The fact that Asia and Europe are finding it more difficult to finance films in the wake of the pandemic may prompt the two regions to start working more closely together, despite significant differences in their financing systems, a group of senior producers said in two sessions. Filmart painting.
In the first session, the heads of major European funds, including France’s CNC, the Austrian Film Institute and the Berlin-Brandenburg Film Commission, explained the complex web of subsidy financing in Europe, while Gary Mak, Secretary General of the Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC), presented a financing plan. New co-production in Hong Kong
The new programme, called the Hong Kong-Europe Asia Film Cooperation Funding Scheme, offers grants of up to $1.15 million (HK$9 million) to showcase film projects that bring together Hong Kong and other Asian and/or European talent. Projects do not have to be filmed in Hong Kong or filmed in one of the city’s official languages, but they do need to employ a certain percentage of crew in Hong Kong.
“The Hong Kong film industry has a tradition of working with different cultures, but this has become less prominent over the past few decades, so we wanted to provide an incentive to encourage filmmakers to look beyond Hong Kong,” Mak said. “We have a lot of new filmmakers, but they are stuck in their local culture and don’t have a lot of exposure to different film festivals, so hopefully over time they will have the opportunity to work with different cultures.”
In the second session, a group of producers with experience in international co-production spoke about the opportunities and challenges in co-production within the Asia-Pacific region and between Asia and Europe.
Cristiano Bortone, managing director of Bridging The Dragon, which co-organized the session with Filmart, said there are more co-production discussions between Europe and Asia these days because financing films in both regions has become more difficult during and after the pandemic:
“There’s a whole new discussion about collaboration now, because there’s less money everywhere,” said Burtoni, who has co-produced films such as “Mr. Italian recipe And coffee Between China and Italy.
“For the first time, I see a lot of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian companies, even big companies, interested in cooperating with European partners. Ten years ago, they would have said their box office is great and they don’t need Europe. Now everyone is in the same boat and the story is different.” ”
Korean producer Jonathan Kim, who is setting up an Indonesian production and also co-produces with China, said Korea has never had a co-production culture, but needs to start exploring this financing model at a time when the local industry is struggling.
“What you see from the outside is different from reality, because we actually have a very difficult time producing films in Korea. “The Korean movies you watch are mostly on Netflix,” Kim said. “We used to be ranked fourth at the global box office but we suffered a severe collapse during Covid and never came back. Cinemas decided to recoup their losses by raising ticket prices, but the audience got used to watching films on mobile platforms and did not want to return to theatres.”
Although Japan is only getting small amounts of support, local producers are also starting to look more seriously at co-productions, said Asako Nishikawa of Japan’s Bandai Namco Filmworks.
“The box office in Japan is very strong for local anime, but live action is not doing well,” said Nishikawa, who produced the recent Berlinale film. All the long nights, directed by Sho Miyake. “The Japanese market for art films is getting smaller and smaller, and we have to survive, so we have to find investors from outside the country and explore new ways of production.”
One of the biggest challenges of working with Europe is finding partners to work with: “Going to Canada is easy, as it is with Canada,” said Beaver Mingkui, a producer at CMC Pictures, one of the few Chinese companies involved in co-productions these days. UK, France and Germany, but if you need a co-producer in a smaller country like the Czech Republic or Finland that you don’t know, you have to do a lot of groundwork and due diligence to find the right partner.
Commenting on the fact that some co-productions now involve up to eight different countries, Singaporean producer Jeremy Chua said the co-production model itself has internal costs, leading to the need to bring in more partners.
“You always need a last-minute fund or just another country to close your financing,” said Chua, who produced the Cannes-winning film Camera d’Or. Inside the yellow cocoon shell As a multi-country co-production. “I’m currently co-producing in the UK and we have £40,000 in legal and £23,000 in administration. You could make three films in Indonesia with just that amount of money.”
Speaking at the first session, Christiane Krohn-Rapp, chair of the Berlin-Brandenburg Film Commission, said that one aspect of the Hong Kong-Europe-Asia scheme that may be difficult to adhere to is the requirement that six out of ten department heads need to be from Hong Kong.
HKFDC’s Mak explained that this requirement is designed to give professionals in Hong Kong more international experience, but agreed that it may need to be considered in more detail: “We have received similar advice from others and it is something we will take into account in the next phase and will either amend Or collect more opinions.