by Jesús Silva Following its European tour across countries such as Greece or Switzerland, Europa Distribution now goes east in order to address the situation of independent film distribution in a particular set of countries: Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. Due to a severe lack of screens, a limited window market and the ever-present threat of piracy, independent distributors…
Focus Interviews
Focus on Switzerland
by Isabella Weber After our 2018’s summer tour of independent film distribution in Greece (read here) and the exploration of the eastern regions of Europe (read here our articles on Russia and Lithuania), Europa Distribution pulls its focus lenses on Switzerland. How do independent film distributors work in a country that counts 3 official languages and 26…
Focus on Greece
by Jesús Silva Europa Distribution continues its tour around Europe, in order to shed some light on the situation of independent film distribution across the continent. After our recent articles on countries such as Russia and Lithuania, Iceland and the UK, we headed south to report on the individual aspects of the Greek market, and the challenges faced…
Focus on Austria
by Birgit Heidsiek Sometimes, the name says it all. This was the case when Austrian distributor Polyfilm released the documentary The Happy Film by Stefan Sagmeister & Ben Nabors that attracted more than 17.000 cinemagoers in Austria. “We are looking for arthouse and crossover films but we also distribute many documentaries”, says Hans König, Head of Distribution…
MEDIA programme: A success story for European film distribution
by Isabella Weber Ever since its creation in 1991 the MEDIA programme has pursued the objective of increasing the circulation of European films within and beyond Europe. The reason is simple: such films have the ability of carrying the values of the European cultural identity. When in 2014 the programme was reshaped under the Creative Europe…
Focus on Russia and Lithuania
by Jesús Silva Following some of our previous articles about the situation of independent film distribution in countries such as Iceland, UK and Portugal, we will now take a look at the landscape of a very particular tandem of states: Russia and Lithuania. We have interviewed the members of Europa Distribution based in these countries in order to get…
Focus on the UK
by Isabella Weber After having lately rediscovered Portugal, the Scandinavian countries and Italy, Europa Distribution continues its tour of Film Distribution’s landscapes and lands today on top of another of the Big Five: the United Kingdom. What are the challenges facing UK distributors today and how are they different from those engaging their European colleagues?…
European Distribution : Focus on Scandinavia
by Birgit Heidsiek Spotlight on Scandinavia: All about audience access for arthouse films Since decades, the Scandinavian countries have had the highest number of average admissions in Europe. Although the Icelanders don’t go thirteen times per year anymore to the cinema as they used to do it in the early 1980’s, the insular…
European Distribution : Focus on Italy
by Isabella Weber Looking at the stats on Italian admissions for the first trimester of 2016, one is tempted to cheer about the 24% rise registered in comparison to the same period in 2015. Especially considering that the balance for 2015 was already quite positive in terms of admissions, which had increased by 8.9%…
European Distribution: Focus on Belgium
by Isabella Weber While the debate on the “Digital Single Market” is still a hot topic of discussion for the whole European Film Industry, Europa Distribution continues its internal survey to explore the current situation of Film Distribution in each European country. Belgium. A split territory surrounded by bigger markets At first sight the Belgium…