Position Paper on pan-European licensing
Proposal of a position paper based on the Berlin meeting (Berlinale 2010)
The European Producers Club (EPC) is an association of Europe's leading independent film producers. Dedicated to the development of a strong European film industry, our activities include advocacy on European film policy issues, networking events and the promotion of international coproduction in film. On behalf of the producers we represent, we believe it necessary to reiterate our opposition to pan-European licensing. There are several reasons for our position. First, the revenue generated by a pan-European license would be far less than revenue received from sales to individual countries. As we have seen in the past, recoupment on a second market is near impossible. Second, the territorialisation of film releases involves two market constraints – budget and promotion - that make a pan-European release impossible. With the regards to the former, the under-capitalisation of production companies, and their cash problems, mean that films need to open at the earliest possible date in order to recuperate investments as quickly as possible. A pan-European release wouldn’t be able to fit into these rapid release dates. As for promotion, the constraints linked to media, an essential tool for promotion, are obvious. The first direct consequence of pan-European licensing would be the uniformisation of language, in favour of English of course, and the silencing of our native languages. We would have a single language market, and a loss of our cultural identity. Paris, March 18th, 2010