FERA speak at Declaration of Filmmakers – Act VI in Brussels
7 March 2024
On 6 March 2024, FERA Chair of the Executive Committee Bill Anderson joined filmmakers Marine Francen (Co-President of La SRF, FERA French member), Radu Mihăileanu (Vice-President of L’ARP) and Pilar Pérez Solano (President of ACCIÓN, FERA Spanish member) in the European Parliament in Brussels, to participate in a panel discussion “Advocating for authors and filmmakers’ rights in the digital age: The impact of AI on the film industry” hosted by MEP Ibán García del Blanco (S&D goup).
The filmmakers, whose aim was to draw attention to the future of European filmmakers’ artistic freedom in the digital era, were joined via Zoom by their colleagues Palme d’Or award winner 2007 Cristian Mungiu, Francesco Ranieri Martinotti (President of ANAC, FERA Italian member) and Athena Xenidou (President of the Directors’ Guild in Cyprus).
The event was the sixth in a row of Declaration of Filmmakers panels, originally launched at Cannes Film Festival 2023 to shed light on the critical need to protect the Directors’ status as authors and to reaffirm their moral rights, which are increasingly impacted by harmful practices resulting in a loss of the filmmakers’ artistic freedom – and weakening the European filmmaking industry’s diversity and vitality as a consequence. Since the launch in France, several panels have been organised at Venice Biennale, San Sebastián Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and in Athens.
This latest edition in the European Parliament was moderated by FERA CEO Pauline Durand-Vialle who introduced the discussion by thanking MEP Ibán García del Blanco for having been a champion for the audiovisual sector and its creators during this term of the European Parliament.
In her speech, Pilar Pérez Solano highlighted the need to “respect the creative freedom of directors, so that these are not relegated to becoming simple performers”. She also underlined that, while “AI feeds on their thoughts, AI cannot think or impersonate directors and creatives”. In the same vein, Athena Xenidou urged European policymakers to “establish guidelines for AI and to promote transparency, to protect Europe’s cultural diversity from potential exploitation and misinformation”.
Marine Francen highlighted the absolute need for transparency when it comes to streaming platforms’ revenues, as a basis to determine a fairer remuneration for authors and implement this into national law.
Radu Mihăileanu, taking a step back, showed that failing to protect artistic freedom and authors’ rights would ultimately weaken the culturally diverse identity of the European Union. Cristian Mungiu underlined that this would particularly affect filmmakers in Romania, Central & Eastern Europe, as they often depend on coproduction and EU financing to make films.
FERA Chair Bill Anderson warned that failing to regulate AI, would harm the unique intimacy between a filmmaker and his audience, which yearns to be “understood by the story” on screen. He also compared the wide scraping of copyrighted material online to train AI models to organ-harvesting, stressing the essential importance of consent in the process. Francesco Ranieri Martinotti used another comparison to bring his point across: just like European agriculture needs to defend itself against “genetically modified organisms”, authors and filmmakers are trying to defend their art and culture against the “genetically modified organisms created by AI”.
In conclusion, the panelists agreed to stress 3 main points:
(1) Filmmakers’ Moral Rights must be re-affirmed to ensure audiovisual authors’ artistic freedom through creative control, including when their work is assisted by technology, and credits acknowledgement. Moral rights, as framed by article 6 bis of Berne convention, belong to the author as a private person and cannot be transferred. Yet countries retain significant flexibility to define them in national law: they should be harmonised in Europe at a high common standard.
(2) Filmmakers’ Economic Rights have been harmonised in EU Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (art. 18 to 23). The right to fair remuneration in authors’ exploitation contracts (set out in 2019 CDSM Directive art. 18 to 23) must be implemented properly in national law, and the EU Commission conformity check due in the coming months will be essential to assess the situation. Further steps must be taken to fight back predatory behaviour on European authors’ rights and audiovisual intellectual property, including against abusive practices like illegal moral rights’ waiver in contracts, unfair buy-outs, opacity on the performance of audiovisual works particularly online.
(3) Regulating Artificial Intelligence is essential. The AI Act that will be submitted to the EP plenary approval next week is a first step but does not address the wide-ranging impact of AI technology on creation and culture. For filmmakers, transparency, consent and remuneration on the use of pre-existing works and on the use of AI technology in the creative process remain essential conditions to a sustainable future for European audiovisual creation. US screenwriters have obtained important protections in their recent agreement with employers: full transparency on the use of AI in the creative process, a writer cannot be forced to use AI, the ability to refuse the use of pre-existing work to train an AI is reserved by the guild. The same standards are needed in Europe. More work is needed in that area, and the EU Parliament support will be key.
Background – The Declaration of Filmmakers’ initiative:
–Declaration of Filmmakers in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek and German: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5C7dAo2M8bDPu4RmXIymJQzA0WPQrKIdUbaCqBG_E1BRhvw/viewform
– Cannes, 19 May 2023: Declaration of Filmmakers Launch panel discussion moderated by Radu Mihăileanu (ARP) and Marine Francen (SRF), with Cédric Klapisch (SRF), Sofia Norlin (Sweden), Najwa Najjar (Palestine), Anurag Kashyap (India) and Francesco Ranieri Martinotti (ANAC).
– Venice, 29 August 2023: Declaration of Filmmakers Act II panel discussion moderated by Francesco Ranieri Martinotti (ANAC), with Marine Francen (SRF), Radu Mihăileanu (ARP), Giorgio Glaviano (WGI), Giacomo Durzi et Najwa Najjar (Palestine) with video messages from Cédric Klapisch (SRF), Howard A. Rodman (WGA) and Marco Bellocchio.
>>> a few images from Venice
>>> a short presentation video with excerpts from the Venice and San Sebastian discussions
– San Sebastián, 23 September 2023: Declaration of Filmmakers Act III panel discussion moderated by Pilar Pérez Solano (Acción), with Judith Colell, Álvaro Brechner, Kepa Sojo and Antonio Hens.
>>> San Sebastian roundtable replay
– Athens, 15 December 2023: Declaration of Filmmakers Act IV panel discussion moderated by Athna Xenidou (Directors Guild of Cyprus), with Marine Francen (SRF), Cédric Klapisch (SRF), Radu Mihăileanu (ARP), Francesco Ranieri Martinotti (ANAC), Gavriil Tzafkas (Danish Directors Guild), Costa-Gavras, Howard A. Rodman (WGA), FERA CEO Pauline Durand-Vialle and FERA Chair of the board Bill Anderson
>>> https://screendirectors.eu/fera-speaks-at-the-declaration-of-filmmakers-event-in-athens
– Berlin, 19 February 2024: Declaration of Filmmakers Act V panel discussion moderated by Bettina Schoelle Bouju, with Radu Mihăileanu (ARP), Marine Francen (SRF), Anno Saul, Dietrich Brüggemann and Jobst Oetzmann (all three BVR)
>>> https://screendirectors.eu/fera-at-berlinale-2024