09/02/2009

Yesterday, an industry debate hosted by Screen International with European panelists including Vincent Grimond (Wild Bunch) and UK film financier Ivan Mactaggart (Limelight) gave European producers a reality check on what to expect – or mostly, not expect – from financiers in the current credit crunch.

Grimond – whose company announced a brand new slate of auteur films in Berlin, from Cristian Mungiu to Gaspar Noé – tried to be reassuring in his introductory speech “There is no crisis in our business”, in the sense that people want to see films, whatever the platform. Nevertheless, there is a financial crisis although it really started a decade ago when the means of doing distribution changed.

The other element that has added to the crisis is that “stupid” money has been invested in too many films and in inflated production budgets. “Now the problem is that ‘intelligent’ money has gone as well” said Grimond. “The financial crisis is having an impact on our economy and we face a decrease in the value of our films in several territories, across all media. What we really have to do is question the way we do business today. This means that perhaps distribution windows have to explode. We have to kill the conservatism in the film business. Distributors talk directly to consumers. But what we still don’t know is how to use the new digital platforms to their best.”

Mactaggart of Limelight, which for the last two years has provided loans to co-finance independent UK films, was very direct. “We lend less and want more from producers,” he said. “We have been lending against pre-sales and provided gap financing. Now we are forced to be very conservative. Over the last 18 months, we’ve co-financed 15 films. Next year we’ll invest in maybe five. There are simply less opportunities to get financing today and people are very nervous.”

For Grimond, one way to reinforce film production in Europe is to have more companies with equities that could invest in slate of movies – just like Wild Bunch.