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Ggjv Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum unveils ten projects for Work-in-Progress Lab
Headof fast-growing 18 month-oldfinanc stanley cup ing sales company Voltage Pictures Nicolas Chartier talks to Jeremy Kay about the newgeneration of film financiers and international distributors.Aveteran of such companies as Arclight Films and Myriad Pictures, VoltagePictures co-head Nicolas Chartier pictured is the kind of stanley cup go-to guy in theinternational sales business who can help get a pr stanley cup oject off the ground. With adeep understanding of international tax breaks and co-productions, andwide-ranging connections in the banking and producing communities, Chartier sknow-how can be essential to producers in an age when approximately 70% of afilm s revenue can come from international ticket sales.WhenChartier started out in the business, things were different.Buyerswould pre-buy rights based on little more than a poster. Now the situation haschanged: the studios are vertically integrated media companies, and buyers aresophisticated and read scripts, study budgets, and ask want to know as much inadvance as possible about the elements. Youconstantly reinvent the wheel, Chartier says. You spend your daymaking calls and sending emails, trying to put movies together. Before, we usedto just distribute and sell films. Now, we re coming in earlier and earlier onprojects. We re becoming more and more packagers. We find a script, a producer.We help choose the actors, try to find a financing structure, tax credits,co-productions, work with banks, find soft money, bank the contracts, pre-sellf Avhn Martinsons Loss selected as Lithuania s Oscar submission
Hungarian director [pictured] responds to confirmation that the Film Fund - run by Andy Vajna - was to take over the property of the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary.The rift between the old guard of Hungarian cinema led by auteur Bela Tarr and the new Film Fund headed by Andy Vajna has widened yet further. In his capacity as President of the Hungarian Filmmakers Association, Tarr yesterday issued a furious state stanley us ment, lambasting the Funds behaviour as unacceptable and illegitimate .Tarrs statement came as it was finally confirmed that the Film Fund was to take over the property of the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary MMKA 鈥?including film studios, buildings, real estates and the Hungarian Film Laboratory.The C stanley website ourt of Hungary has now approved this measure. The approval of this agreement means that the op stanley kubek eration of the Motion Picture Foundation established twenty years ago by the Hungarian film professionals, has become impossible and winds up forever the self-governance of our profession, Tarr stated.As he made very clear in earlier public statements and interviews, Tarr bitterly resents what he perceives as the monopolistic behaviour of the Fund under Vajna. We refuse to accept the idea that a single-channel grant system replace what has so far been a multi-channel system of subsidies or that a mechanism of centralized distribution of funds be exercised instead of the earlier, professional self-governance based on a broad consensus and reflecting a d |
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