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Alan Fountain • European AudioVisual Entrepreneurs

A high level of professionalism

by 

Alan Fountain is the CEO of EAVE, one of the leading European training programs for producers supported by the MEDIA programme. The track records of the member producers of this network speak for themselves with many awarded films that include 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Oleg Mutu
film profile
]
, The Last King of Scotland [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and Lady Chatterley [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
.

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Cineuropa: EAVE has just finished its last workshop. What can you tell us about this new group of European producers you trained?
Alan Fountain: Well, it was certainly a very successful workshop. Fifty-three decision makers (commissioning editors, representatives of national and regional funds, sales agents, distributors and producers) came to Prague and held hundreds of meetings with our 53 participants. Their feedback to the participants was very encouraging - indicating a lot of interest in many of the projects and congratulating our producers on their high level of professionalism and achievement. The producers at this year's workshop, from 24 European countries, represented 32 features and four documentaries, plus a further five features from a group of Czech producers who had worked on a “mini Eave” during the year. I have no doubt that the majority of these excellent producers will be active in the European industry in the next few years.

EAVE is still developing its activities with now EAVE Plus. What is the concept of this new program?
EAVE Plus aims to offer EAVE's experience, knowledge and high-level expertise more widely within the audiovisual industry. This will be achieved through a very wide ranging offer from individual coaching to organising workshops which might span one to several days. We have already been approached by several organisations in Europe and beyond and, indeed, have already conducted one-day workshops in Brussels (for the MEDIA Desk) and Birmingham (for the Birmingham Producers Forum) and are about to conduct a five-day workshop at the Dubai Festival in conjunction with the Industry Office.

Next year EAVE will turn 20. What are the next challenges for the network?
The next challenges are to keep improving the quality of our work. In my opinion the 2007 Workshops were perhaps the best I have experienced but we can still improve and continue to respond to the rapidly changing industry. In addition, I am keen to link our European network and experience to other countries and continents since the audiovisual industries increasingly require global as well as European networks in order to function. It is also important for us to encounter and work with independent producers in other cultures. This can only enrich all of EAVE's activities.

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