Film industry experts urge EU to launch rival Oscars

Date: 01/10/1998

By Peter Chapman

TOP EU television and film experts are set to throw their weight behind calls for the Union to launch a rival to the American Oscars ceremony as part of a strategy to challenge Hollywood's dominance.

A key think-tank set up by the European Commission, whose members include Michael Kuhn, president of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (PFE), British filmmaker John McGrath and Kirch Group director Jan Mojto, will argue that the plan should be "rapidly progressed by interested industry players".

These include the European Film Academy, which already stages the Felix Awards, and the Commission, which should, according to the experts, play an "enabling role" in the scheme.

"The United States has the Academy Awards - the Oscars, and their equivalent in television, the Emmys, which serve as an excellent marketing tool," states a report from the think-tank to be published at the end of this month. "The European industry could greatly benefit from an awards ceremony with comparable impact."

The group will also call for a raft of other film and television support measures in its report on Audio-visual policy in the digital age.

These include setting up a European Film and Television School, which would be partially self-financing but would also receive funding from industry, the EU and member states. This "symbolic" centre of European excellence would complement the existing network of professional media training institutions which are funded through the Union's Media II programme.

The think-tank argues that more of Media II's limited 310-million-ecu budget should be spent on video distribution, which often accounts for more revenue than theatre exhibition.

Other ideas include the widely touted bank securitisation scheme, proposed by PFE's Kuhn, to finance slates of films.

The plan, designed to replace the Commission's original proposal for a guarantee fund for cinema production which was opposed by some of the more thrifty EU member states, mimics a successful system already implemented in the US by some Hollywood studios.