To wrap this year’s Creative Investors’ Conference at the San Sebastián Film Festival, four leading executives working within or frequently with the U.S. gathered to discuss some of the new ways of working emerging in the market and how to move the industry forward.
When it comes to the advantages and key differences between the U.S. and European markets, Anton CEO Sébastien Raybaud said the one key thing that shifted the power balance between the two is that now Europe has access to capital market. This reality was not even remotely possible 15 years ago. “Now we have capital market access with a lot of funds in Europe. We also have powerhouses with access to many talented producers.” Alas, the one thing Europe is still lacking in comparison to its North American counterpart is scale, with European projects not yet landing major franchises, globally relevant IP and recurrent mega-budget productions.
But there is also a downside to the American rule of bigger is better, said Killer Films founder and veteran producer Christine Vachon. “An extremely American thing is to grow your company as much as you can and then sell it,” she continued. “We were a little bit on that trajectory. It’s the capitalist system. Then, at a certain point, we realised we didn’t want to grow our company. We wanted to keep it as small as possible, hire young people who would understand the upper mobility in our company was really limited, but who would bring a fresh perspective.”
Many such people, Vachon is proud to say, are “more successful” than Killer Films now, but the producer doesn’t regret her strategy. “It has kept the company something we can completely control. Am I the richest of my colleagues? Absolutely not. But I’m leading a creative and professional life that is pretty much exactly what I want.”
Although tax credit is scarce and the process is lengthy and convoluted, Vachon said the U.S. model offers the key advantage of forcing filmmakers to engage with their audiences. “Sometimes in Europe, filmmakers don’t, and the films reflect that. The system helps create a creative base for the kinds of films we want to make.” As for the idea that a label like Killer Films doesn’t produce “commercial films,” Vachon pointed out that “a commercial film is a movie that makes its money back. If you make a movie for the right price and market it to the right audience and it can be a really niche audience, it can make its money back.”
Robert Walak, head of film & TV at Iconoclast, offered yet another reason to be positive about the U.S. market: New distributors are launching, such as Row K Ent. which made its third deal at Toronto announced a couple of days ago, buying the “Cliffhanger” reboot for a reported seven-digit sum.. “We haven’t had that for a while,” he said, without making reference to any company in particular. In general, however, “for the last few years, we’ve been wondering who was going to step in, and it’s hugely encouraging seeing how the pendulum has swung back to features and the theatrical experience.”
Courtesy of Rafa Sales Ross
Another key talking point during the conversation was the increased number of partnerships between production companies and major fashion labels. Saint Laurent (YSL) has even created a subsidiary, Saint Laurent Productions, to work on film projects, which include Jim Jarmusch’s recent Golden Lion winner “Father Mother Sister Brother,” Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life” and Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez.”
Asked whether she would partner with a fashion label, Vachon said she is “pretty agnostic.” “You want to give us money, we’ll take your money. We work with directors who understand the ecosystem they’re working with and also understand that if there is an opportunity where desires can collide in a positive way, there’s no reason not to pursue that.”
Vachon even posed the question of whether working with major brands is all that different from banking on cash rebates that stipulate certain creative conditions, such as having heads of department who come from the countries providing the relief. “Those kinds of compromises are simply part of how we make those movies work and how we get as many resources as possible,” she added. “The filmmaker and I have to figure out that one can work and that one can’t. If you’re going to work with YSL, which we have explored, we haven’t come to a project with them or another fashion brand yet, but we probably will at some point.”
Walak echoed that thought, stating that while in the past these partnerships used to focus mainly on product placement, they are now a matter of “creative alignment.” “It is about a brand that wants to be associated with a director or certain themes. Now they can reach their demographic in a way that is not aggressive, that is not uglily branded with all their logos there. It’s much more about a careful alignment.” To the exec, this is a positive sign that there are more stakeholders interested in entering the film business. “It all goes back to this idea of [a creative] community.”
