The Circuit

by Martin Dale and Team Variety
"The key thing European film funds have to understand," declares Henning Camre (pictured), brimming with a sense of mission, "is that the way we've been supporting and making films is dead, you can't do repair work - instead of treating European cinema like a crippled child we have to make a fresh start".

A master strategist, often acclaimed as the "Godfather of modern Danish cinema", Camre now hopes to transform European cinema via the pioneering European ThinkTank on Film and Film Policy, set up in 2006, whose members include Europe's top film bodies in Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Denmark and Poland.

At the San Sebastian Film Festival, Camre has held sessions with the ThinkTank's Board members and the European Film Agency Directors (EFAD) in order to discuss the key conclusions and recommendations from the September 11-13 Forum, "Shaping Policies for the Cinema of Tomorrow", co-organised with the Council of Europe and the Polish Film Institute.

The Basque festival is a traditional sounding board for institutions. But few have the stats, analytical brawn and umbrella status of the ThinkTank.

"San Sebastian is an excellent environment in which to explore these issues - the organization is exemplary and the relaxed atmosphere has enabled us to build a more intimate dialogue," explains Camre.

The key priorities in the ThinkTank's masterplan for rebuilding European cinema include forging a new dialogue between public and private players, moving beyond the art vs. commerce divide and focusing on how to bring quality films to audiences.

"We need scale, policy harmonization, coherent strategies, simpler co-production rules and a much bigger emphasis on marketing and distribution" states Camre.

He believes that one of Europe's key weaknesses is fragmentation - 921 films a year and over 1100 distributors - and cites the recent Zentropa-Nordisk merger as an example of how it's possible to build scale, even in small countries.

Key elements of the ThinkTank's recommendations include critical mass, more films targeted at young people and children and greater digital content provision of European films.

Camre's emphasis on the need for a fresh start include redesign of European-level initiatives - he criticizes MEDIA for trying to put a dead system on a life-support machine and emphasises the importance of the Council of Europe's recent involvement in order to extend action to all European countries.