Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14 2012 Public consultations: Assessing State aid for films and other audio visual works 1 European Cinema: Are we failing our audiences? The underlying problem with European cinema is lack of coherence. We do not seem to be able to effectively synchronise national film policies and European film policies. The opportunity cost of this is the synergies lost. Through this not-joined-up thinking the industry (the 1%?) is failing the audience (the 99%!) while depending on public money for its survival. It’s a terrible and ironic observation for a cinema community to say we are simply not looking at the big picture. Recent debates demonstrate that short term secondary national interests are prioritised even as we sing the European song. Economic and cultural policy aims are mixed, melded and diluted to a point where the lack of differentiation between key aspects and aims ensures only that neither cultural nor economic aims are optimised and the truly creative synergies are left unexplored. The debate around the often-postponed Cinema Communication is proof of this. Instead of looking at the big picture, the overall strategic position and the possible and necessary transformations, we dither and procrastinate around regressive details that belie our cosmopolitan pretensions. We worship and give praise at the altar of cultural diversity and yet do nothing to encourage real movement or exchange. In fact we seek ways to inhibit movement both of funds and personnel because of fear of losing something to our neighbours. We do not see the potential, both economic and cultural, for more and better collaboration nor the fact that the cultural and economic aims are inextricably linked. We lack vision. After 20 years of a pro-active European cinema policy —which in turn further encouraged national film initiatives— the key indicators have hardly moved; they do not show a measurable improvement. If the purpose of the policy was to strengthen the position of European cinema(s) in the marketplace, both in terms of commercial revenue and cultural diffusion, then little progress has been made. There has been a slight improvement in overall market share for European films in European cinemas (to approx 28%). The overall box- office share for non-national European films has remained at a relatively static 7% in the past 20 years. While agreeing that things might be worse were it not for the useful initiatives that have been deployed, can we admit that we have failed in our efforts to increase circulation of European films in this period? Probably not, as we seem to have adopted the ostrich position by simply ignoring or not publicising this key indicator of (under)performance. Another number that is systematically not reported is our trade imbalance with the US. If we cannot explicitly and systematically use these key aggregate indicators as part of the diagnosis and as a founding analysis of the challenges we face, we cannot hope to begin to find paths to improving them.
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Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14 2012 Public consultations: Assessing State aid for films and other audio visual works
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European Cinema:
Are we failing our audiences?
The underlying problem with European cinema is lack of coherence. We do not seem to be able to effectively synchronise national film policies and European film policies. The opportunity cost of this is the synergies lost. Through this not-joined-up thinking the industry (the 1%?) is failing the audience (the 99%!) while depending on public money for its survival. It’s a terrible and ironic observation for a cinema community to say we are simply not looking at the big picture. Recent debates demonstrate that short term secondary national interests are prioritised even as we sing the European song. Economic and cultural policy aims are mixed, melded and diluted to a point where the lack of differentiation between key aspects and aims ensures only that neither cultural nor economic aims are optimised and the truly creative synergies are left unexplored. The debate around the often-postponed Cinema Communication is proof of this. Instead of looking at the big picture, the overall strategic position and the possible and necessary transformations, we dither and procrastinate around regressive details that belie our cosmopolitan pretensions. We worship and give praise at the altar of cultural diversity and yet do nothing to encourage real movement or exchange. In fact we seek ways to inhibit movement both of funds and personnel because of fear of losing something to our neighbours. We do not see the potential, both economic and cultural, for more and better collaboration nor the fact that the cultural and economic aims are inextricably linked. We lack vision.
After 20 years of a pro-active European cinema policy —which in turn further encouraged national film initiatives— the key indicators have hardly moved; they do not show a measurable improvement. If the purpose of the policy was to strengthen the position of European cinema(s) in the marketplace, both in terms of commercial revenue and cultural diffusion, then little progress has been made. There has been a slight improvement in overall market share for European films in European cinemas (to approx 28%). The overall box-office share for non-national European films has remained at a relatively static 7% in the past 20 years. While agreeing that things might be worse were it not for the useful initiatives that have been deployed, can we admit that we have failed in our efforts to increase circulation of European films in this period? Probably not, as we seem to have adopted the ostrich position by simply ignoring or not publicising this key indicator of (under)performance. Another number that is systematically not reported is our trade imbalance with the US. If we cannot explicitly and systematically use these key aggregate indicators as part of the diagnosis and as a founding analysis of the challenges we face, we cannot hope to begin to find paths to improving them.
Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14 2012 Public consultations: Assessing State aid for films and other audio visual works
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Does our industry operate in an insulated protective bubble? Are our protections part of our undoing? Does each euro the industry receives through subsidy or tax relief investment also serve to further insulate producers from the need to find an audience? More positively, could it be possible to maintain a necessary subsidy policy but not allow this to insulate the producer from the market requirement of finding an audience? Can we find innovative ways for Competition requirements to both improve performance and ensure protection?
As an aside, we can briefly look at two completely different European success stories for two other sectors of economic and commercial activities: aviation and football. Both of these industries were also in quite a different and much weaker position 20 years ago. Aviation. 20 years ago Airbus had a much smaller global market share than its American rival Boeing. It now has a slight edge in the number of planes it delivers per year. And, to simplify, this is because of recognising the need to co-operate at a European level and forego certain national prerogatives. This recognition for more real co-operation took place 20 years earlier and was gradually formulated into strategy. In 1997 the Airbus mission statement emphasised the need “of strengthening European co-operation in the field of aviation technology and thereby promoting economic and technological progress in Europe, (and) to take appropriate measures for the joint development and production of an airbus." Operating separately, despite their innovative skills and determination, European aviation industries could never have competed strategically with the Americans, especially in the field of trade regulation battles. Obviously all of this was not plain sailing; there were also many intra-European battles on the road to economic parity with the Americans. But the European industry did go from a weak minority position to become market leader. (Though it was a hundred years ago, it bears mentioning also that the French film industry once dominated the American market and was at the heart of devising the American studio system.) Football. Here the success story is a little different in that it was almost by accident it happened through the enforcement of free movement of footballers and the dismantling of national quotas. Again, this is an oversimplification. But it is the unexpected and unplanned outcomes that warrant notice. About 20 years ago, nobody would have suspected that the enforced loosening of national protections would have such an impact on the economics of football. Just this month, a huge increase has been announced in the latest UK live broadcast rights for the English Premiership. While many can argue that the massive and growing influx of cash has spoiled some important aspects of the game, no one can deny that, in both in terms of business and culture, the impact has been phenomenal. From being a largely British industry, English football is now like an everyman’s United Nations. Especially in England, but also in other national European leagues, people come from all over the world to play and compete. While the tough business dealings are evident, so also are the examples of talented players from distant and deprived corners of the planet succeeding. But perhaps the most important socio-cultural impact has been on the fans (or the audience). Football supporters are notoriously considered to be nationalist and even xenophobic in their outlook and there is still plenty of evidence to support this observation. But there is also evidence to show how this regressive attitude has improved because of football. For example, football has been used to highlight and combat racism. For where racism is most toxic and visible is where it must be fought. And, over the years, slowly but surely, the anti-racist battle is being won on the football terraces. And through ensuring the free movement of talent, football has inadvertently become multi-cultural. If a poll were to be conducted among a representative cross section of the UK population to name a famous French person that they admire, the top 10 would almost certainly include many football players or managers. (In European cinema, despite its tendency to preach diversity, human rights and the stated aims of films crossing borders, there is very little worker migration between filmmaking communities. It is far more likely for a talented European to be recruited for an American production than by their EU neighbours. This is despite the countless events and festivals where we meet across Europe to show our films and debate and eat and drink together. Does the lack of salaried migration amount to a ‘de facto’ national preference?) These are two sectors that are quite different from cinema, but there are parallels and inspirations to be drawn from them, notably the wilful European dimension of the aviation challenge and, in football, the free movement of talent that led to the explosion in popularity and enhancement of its multiculturalism. These two examples at least give food for thought for cinema. And speaking of food, we should also note the explosion of culinary diversity that has taken place over the past 40 years. People have shown that they are more and more open to other food cultures and cuisines. If we could step out of our bubble and if we could be a little more entrepreneurial, imaginative and adaptable, maybe we could be also making inroads into the tastes and choices of others and put a dent in the monoculture of our multiplexes.
Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14 2012 Public consultations: Assessing State aid for films and other audio visual works
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Neither the national governments nor the cinema sectors seem interested in describing how they might be getting better results. Perhaps this is because it would put at risk their already fragile positions and hard-won budgetary concessions. To even suggest that some of these might be counterproductive in some way is heresy. And the EU, with its usual communication handicaps and deficiencies, cannot counter this avoidance except with arid legalistic jargon that offers yet another opportunity for the national communities to rebel against the “tyranny of Brussels”. For the Commission is handcuffed by protocol and politics, denying it any leadership and vision of its own. This was abundantly clear in Cannes 2012, where we could witness a whole squad of individual Culture Ministers in their national pavilions, mellifluously evoking the importance of their national industries in terms of art, identity, employment and tourism. The only strident note came when each minister individually delivered the collective message —briefed by their respective EFAD member— that they were staunchly opposed to the new proposals by the Commission which want to loosen the territorialisation rules. One minister even said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” …they would not sacrifice national interest for an ill-defined and badly-sold reform. For it could be argued that the Commission in turn failed to provide the strongest arguments for the proposed change and didn’t provide the reassurances necessary as to why such a loosening could or would improve the situation for all of the stakeholders. So, instead of the real possibility of progress on both sets of preoccupations, we got entrenchment.
The result presumably will be a conservation of the stagnant status quo and —if we are to believe that the movement of European films is inherently a good thing— the stakeholder that will continue to lose in this debate is the European audiences that will continue to be deprived of European films. They are the 99.9% of this debate! For, in terms of film culture, our territories are occupied. Even the strongest of our national cinemas are minorities in their own countries and, among the weaker national cinemas, some have as little as a 1% share of local box-office. US cinema is in a majority in all of our territories. As we well know, there are many reasons for this domination, ranging from genuine entertainment quality to the efficiencies of economies of scale to the skulduggery of monopolistic practices. But another of these reasons is that the US is probably the only cinema producer that, for strategic purposes, looks at Europe both as a single market as well as a series of individual markets. It does this despite fierce competition for market share among the individual American companies and studios but through the strategic cohesion of its national coordination that is the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA). Europe does not yet have an equivalent of the MPAA; it does not have an overall industrial co-ordination that will serve the strategic interests of European cinema with the values that are particular to our ethos, culture and notions of public service and which are somewhat different to US values in this regard. But because of this failure to cohere, it is the US values and US idea of cinema that prevail for the most part in Europe. This is our failure. Is this is the responsibility of the Commission? Of the national governments? Of the EU Parliament? Of EFAD? The Commission seems incapable of providing vision and leadership and is reduced to offering piecemeal solutions. The governments or Council of Ministers are transient, by political definition, and usually obliged to follow local vested interests. The Parliament may be the true representative of the European citizens, and therefore also the European audience, but it too is at the mercy of local interests and local party politics. EFAD is the best placed ‘potential entity’ to bring about or to influence the radical change in thinking that is necessary to transform the performance of cinema in Europe. It is best placed because it represents the grass roots and because it is best informed of the reality on the ground, however dysfunctional and undemocratic these realities might sometimes be. It also proves itself to be pro-active and both elegant and eloquent in its effective defence of existing privileges, notwithstanding the counter-productivity of some of these.
Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14 2012 Public consultations: Assessing State aid for films and other audio visual works
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But EFAD is not a truly European entity because it does not have a European vision. In fact it is not a real entity. It doesn’t even have a website explaining to the citizen-audience (the 99%) what it does, why it does it, and in the name of who, ultimately, it acts. It is merely a collusion of national agencies and agendas rather than genuine collective and collaborative actor. It seeks to first promote local interests and agendas before aiming at the total view of European cinema. Still, this meeting of European cinema industry minds is probably the best —or necessary, or inevitable— starting point in finding European coherence. However, for its real creative and pioneering talent to emerge, it needs an equivalent body that does the opposite to EFAD, a counterpoint, one that looks first at the key overall indicators that measure performance and then seeks ways to make the national strategies fit. Together, through judicious use of opposing forces, they could aim at real progress, on a less fragmented negotiating table, while ensuring generalised protections that are not contrary to the overall performance. We need also to stop abusing the principle of Subsidiarity in defending unproductive national arguments. Or at least state our interpretation or understanding of the principle as we use it. According to the principle of Subsidiarity, the EU may only act where the member states agree that the action of individual countries is insufficient. Isn’t this plainly the case with cinema? We have yet to come to the full realisation that the actions of our individual film industries are insufficient. Whether they be for the bigger national industries, to compete even more effectively on the European and global markets, or for the smaller industries to simply exist and have a voice, our actions are insufficient. And the way we abusively exploit the Subsidiarity principle in denying this is damaging to our overall long-term interests. We will have spent ten years fiddling with this Cinema Communication, probably for very little return. Basically, we do not have an adequate process or structure to devise a truly dynamic film policy in Europe. We need one. Instead of a Cinema Communication that settles for tinkering with a handful of parameters among dozens and still has its efforts blocked and compromised, we need a fresh approach to European film policy. For, unless we find a way to look at the big picture and dare to have a vision, we will always be a distant second in both the cultural stakes and the commercial marketplace.
Séamas McSwiney Paris, June 14th 2012 [email protected] See also previous contributions: 30.09.2011: Assessing State aid for films and other audiovisual works – (“We’re not asking the right questions”) 12.12.2008: A New Compass for European Film Policy? – (“Let’s do nothing, it’s safer that way”)
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