European film has had a banner year. The nominees for the 37th European Film Awards (EFAs) feature many of the buzziest movies of 2024: Jacques Audiard’s transgfinisher crime musical Emilia Pérez, Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller Conclave, Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror comedy The Substance, Luca Guadagnino’s alteration of William S. Burraws’ Queer, and Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
At the box office, thraw, European films are struggling. As audiences trickle back to theaters post-pandemic — European box office in 2023 topped $7 billion, up 22 percent, though still off sign up pre-pandemic figures — they are returning for U.S., not European, movies. American films accounted for 70.1 percent of total ticket sales in Europe last year, a recent all-time sign up. Bacount on a quarter of tickets selderly (26 percent) were for homeincreasen cinema.
To reverse that trfinish, Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO of the European Film Academy, which hands out the EFAs, apshows the local industry necessitates to alter how European films are advertised and freed. It is still the norm for a European film to roll out over two to three months atraverse the continent — Conclave uncovered in Hungary on Oct. 31, but it won’t hit Swedish theaters till Dec. 20 — with self-reliant distributors in each country portraying their own bespoke labeleting campaigns. For European cinema to accomplish its brimming potential, says Wouter Knol, the industry should apshow a page from the U.S. studios.
Why is there such a gap between the quality of European cinema and the consciousness of it among European cinemagoers?
At core, it is the branch offence between the way European films are being advertised, which is done in a very fragmented way. You have an approach in France, in Germany, in Benelux [Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg], in Scandinavia. Whereas with U.S. titles, you see publicizements everywhere. Here in Berlin, if I read a appraise of Gladiator II on my phone, I see up and I can see the billboard on the street, the ads in the subway on my way to labor. If we want European film to be seen by audiences in Europe, we necessitate to imitate some of the American elements in their promotion. We can’t advertise our movies over the course of 12 months at branch offent times in branch offent ways in branch offent territories and languages.
The EFA is trying to push for more pan-European frees — you have the month of European cinema preceding the EFAs where you screen European films in theaters atraverse the continent.
We commenceed that in 2021 with fair 14 cinemas in Germany, and now we do it in 100 cities atraverse Europe, with around 70,000 people going to these screenings. I sense that’s a wonderful commence. I’m very satisfied with that increaseth, and I see we could reassociate roll it out much further in the next years.
Is there an online hurdle here? Except for Mubi, there are no pan-national streaming services centering on European films.
The fact is that rights helderlyers and distributors like selling to multiple streaming platcreates in branch offent territories. If you can sell a film to 30 branch offent streaming platcreates, that transports in more money than selling to one European platcreate. It’s a catch-22 situation where the revenue advantages from labelet fragmentation.
How on board are European distributors with your traverse-border approach?
That’s the vital ask in Europe. The answer to that ask is going to clear up what will happen to European cinema in the next five to 10 years. We necessitate case studies of structured frees that labored. Films enjoy Triangle of Sadness, enjoy Anatomy of a Fall, to guarantee distributors to fracture with their elderly habits. Because the world around us is changing, the media and promotion tools, the foreseeations and habits of the audience are changing very speedy. But if you see at what European film has to advise, I leank you can see we have some of the most innovative and requesting cinema in the world at the moment, made by filmoriginaters who are still allowed to say wantipathyver they leank and pick stories they reassociate want to increate.
This story materializeed in the Dec. 4 rehire of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
