FERA at Berlinale 2024
26 February 2024
A FERA delegation attended the 74th Berlinale Film Festival, which took place from 15 to 25 February, and joined a number of industry events and meetings with political and industry partners.
European affairs focus this year at Berlinale included the “Cinema as a tool for democracy: Walking together the path to the European elections 6-9 June 2024” conference, organised by the European Parliament’s LUX Audience Award team at the European Film Market on 17 February, and moderated by FERA CEO Pauline Durand-Vialle.
The first part of the session brought together the European Parliament MEPs Monica Semedo (Luxembourg, Renew), Diana Riba i Giner (Spain, Greens), and Emmanuel Maurel (France, The Left) and Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director-General for DG Connect at the European Commission.
The discussion touched upon a variety of topics from artistic freedom, the implementation of the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and the future of the Creative Europe programme, to the recurring debate on the exception for audiovisual services in the geo-blocking ban. To an audience question regarding the regular challenge to this exception, which ensures the ability to license audiovisual works on an exclusive and territorial basis and underpins investments in the European audiovisual sector, comparing it to a “cancer that keeps coming back”, Nikolay responded that the European Commission has heard the united voice of the sector (see the joint statement signed by more than 700 stakeholders from the AV sector here).
The second part of the panel was an exchange between Susan Newman-Baudais (Eurimages) and Christophe Leparc (European Film Academy Board Member; Festival Cinéma Méditerranéen de Montpellier, General Secretary of Directors’ Fortnight since 2008) which delved into the focus of Eurimages, the Council of Europe audiovisual support fund, in promoting democratic values through cinema, including by implementing a series of actions to achieve gender balance to bring a more accurate representation of society to the screen, and the essential role of film festivals and their audiences as test ground to assess the evolution the film industry.
FERA CEO then spoke at two panels on 19 February. She joined panellists Esther Schmidt (Vrouwen in Beeld, Netherlands), Christian Juhl Lemche (Danish Film Institute), Edel Brosnan (EWA) and Daphné Tepper (UNI Europa) for a roundtable on the “Gender Pay Gap in the European audiovisual sector: What do we know and what can we do?”, hosted by UNI Europa Media, Entertainment & Arts and the European Women’s Audiovisual Network EWA.
The discussion, moderated by EWA’s Anamaria Antoci, focussed of the importance of pay transparency and related data gathering to help shrink the gender pay gap which is particularly significant for audiovisual authors in Europe, as evidenced by a 2019 FERA FSE study.
On the same day, the Declaration of Filmmakers Act V panel, hosted by German FERA member Bundesverband Regie (BVR) featured speakers were directors Radu Mihăileanu (Vice President of L’ARP, France), Marine Francen (Co-President of La SRF, France), Anno Saul, Dietrich Brüggemann and Jobst Oetzmann (all three BVR).
The discussion, moderated by author and director Bettina Schoeller Bouju, introduced the origins of the Declaration of Filmmakers movement spurred by French organisations La SRF and L’ARP who identified the challenges for filmmakers and issued a declaration in Cannes on creative freedom and fair remuneration. International roundtables followed in Cannes, Venice and San Sebastian, which focussed on the impact of global streamers on local audiovisual creation, and the temptation to standardize the creative process boosted by artificial intelligence technology. The Declaration calls for regulations to protect authors’ artistic freedom and rights, both moral and economic.
Links:
– Cineuropa’s article on the “Cinema as a tool for democracy”-event: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/457133
– UNI Europa Media, Entertainment & Arts – “Gender Pay Gap in the European audiovisual sector: What do we know and what can we do?”: https://www.uni-europa.org/meetings/panel-on-closing-the-gender-pay-gap-in-the-european-audiovisual-industry
– Declaration of Filmmakers Act V in Berlin, 19 February 2024: https://www.regieverband.de/veranstaltung/2024-02_declaration-filmmakers-act-v-berlin
– The previous event, Act IV in Athens with background: https://screendirectors.eu/fera-speaks-at-the-declaration-of-filmmakers-event-in-athens