At the Venice Lido, during this year’s Venice International Film Festival, Celluloid Junkie caught up with Christine Eloy, Managing Director of Europa Distribution, following her participation in the Venice Production Bridge’s working session, titled “Bridging Stories and Audiences.” During the conversation, Eloy covered the importance of early collaboration between producers and distributors, the need for localization in marketing strategies, and the challenges faced by distributors in smaller markets.

Initially, Eloy focused on the aforementioned working session, which was held at the Hotel Excelsior’s Spazio Incontri on September 1. The initiative, organized by Europa Distribution in co-operation with Venice Production Bridge Head Pascal Diot, brought together 85 producers and distributors. Most of the participants were European, and the contacts were sourced through several organizations including Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE), European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE), European Coordination of Independent Producers (CEPI) and Eurocinema. “Normally the value chain includes producers, sales agents, and distributors, but on this occasion, for us, it was interesting to put these two ‘ends’ in touch,” explained Eloy.

The event kicked off with Thierry Hugot’s presentation of the brand-new Marketing & Audience Development scheme from Eurimages, one of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) most prominent cultural support funds, which aims to improve the circulation and visibility of movies backed by the same fund. The presentation served as a tool to spark conversations about wider topics, which were discussed in six different roundtables, each moderated by a “facilitator,” tasked with ensuring that each participant had enough time to have their say.

Most of the talks revolved around “the promotion of films, and how producers and distributors can work together to improve their circulation.” The session was later rounded off by a joint discussion involving all the participants.

Eloy underscored that one of the main takeaways was the importance of initiating talks and collaborations between producers and distributors “as early as possible.” Some attendees shared their experiences. “For example, a producer sitting at one of the roundtables didn’t have a good experience with a distributor, and claimed he saw distributors [acting as] gatekeepers. But distributors can’t work this way. If they did, they’d shut down business right away. Like a book publisher, you need to do your best to attract local audiences with that particular story. So it ended up being also a sort of ‘therapeutic’ exchange,” Eloy said.

The new Eurimages scheme was perceived positively as well, as its core goal is to strengthen synergies between distributors, producers, and marketing and communication specialists. “Our conversations were also helpful to take stock of our limits – for example, when it comes to handling debut features. We know we can’t do miracles, but we can raise awareness,” Eloy added.

The Power of Marketing and Localization 

Another central topic discussed during the roundtables was distributors’ growing need to receive quality assets to prepare effective marketing campaigns, to  work around and enhance “each film’s uniqueness.”

“We often don’t receive quality footage to edit trailers from, and that’s a very frequent problem. Of course, some things work internationally, but oftentimes you need to adapt that stuff to your local audience’s taste,” said the Europa Distribution executive.

“I used to work for a distributor operating in the Benelux region, and sometimes we’d have a different poster in Belgium and the Netherlands, even though they’re so close. Can you imagine how different things are between Portugal and Lithuania?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s important to remind each other that marketing isn’t a bad word, though some still see it as something negative, [which goes] against the artistic side of things.”

Eloy shared  a specific example of how localization  can have a positive impact on box office revenues. “More than once, a distributor has completely changed [the success of] a marketing campaign by choosing another angle.” she explained. “I remember the case of a film about youth. The focus was on the theme of loyalty, even though the film was violent, but the trailer highlighted the violence, so it felt grittier. The distributor said, ‘If we put this one up, we’re going to lose our audience.’ So they changed the trailer, and the film performed better in comparison with other countries.”

That being said, Eloy noted how “expenses still need to be accounted for.” She said, “When it comes to smaller markets such as the Baltic countries, however, we know that an arthouse film can’t make a [localized] trailer. Even distributors in bigger countries, such as the United Kingdom, often prefer to use the US trailer, which would suit their audience better.” 

An Ever-Changing Distribution Landscape

Eloy touched on the much-debated matter of press access to talent, originally sparked by a letter signed by a group of freelance journalists at the Venice Lido and, more recently, a protest during a Johnny Depp press junket at San Sebastián. She highlighted how distributors operating in smaller markets may struggle to bring talent to their country to participate in press promotional activities. However, unlike US distribution and streaming giants such as A24 and Netflix respectively, European arthouse distributors empathize with journalists’ discontent and are “hungry” for press coverage.

“Despite some regularly predicting the end of [theatrical] distribution since its creation 130 years ago, distributors are still here,” said Eloy. “There will always be something new –  TV, VHS, DVD, T/SVOD etc. – which may impact releases. In addition, you have many other unforeseen factors,  and as a distributor, you need to be aware of all of these things, have  several backup plans, and be really flexible.”

“Overall, things are looking up in comparison to the last few years,” she suggested. “There’s still so much competition – although not all countries are so competitive – but globally movie theaters are still taking center stage. Other modes [of distribution] are hard. In the Netherlands, for example, video-on-demand (VOD) works well; in many other countries, it doesn’t, like here in Italy. And even if you put effort into it, it’s more of a cultural thing. In Italy, cable TV is still so strong, so that’s probably why VOD for independent European movies still struggles.”

Eloy stressed the importance of sparking conversations and promoting knowledge exchange, especially because Europa Distribution doesn’t have the resources to provide detailed market analysis and prospects like those provided by bodies such as the European Audiovisual Observatory. 

“Today, we hosted 130 distribution companies, and most of them are based in Europe. Non-European members are growing, and we’ve got firms on board from places such as Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil. We realized how important it is for these professionals to exchange ideas with each other in order to fine-tune their present and future campaigns,” she said of the working sessions organized during the Venice Production Bridge.