Les Arcs industry events to focus on VoD, Bullhead

Les Arcs Film Festival (Dec 15-22) has unveiled details of its industry workshops.

The two-day programme takes place within the framework of the Les Arcs co-production village running Dec 15-18 at which 26 projects will be presented this year.

It will kick off on Sunday (Dec 16) with a Europa Distribution workshop on the intricacies of the VoD market, looking at platforms as well as technical and legal issues.

Speakers will include Spanish digital rights specialist Ricardo Torres; Simon Morris of the UK’s Love Film, who will give a presentation of the company’s activities and Matthias Mücke of Berlin-based Neue Visionen who will talk about the VoD platform Good Movies.

Eric Verheyden of Belgian distributor Cineart will examine legal issues linked to VoD. Paris-based Under the Milky Way’s Alexandre Labelle will discuss the TIDE experiment, a grouping of distributors and exhibitors experimenting with new release strategies under a MEDIA-backed programme.

On Monday, Belgian producer Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Films and Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams will present a case study on the production and distribution of Michaël R. Roskam’s Oscar-nominated Bullhead.

It will be followed by a presentation of the new €5m Flemish funding strand Screen Flanders by Christian De Schutter, manager of promotional body the Flanders Image.

The new fund aimed at international productions offers up to €400,000 to features, and other audiovisual works running to at least 60 minutes, generating expenditure in the Flanders region.

Belgium is the country of honour at the festival this year with 13 Belgian features set to screen as part of the programme.

Les Arcs also unveiled details of its Film School Village, welcoming nine recent film graduates from prestigious schools across Europe such as La Fémis in France and Rome’s Centro Sperimentale.

Workshops for the students will include a panel on author rights and remuneration chaired by Bruno Bobin, head of international affairs at France’s author and composer guild the SACD. Susan Wendt of Trustnordisk will oversee a panel on international sales.

Romanian director Christian Mungiu will share some of his experiences and tips in starting out as filmmaker in a masterclass on Tuesday.

Les Arcs will also host the DIRE days from Dec 19-22 at which the 13 members of the French distributors network – including Les Films du Losange, Rezo Films and Wild Bunch Distribution – will unveil their line-ups for the first part of 2013. Some 200 professionals are expected to attend.