Petri Kemppinen, the CEO of Nordisk Film & TV Fond describes that cross-Nordic distribution has seen a slight increase in the recent years. This is mainly due to few successful titles, including A Man Called Ove (Holm, 2015), which somewhat surprisingly for a comedy managed to do well across the region, and the increase in the films by auteur directors that traditionally perform well in their neighbouring countries, including the works of Ruben Östlund, Joachim Trier and Aki

The internationalisation of European cinema has also attracted negative associations, with critics branding certain multi-national films as ‘Euro-pudding’ (Liz, 2014). The term emerged in 1989 and among many other titles, has been used to refer to films like Vincent and Theo (Robert Altman, Netherlands/UK/France/Italy/Germany, 1990), a film about the life of Vincent van Gogh, and The House of Spirits (Bille August, Portugal/Germany/Denmark/USA, 1993), adaptation of the Isabel

This is the very beginning of a series of posts looking at different territories, starting with what is the most familiar to me, my home country, Finland. Overview of Country Profile: Finland is a Nordic country with a population of 5,5 million. The Finnish film industry is small but relatively healthy. Domestic films take 29,9% of the market share. In 2015 there were in total 202 first releases (Hautamäki and Sotaniemi, 2016). Prospective growth is limited in Finland. The po

Who is doing what in the new world of distribution? As the world of distribution is changing, with hybrid and DIY distribution gaining ground, also the traditional job roles and responsibilities of distribution professionals are adapting to the change. Some key industry professionals, such as sales agents are having to adapt to the growing popularity of hybrid distribution and split rights deals. According to Jon Reiss the sales agents are realising that money is in the split

And whether they are harming our industry? Earlier in this blog I talked about the big devil of piracy and its effects to the film industry including indie films and documentaries. The estimations of lost revenues vary significantly and there is no single way of calculating the effect of piracy. In the statistics I presented in the earlier post, lost revenues were predicated on the assumption that 5 % of the people who illegally downloaded the film would have bought the film

And whether filmmakers could ever benefit from file sharing? One of the most feared developments of the film industry is the disruptive force of the internet and its effects to the film business. Piracy is real and effecting all filmmakers, not just the big studios. Adam Leipzig recently analysed the effect of piracy to 14 films that were screened in Sundance 2014 and 2015 and the results were troubling. All films had at least hundreds of thousands illegal downloads, Whiplash

Overview of online opportunities and what is on the table In 2013 there were over 3000 VOD platforms identified as being established in Europe and operating in at least one European country. On top of this there is vast number of international VOD service providers operating in Europe, including the biggest US based operators like Netflix, Google Play Movies and iTunes. In other words, the VOD market is crowded and opportunities are endless. Still 73 % of the video market rem

Cinema Release and its purpose to indie films and documentaries While the world of media consuming is changing and the online revolution is being predicted pretty much everywhere, the truth is that movie watching seems to remain a robust pastime activity. According to Liesl Copland, a distributor from the WME agency, 71% of Americans watch a film a week, though majority prefers to watch films at home. Big screen audiences still exist though, and the figures look relatively he

No question that the current landscape of independent film distribution is complex and ever changing. We have now more distributors and viewing platforms than ever before and with the development of accessible equipment more documentary films are made now than ever. As a result the market-place for documentary films have become extremely crowded. Along with the technological as well as cultural changes in viewing habits, there is no longer one universal way to get one’s films

An overview of the current landscape of indie distribution; what are the options and what is on the table? A time, not so long ago, the world of film distribution still lived its cosy live in the old world. It was a time where strong hierarchical realm reigned supreme and filmmakers must pled the powers of the universe to grant them distribution. Once some lucky ones were able to make a deal, they were forced to sign all-right-deals and hand in the entire control of their fil