Striving for a new film policy structure
NRW State Secretary for Media appeals to platform operators and public broadcasters to share responsibility for the film industry
At the opening of the International Film Conference of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, NRW’s State Secretary for Media Dr. Marc Jan Eumann presented the basic features of the new state government’s film policy.
Eumann emphasised that the federal states want to cooperate intensively to build a new structure of film policy in Germany. Thus, the State Secretary for Media spoke out in favour of retaining the system of solidarity in film funding law. This necessarily included speaking to platform operators about the future of film duties: as Eumann put it, “we want to organise serious discussions to search for solutions.” NRW, for example, also supports a shortening of the utilisation frame, so that films can be exploited online quicker after their cinema realisation. But cinemas should continue to be the most important location of exclusive film utilisation.
That is why, more widely than any other federal state, NRW supports the digitalisation of smaller cinemas. In order to stop the decline of operating cinema screens re-equipment should be completed in NRW by 2013.
Eumann criticised concepts for two EU regulations that would have a huge influence on film support in Germany: the EU Cinema Report and the Media programme. Both are unacceptable to Germany in this form, as they could endanger or reduce film support in Germany and represent EU interference in the cultural sovereignty of the member states.
In the opinion of the NRW government, public broadcasting also bears a key responsibility for the strength of the German film industry. Now that financing has been ensured for the coming years by the new budget contribution, ARD and ZDF must continue to make sufficient money available for commissioned TV projects and film co-productions. “We must,” according to Eumann, “initiate a debate on the status of German film in the world of television.”
He called upon the new video-on-demand platform Germany’s Gold, which is evolving on the initiative of ARD and ZDF, to show openness to private broadcasting stations as well. The State Secretary for Media warned urgently that questions of copyright should be regulated finally in the interests of the film industry. “We cannot sit out this debate and the many associated questions regarding the future of the creative industries and hope for a miracle, as our Federal Ministry of Justice appears to be attempting at the moment,” Eumann commented critically.
As the film industry is dependent on many internal and external factors, Eumann pleaded for an integrated film, broadcasting and Internet policy in Germany; the federation and the states should work together on this. The NRW government wished to make a contribution with political concepts and discussion forums.
The International Film Conference of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW took place in the context of Medienforum.NRW. Organisers are the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and the LfM Nova. Under the motto “Brave New Media World: networked, open, mobile”, the 24th Medienforum.NRW in the Staatenhaus of Koelnmesse from 18. – 20.06. discussed the consequences of current media developments for society and the industry in the fields of communication, information, entertainment and marketing.