Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
“The key thing European film funds have to understand,” declares Henning Camre, brimming with a sense of mission, “is that the way we’ve been supporting and making films is dead, you can’t do repair work - instead of treating European cinema like a crippled child we have to make a fresh start”.
A master strategist, often acclaimed as the “Godfather of modern Danish cinema,” Camre now hopes to transform European cinema via the pioneering European ThinkTank, created 2006, encompassing Europe’s top film bodies in Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Denmark and Poland.
At San Sebastian, Camre’s held sessions with ThinkTank’s board members and the European Film Agency Directors (EFAD) to discuss key conclusions and recommendations from the September 11-13 Forum, “Shaping Policies for the Cinema of Tomorrow”, co-organised with the Council of Europe and the Polish Film Institute.
Key ThinkTank priorities include forging a new dialogue between public and private players, moving beyond the art vs. commerce divide and focusing on bringing quality films to audiences.
“We need scale, policy harmonization, coherent strategies, simpler co-production rules, a much bigger emphasis on marketing and distribution,” states Camre.
One of Europe’s key weaknesses is fragmentation - 921 films a year and over 1100 distributors. The recent Zentropa-Nordisk merger shows how to build scale, even in small countries, he says.
ThinkTank’s recommendations include critical mass, more films targeted at young people and children, and greater digital content provision of European films.
Camre’s emphasis on a fresh start includes redesign of European-level initiatives - he criticizes MEDIA for trying to put a dead system on a life-support machine and stresses the importance of the Council of Europe’s recent involvement to extend action to all European countries.
M.D.