Markets Monographs is open to a wide range of research methodologies, disciplines and theoretical interests, as far as the studies are innovative and enrich the body of knowledge on structure, performance and understanding of media markets.

European Cinema and Television. Cultural Policy and Everyday Life

This book offers comparative studies of the production, content, distribution and reception of film and television drama in Europe. The collection brings together scholars from the humanities and social sciences to focus on how new developments are shaped by national and European policies and practices, and on the role of film and television in our everyday lives. The chapters explore main trends in transnational European film and television fiction, addressing issues of co-production and collaboration, and of how cultural products circulate across national borders. The chapters investigate how watching film and television from neighbouring countries can be regarded as a special kind of cultural encounter with the possibility of facilitating reflections on national differences within Europe and negotiations of what characterises a national or a European identity respectively.

The Circulation of European Films Within Europe

Comunicazioni Sociali, 2018

While more than a thousand films are made in Europe each year, only around 20 actually circulate in any meaningful way outside their own national market but within Europe. Despite the processes of globalisation and digitisation, we are clearly still some way from a film industry that knows no borders. This paper analyses the sorts of European productions that do travel successfully within Europe, and why. It draws on research undertaken for the MeCETES project (Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens, 2013-2016), and especially the extensive database of films released in Europe between 2005 and 2015 put together by Huw D. Jones. The key factors affecting the ability of European films to travel successfully in nonnational European markets include the size of the budget, whether one of the major American studios was involved as producer or distributor, whether the lead producing nation was one of the Western European big five, the language in which the film was shot, critical acclaim, and the way in which the film tells its story. Five categories of European films, their production circumstances and their market performance, emerge from this analysis. First there are large-scale, big-budget blockbusters, many of them inward investment films backed by the Hollywood majors, which tend to travel well within Europe and enjoy equivalent success online. Secondly, there are small-scale, director-led, art-house films that command significant critical attention and travel to cosmopolitan audiences across Europe. Thirdly, there are feel-good, middlebrow films that occupy the middle-ground between these two extremes: modestly budgeted films that occasionally achieve crossover success and travel well within Europe. The other two categories describe films that travel very little, if at all, outside their domestic market. The fourth category is modest to low budget films with a strong national appeal, which may be successful in their own domestic market but rarely travel well beyond that market, whether theatrically or online. Fifthly, there are a great many European productions that fail to secure significant national admissions, let alone admissions in non-national markets. In many cases, this is indeed about failure. The dominance of the European film market by a small number of powerful American, British and French companies, and to a lesser extent, German, Spanish and Italian companies, indicates a lack of diversity within the films that circulate. And while some European films do circulate successfully outside their main producing nation, the vast majority do not. National film cultures within Europe are also surprisingly resilient in this era of globalised, digital storytelling and a surprising amount of national film-making is still enjoyed by national audiences. The challenge to policy-makers thus remains to find more effective ways of enabling a greater degree of cultural exchange, openness and inclusivity, within and beyond Europe.

Exporting the French Co-production Model: Aide aux cinémas du monde and Produire au Sud

2018

This chapter examines how the Aide aux cinemas du monde fund and the Produire au Sud workshop aim at strengthening France’s central position in the co-production of world cinemas. The Aide aux cinemas du monde provides funding to French co-producers of films from all over the world, while the Produire au Sud workshop, linked to the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, works towards developing cooperation between European film professionals and emerging filmmakers from the South. Drawing on an analysis of film policy documents and data, field observation and recent film festival studies, this chapter investigates how both initiatives support co-production, in parallel to developing and exporting professional practices and discourses that shape the co-production culture developed in France since the 1980s.

The Vertical Axis of Film Policies in Europe: Between Subsidiarity and Local Anarchy

In Mingant N., Tirtaine C. (eds.), Reconceptualising Film Policies. Routledge, New York, 2018

In Europe, the policies that regulate and support the production of lms have a very long history. The rst signicant measures date back to the 1920s, when many European governments began to adopt quotas limiting the presence of American lms in European cinemas and to guarantee visibility to domestic productions (Guback 1969). The measures varied considerably from country to country, but the objectives were the same. From this historic moment, it is possible to trace one of the hallmarks of all public policies implemented for the lm sector in Europe over the course of almost 100 years: the convergence of economic and cultural goals. This dual nature of public intervention starts to become clear, particularly from the end of World War II, when European governments also begin to earmark funds to support the cost of lm production. On the one hand, this seeks to guarantee resources for national lm industries that must: (a) face ever-increasing production costs; (b) deal with some structural weaknesses (e.g. the small size of domestic markets); and (c) contend with very strong foreign competition, primarily from the United States. On the other hand, the policies of European governments seek to defend a cultural sector, which plays an important role in the life of a country. Films help to develop and renegotiate the identity of a nation, to thematise its issues, ideals and contradictions, to animate public debate and to foster the intellectual growth of its population. To relinquish having their own lm industry thus means giving up all of these potential benets. Or it could mean yielding to others (that is, to the strongest market forces, such as the major Hollywood studios) the task of dictating the public agenda of one's own country, becoming over time more and more permeable to external values, ideals and lifestyles (Brunetta and Ellwood 1994). From the post-World War I era to the present, lm policies in Europe have undergone many changes. What appears to be one of the most sig-nicant developments registered over time is the increasing number of public entities governing the sector. While in the aftermath of World War I national governments were the only authorities entitled to do this, today there are two other policy-makers: on the macro level, the Euro-pean Union, and on the micro level, a multiplicity of local governments.

EUROPEAN CINEMA IN THE POST-1989 COMMUNITY POLICY ERA

PhD thesis , 2023

This study delves into the intricate relationship between European cinema and Hollywood, analyzing the geopolitical, technological, and cultural factors shaping their dynamic. The American film industry's pervasive influence, seen as hegemonic, has spurred a counteractive European response, primarily guided by French leadership. Notably, Hollywood's presence in European cinemas catalyzed a sense of urgency for European nations to appreciate the importance of cultural interconnectedness through film co-productions. The research method employs a multifaceted approach combining historical, content, and comparative analyses, focusing on pivotal moments such as the Cold War's end, the Iron Curtain's fall, and the rise of on-demand media platforms. The study highlights Europe's struggle to strike a balance between economic aspirations and the promotion of fundamental values in audiovisual works. The conclusion suggests Europe's need to transition from preserving to proactively promoting cultural values, with an emphasis on embracing diversity and eliminating disparities in national approaches. Keywords: audiovisual, cinema, Europeanism, Hollywood, geopolitical dynamics, cultural diversity, on-demand media platforms, policy, technological influence.

European Film and Television Co-production

2018

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