European Sales & Marketing Strategies: Sydney Film Festival brings message of hope
by: Rachael Turk

Screen Hub
Friday 5 June, 2009

As the elephantine US studios stomp new paths in the Post global economic crisis jungle, the small mammals have felt the ground tremble. But there may be rich pickings for nimble paws, as Rachael Turk explores through the Sydney Film Festival's Industry Day.

Experienced Australian producers have watched warily as the specialty divisions of the US studios, such as Fox Searchlight and Focus Features shift their focus from foreign film acquisitions to highly packaged movies with major talent and a marketable pitch.

According to the speakers at today’s Sydney Film Festival’s industry session on ‘European Sales & Marketing Strategies’, this has paved the way for new players – and therefore new opportunities for independent Australian film.

Porchlight Films producer Liz Watts found that her established network of regular contacts (for example Wild Bunch) was as important as ever at Cannes this year. But she’s noticed a number of smaller sales agent start ups and says this shift in the landscape means a new mindset about arthouse film.

“For a long time, the mini-majors from the US were eating up a big slate of independent cinema – which raised the prices, begging the question of what still qualified as ‘independent’ and so on. The fact that they’ve gone has had a leveling effect, with opportunities opened up again with these boutique agents,” says Watts, who is currently semi-financing films by Cate Shortland (a German/UK/Aust co-production) and Tony Krawitz.

Sue Murray of Fandango Australia agrees that this is particularly good news for Australian film.

“These younger companies are eager and put a lot of energy into their work,” she says, pointing to new French sales agent Elle Driver, which has a relationship with Wild Bunch and is behind Warwick Thornton’s Camera d’Or winning Samson & Delilah.

“A film like Samson & Delilah could be bought on the basis of its good qualities. Elle Driver doesn’t have a lot of English language films but they love Warwick’s work and are not too big to give it the attention it needs. Of course, purchase prices [of arthouse films at Cannes] reflected the realistic estimations by distributors. But they were bought nevertheless and will build people’s careers.”

Murray points also to the fact that Johnny To’s revenge drama Vengeance, which screened in the main competition at Cannes, was sold by year-old French film outfit Kinology.

“Those new players in Europe – as for lots of countries – don’t necessarily have access to huge capital to put up advances for projects but they are playing a bigger part in independent film.”

“The other thing to remember,” says Murray, “is that a marqueé name in America is not necessarily the same as a marqueé name in Europe.”

The issue of translation applies equally to the marketing stage as financing, says Christophe Mercier, the London-based Vice President for Fox Searchlight Europe (behind the implementation of the European distribution and marketing strategies for Juno, Little Miss Sunshine and The Darjeeling Limited).

At the SFF session, Mercier presented a case study on the European promotional strategy for Notorious (2009), the biopic of the American rapper Notorious B.I.G. (aka Christopher Wallace) which opens in France at the end of the month.

Selling Notorious into France involved strategic awareness building amongst a youth audience that had previously little knowledge of the artist, says Mercier. “Whilst he is an icon of the [US] music business, the French youth had little knowledge of the guy. The idea is to take this challenge and adapt artwork and other concepts between markets in ways that are relevant to the youth audience.”

This has been achieved not only through promotion of the soundtrack but the commissioning of a music video by popular French rapper Rohff with his latest hit single 'Repris De Justesse' on the streets of New York, where Notorious B.I.G. lived. The music video was directed by renowned US photographer and film director Jonathan Mannion.

The music video will be screened at today’s SFF industry day.

Rachael Turk
Rachael Turk is a Sydney based writer and the former editor of Inside Film Magazine. She has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, British Cinematographer and Online Asia and has three film projects in development.

http://www.rachaelturk.com

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