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28 / 05 / 2004
Valérie Pannis, european head of the auidiovisual sector: “We should heighten awareness about the various forms of narrative filmmaking”
141 Questions, Question (20): ‘Can we choose the cinema we want?” Valerie Pannis, administrator of the General Management of Education and Culture of the European Commission said that “education systems should teach new generations that there is cinema beyond Europe and America.” Bonnie Richardson, vice president for Trade and Federal Affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, said technology means that the public will have more access to all types of cinema.
Valérie Pannis and Bonnie Richardson expressed different points of view today at the Haima Stage about the actual reach of movie distribution in the world market . Bonnie Richardson pointed out that right now the public has access to a large variety of films.. Valérie Pannis said that the public does not decide what they are going to see, and therefore, we must wonder if the offer is diverse enough: “The answer leads to a deceiving situation because we hardly see any African, Asian or South American films for example.”
Bonnie Richardson feels that technology will give audiences greater access to film products that are not widely advertised and are not screened in mainstream cinemas. She noted that “The internet and the option of downloading movies onto a computer is becoming an increasingly important resource”. However, Valérie Pannis said that ”the first destination for movies is the movie theater screen; what happens to movies afterwards depends on how successful they are at the box office. Furthermore, viewers cannot ask for something they do not know exists.”
Richardson denied that the American film industry is in favor of hegemony because “we measure success based on income, rather than on domain.” Pannis stated that she is against setting “screening limits” for American films in Europe. She acknowledged that, in European countries, despite all of the public funding policies and aid programs, it is hard to find room for movies that are made in other countries: “There is a clear preference for national European and American films. The goal is to increase the distribution of European films within the EU.”
Regarding how well European cinema is received in the US, Bonnie Richardson pointed out that European films have a wide audience, especially on the East and West coasts, though not in the Mid-West. She remarked that the US film industry is becoming increasingly involved in collaborations with Latin America, due to the rise in the Spanish-speaking population in the US.
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