Raising Finance: Marketing and Distribution questions remain open

The Film London Production Finance Market starts today Oct 19th. It would be very interesting to know how many conversations involve producers pitching for funds to use towards marketing and distribution concerns.

The launch of  Nossa Distribuidora, a home territory service distributor by and for Brazilian filmmakers including Jose Padilha (Elite Squad) and Fernando Meirelles (City of God) shows the innovation in this area in international markets. The Nossa Distribuidora model requires producers to raise P&A funds as well as production finance, in return they keep a greater proportion of returns and producers revenues are anticipated to increase five fold as a result. See Screen Daily for more detail.

Does a similar appetite for risk exist within UK production companies that do not already have a strategic distribution relationship or their own distribution arm (Warp, Vertigo etc)? PACT’s representations to public funding bodies have concentrated on redistribution of revenues from the existing FVC model to address the deemed imbalance in recoupment for producers. In an environment where distributor lobbying for funding highlights the crucial role of demand generation to the industry as a whole, can innovative production companies combine to adapt the argument to their concerns?

Just as a technological and industrial solution to the problem of piracy though making digital copies available easier at the correct time is more likely to succeed compared to a regulatory solution, is the producer’s lot best furthered by an active, innovative business response and not solely a political one?