The Role of FIAPF in the coordination and regulation of international film festivals

By Bertrand Moullier, Director General

It is almost thirty years since FIAPF, the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, first responded to calls by the film industry to deal with international film festivals. Back then, it seemed every municipality with its own brass band and an ambitious mayor wanted its own and the proliferation left film producers with more solicitations than they could manage without the reassurance of a quality benchmark.

Since then, the trend has not abated: the number of film festivals with the word “international” in their title has continued on its geometric growth curve, with various estimates now putting the number at between 700 and 800 worldwide. During the same period, profound changes in the market for feature films have conspired to make festivals somewhat less pivotal for the global trade in films: whilst the number of films made annually has increased manifold, output deals between leading buyers and sellers at one end of the market and a greater reliance on more ad-hoc trade flows between smaller independents at the other end, are two key contributory factors. However, despite this evolution, a whole range of films – especially art-house movies - still rely on exposure to international film festivals as a key component of building-up audience awareness and attracting buyers. And with an increasing number of art-house films competing for “crossover” success, international film festivals have healthy prospects.

FIAPF’s role as a regulator of international film festivals is to facilitate the job of the producers, sales agents and distributors in the management of their relationships with the festivals. Our International Regulations, which festivals with the requisite commitment to quality sign-up to after a trial period, constitutes a trust contract between those festivals and the film industry at large. To many in the business, the FIAPF logo and the mention “recognised by FIAPF” sends the signal that the festival has adhered to a set of quality an reliability standards that meet industry expectations in areas as varied as technical screening facilities, copy storage, insurance, international press coverage, international programming and juries, etc. To many festivals, the FIAPF “label” is more than a mere emblem of their commitment to film industry expectations: they depend on it to raise state, regional or municipal subsidy which is essential for them to achieve their ambitions and deliver on their quality commitments.

Of course, FIAPF’s role as the custodian of the International Regulations is not restricted to a mechanical, box-ticking exercise: it is inevitable that some accredited festivals on our list may be struggling with certain difficulties in achieving the standards in evidence at very the top of their category. In that respect, FIAPF’s role is also to support a festival’s genuine efforts in achieving higher standards despite economic or programming challenges which often stem from a combination of unfavourable geopolitical location, Spartan budgets, and a difficult place in the annual festivals’ calendar. This is particularly relevant in the context of the unequal levels of resources and opportunities between film festivals in the Southern and Northern hemispheres.

In today’s sales environment, producers and sales agents will be chasing distributors with tightening budgets and hoping their film(s) will shine out from the rest of the pack. They will be dealing with buyers with a capacity to buy rights for perhaps as few as twenty five films each year. Once they have lavished the lion’s share of their budget on the blockbusters, these distributors will have enough change left for a few smaller films. In total, they could be tracking as few as a fifty films in order to buy half that number. A producer or sales agent’s challenge is to ensure their film in on that list. The biggest and most renowned international film festivals ideally allow one to sell to the whole world during one, confined, two-weeks experience. However, their popularity with sellers is so high - and the resulting competition so fierce - that increasingly, other festivals have cropped up or evolved to provide alternative launch platforms for certain films. FIAPF’s list of accredited international festivals reflects this diverse ecology: alongside the main competitive events, you will find most of the larger non-competitive festivals as well as a whole range of specialised festivals. The latter may have more limited commercial impact but often have a strong cultural pedigree and are seen as credible by the film industry in their own right.

In future, FIAPF will be looking to rejuvenate and develop its role as the facilitator of a trust relationship between the film industry and accredited international film festivals. Under the stewarship of FIAPF’s new President, the Oscar winning Spanish producer Andrés Vicente Gomez, we will shortly be starting the process of consulting widely with producers’ organisations in our 25 member countries and with our accredited festivals, with a view to updating the FIAPF International Regulations to take into account changes in the marketplace and technology. We also intend to develop a structured feedback mechanism from producers and sales companies in order to be more readily responsive to any quality control issue that may arise. Finally, we intend to break the confines of FIAPF’s regulatory role by becoming an active participant in the life of our accredited festivals: participation will mostly be in the form of organising branded events (workshops, seminars, etc), in partnership with FIAPF’s local member organisations. The range of topics will include tax breaks, soft loans and other forms of public sector film financing, marketing, distribution, sales and promotion and other issues around the international packaging and financing of movies.

With a refreshed perspective and an ongoing commitment to high quality standards, FIAPF looks forward to continuing to facilitate a fruitful partnership between international film festivals and its members in the global film industry.

[This text is a modified version of an article which was first published in the Moving Pictures International annual catalogue of film festivals in the summer 2003.]