Leading film and entertainment execs from Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia converged this week at the Tablakera, the former tobacco factory turned contemporary culture centre, for the third annual Creative Investors’ conference, held as part of San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Among those participating in the two-day event that aims to encourage collaboration between the Spanish and international industry were leading financiers and agents (Roeg Sutherland from CAA), former studio heads (ex-Universal chairman and Participant CEO David Linde), high-profile investors (Vania Schlogel from Atwater Capital) and top producers among them Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and Record Picture Company’s Jeremy Thomas.
Spanish participants included producer Sandra Hermida and Mariela Besuievsky from Tornasol Films.
Organised in collaboration with CAA Media Finance, the event has backing from Spanish Screenings: Financing & Tech initiative, the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), the Ministry for Digital Transformation and of Civil Service, through ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones, the Malaga Festival and the San Sebastian Festival.
Pre-sales: alive or dead?
Jonathan Kier of the US’s Upgrade Productions repeated the now familiar nostrum that drama is “not pre-sellable today”. “It might be sellable once there’s footage or once it is made,” Kier conceded.
But a different perspective emerged the next day. “Foreign is not dead,” insisted CAA’s Sutherland of the international market. “We have had more success selling internationally than ever.” Sutherland pointed to the current instability and uncertainty among the US studios and streamers. This is giving the independents a chance to compete “and to go in and grab rights. As difficult as things are, we have a $110m movie that started production two days ago, Cliffhanger 2. That would never have been made independently before. That is getting made independently because we know that at some point, a studio is going to want that.”
“With a movie like Better Man that was directed by Michael Gracey, a $135m movie about his favourite singer who is portrayed as a monkey, that movie would never have got made before independently,” Sutherland continued. “Those movies now exist independently because financiers feel that if they can fill the void then we are going to have the opportunity to take advantage of a distressed market in the next two years.”
He was echoed by Danny Perkins of the UK’s Elysian Film Group. Elysian has pieced together the $50m budget for the Simon Farnaby-scripted family film The Magic Faraway Tree “completely independently”. The film shot this summer with a cast including Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy.
“The UK is a challenge but if you can see between the cracks, there is lots of opportunity there,” said Perkins. “There’s a lot of talent, lots of IP, lots of material…”
US producers are seeking European funding…
US producers are increasingly looking to work with partners in regions with attractive incentives. Christine Vachon, executive producer of Brady Corbet’s Oscar contender The Brutalist, spoke of “the extraordinary subsidies in Budapest” that made Hungary an attractive destination for that film.
“There are a lot more American producers looking for finance in Europe now,” said Robin Herremans of Belgian production outfit Caviar. But he noted that, unlike European partners working together, the US doesn’t tend to use coproduction treaties – and this can cause logistical hurdles.
“Why isn’t there a treaty with the US?” Herremans asked. “They just don’t want to do it. It is not just about going into a country, you come with money and you get money back. Reciprocity is about more than that. It’s about access to markets, bringing people over to work in your territory, about union stuff… For me, as a European, it baffles me that nothing like that has been discussed.”
David Davoli of Anonymous Content, which announced a joint initiative with Spain’s Morena Film last year, called for US companies to show tact and sensitivity with international partners. “Be adaptive to the culture you are coproducing with and don’t come in acting like you know more than them, especially if you are American. It is a big mistake a lot of Americans make. It’s [about] listening and understanding how each culture does things slightly differently. Also vice versa.”
Sara Murphy, a US producer with Fat City which is currently working on Paul Thomas Anderson’s next feature starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, said the US tax credits could learn a lot from the European ones. “The New York tax credit is one of the healthiest in the United States [but] it takes five years to get it back. I still have a film that I shot six-and-a-half years ago that I haven’t received the tax credit [back]. I think it is $150,000.
“I would hope there is a way to bring a piece of US equity that can sit alongside some of these [European] subsidies,” Murphy continued. “You want it to be a win-win.”
…and looking to work with the Euro media giants
“Have you ever heard of Mediawan? Do you know who Newen is?” David Linde, the former head of the now closed Participant Media, told the conference that at least “50% of all the film professionals of Hollywood” probably wouldn’t even know the names of such major European media players. But Linde also hailed a “golden opportunity” for these European powerhouses to work with the US studios.
“What you are going to find is [everyone], including the studios, is going to become increasingly invested in this IP fountain that is coming out of Europe,” he said of why the US majors, as they seek to regroup following last year’s devastating strikes in Hollywood, may well be looking toward Europe.
Sniper marketing is taking over
Delegates discussed changes in marketing strategy. Now, distributors are bypassing old media and going straight on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to reach their potential audiences – and they are very specific in how they target them regarding their age, gender, where they live and what they like.
“In the post-Covid era, there are no magazines, no long lead press. You have a very coffined window to get the message about your film out,” said IFC Films’ Scott Shooman. “It is about finding what the five things are that are going to make someone go and see the movie. There’s a lot of that through ‘sniper’ social targeting – that is the most effective way to market a movie right now.”
Collaboration is key
“It’s very exciting and quite innovative what we are doing,” said Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos, one of the nine participants in the international indie alliance The Creatives who develop and fund film and TV together. “We have had a long process of courtship and friendship… It’s very easy to say that production companies should work together – and they do in Europe – but we are trying to work together on a more holistic and corporate level.”
Many of the companies in the collective have been pursued by major European media conglomerates – but they are striving to main their autonomy and independence.
The aim is to share IP, expertise, financial information and to work ever more closely together. This is more than just “a club of friends” and further announcements will soon be forthcoming about how the 10 will collaborate in a more formal way.
“Everything has been very organic,” said Caroline Benjo of French producer-distributor Haut et Court. “There is a level of trust that is so incredibly rare. Something that is quite rare too is the lack of competition between ourselves. This has created something very special in terms off transparency.”
The theatrical window still matters – but not for docs
“We find there is no better advertising campaign for the life of a movie than the theatrical release,” confirmed IFC Films’ Shooman. However, he suggested US audiences are now happily “conditioned” to watching high-quality documentaries at home. “Based on the quality of documentaries on a lot of the streaming services, documentaries are having an almost impossible time theatrically in the United States.”
As studios suffer, indies thrive
“The studios are all saying the sky is falling, the business is dying, and the indies are having some of their best years,” Shooman went on to highlight the contrast in fortunes at different ends of the US market. A24, Neon, IFC and Magnolia have all enjoyed some of their best ever opening weekends this year in a period when the majors have been complaining that audiences have gone AWOL.
But keeping budgets low in the indie space is more important than ever. “The cheaper you make a movie, the more buying opportunities you have in the marketplace… the higher the budget, the fewer people that can affords that film,” Shooman said. “The studios are making movies for way too much money that have to be four-quadrant movies and they’re making fewer of them. What that does is it opens a blank space for other people to come in and try and take those screens.”
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