E U R O P E
Backing European film The EU’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme supports innovation to deliver greater visibility of European films. Sara Gayarre highlights some of the nascent enterprises and technologies that the programme is fostering within the cinema arena.
HE LANDSCAPE OF EUROPE’S cinema and
remain the same in the new programme 2021-
content industry is undergoing one of its most
2027, in which investment and support to new
significant transformations, which brings a new
technologies will be a crucial part.
era of opportunities for European storytellers and audiovisual industry entrepreneurs. Given
Promotion not production
this new reality, the success of the European
European films have traditionally had less
audiovisual industry will depend on three core
visibility than their US competitors. This is partly
pillars: fostering new business models, take-up
because, in Europe, support has been focused
of disruptive technologies, and development of
on production rather than promotion. Thus,
new forms of diverse storytelling and promotion.
MEDIA is currently working to shift attention on
Progress in these areas will benefit the whole of
to promotion to reach wider audiences in
the value chain, from production to distribution
Europe and beyond. In this context, Creative
and promotion, as well as access to finance.
Europe MEDIA decided to use its stand at
Creative Europe MEDIA, the EU’s programme
CineEurope 2019 to feature several cutting-edge
to support the European audiovisual industry, is
digital businesses looking to provide goods and
well aware of the challenges this new era brings
services to cinemas and their suppliers.
and is helping the sector to deal with some
CineEurope is the perfect location for such
of the technological issues faced by the film
activity: 3,500 industry representatives from
industry. Among other actions, it does this
distribution and exhibition right through to
through funding assistance for the development
technology and concessions suppliers attended
of innovative solutions and by encouraging
to discover new methods of driving attendance.
collaboration with an emphasis on technology.
This brought a great opportunity to the thirteen
The programme helps SMEs and start-ups to
SMEs and start-ups that were selected by MEDIA
be more experimental when developing new
to showcase their projects, network with peers
technologies by allowing them to create
and find investors and partners to take their
disruptive innovation rapidly. This approach will
ideas further. Here’s a taste of their work…
Promoting European Films for them to ‘leap-frog’ ahead of other international content Fassoo, a Berlin-based company, is a successful beneficiary of
indexed, saving time, money and improving the quality of the
Creative Europe MEDIA. Their initial project — handily entitled the
metadata produced. In doing so, it was also hoped that this would
Multi-Language / Multi-Modal Automated Film Tagging Service
lead to the creation of an automated multi-language video tagging
Project — was supported with €60,000 for the development of a
platform and an online information repository for European film
proof-of-concept of an AI, machine-learning-powered algorithm, a
productions, which would help to stimulate discovery, marketing,
platform and the API needed to enable filmmakers, production
promotion and distribution of such content.
companies, VOD platforms and broadcasters to upload film files to an automated platform. The content metadata could then be automatically tagged and
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Due to the limited resources of many independent filmmakers and production companies, Fassoo envisaged delivering not only critical monetary and time savings, but also offering a standardised
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01/08/2019 14:35
