November 6th to 13th, American Film Market took place. It is the biggest film market in the world. The Ukrainian Cultural Foundation had given FILM.UA Distribution grant support to the implementation of a project: organization of the stand and screenings for the professional audience at the American Film Market in order to introduce the Ukrainian films to a targeted audience and to find potential partners for their global distribution.
FILM.UA Distribution with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation has created a stand intended to tell a global professional audience about the Ukrainian film industry. Modern Ukrainian films were well represented on it.
It was headlined by ‘The Rising Hawk’, ‘Foxter & Max’ and ‘Mavka. The Forest Song’. First two of them, were shown to the audience on screenings. Besides, films like ‘Cherkasy’, ‘Maid-in-Law’, ‘The Dragon Spell’, ‘The Adventures of Saint Nicholas’, and ‘The Stolen Princess’ were also introduced.
Especially for the AMF, a catalog of the best Ukrainian film projects was created. As a result of a competitive selection following motion pictures were selected to it: UKE’, ‘Crimea as It Was’, ‘Tangible Freedom’, ‘The Cacophony of Donbass’, ‘Stus’, ‘Rubizh. Operatsiia Hrubeshiv’, ‘Noble Tramps’, ‘Speech!ess’, ‘Skaz’.
Ukrainian delegation included: CEO of FILM.UA Distribution Igor Storchak, international sales manager Evgeniy Drachov, and Alla Bielaia, a winner of a competition organized by FILM.UA Distribution in conjunction with the Ukrainian State Film Agency.
“We held over 200 meetings with the buyers. Major ones were representatives of the Eastern European countries, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Japan, Korea, Turkey, and China. Our headliners had attracted a lot of attention from our colleagues. For example, ‘The Rising Hawk’, besides an expected interest from Europe, attracted great interest from Asian countries — Vietnam, Japan, China, and Korea. ‘Foxter & Max’ was favored by representatives from Latin America. And representatives from Japan together with it placed a high mark on ‘Maid-in-Law’ and ‘The Stolen Princess’. China traditionally follows the development of ‘Mavka. The Forest Song’. Our colleagues note the success of Mavka as a brand. We are not at liberty to disclose information on the contracts that were signed, but, the market gave us plenty of ideas regarding future plans in this rapidly changing world,” — tells Evgeniy Drachov.
“This year we’ve noticed some changes in the international market, — shares his observations Igor Storchak. — Modern technologies had changed the preferences of the audience significantly. The development of platforms like Netflix had led to a propensity of the audience to only go to see the big hit movies. The audience is used to consume diverse video content, thus revenues of filmmakers fall globally and a big share of the profit goes to Video-on-Demand platforms. Consequently, the competition grows and prices drop. How can we prepare ourselves for this new reality better? We should try to get the most return on investment locally and view the international market as a bonus. We should cut the costs as much as possible without sacrificing quality. Focus on genre cinema and try to develop the creative segment the most — because a viewer doesn’t want to see just another one interesting story, the viewer wants to see the best story, the most unique one, the story that no one has seen before.”
Following the results of the participation in the AMF,FILM.UA Distribution had organized a master-class “How to sell a Ukrainian project on international film market” on the premise of the FILM.UA studios. Igor Storchak and Evgeniy Drachov have shared their experience, analyzed the trends in global film markets, highlighted the particularities of selling licenses for Ukrainian films in different regions, told about the perception of Ukrainian films worldwide, and answers the questions from the public.
The professional support of this project was done by the Media Resources Managementco-production companyheaded by Lyubov Krokhmalna.
FILM.UA Distribution expresses deep gratitude to the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation the Ukrainian State Film Agency and Media Resources Management company for their help and support
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FYI
FILM.UA Distribution owns the rights to sell the production content of FILM.UA Group in Ukraine and abroad and acquires the world production content rights for distribution in Ukraine. At present, the company has over 1000 content sale contracts concluded for more than 100 territories worldwide — from North America to the Far East. These are television and theatrical rights, paid-basis TV and VOD platforms, mobile video content, etc. The stands of FILM.UA Distribution represent the Group at the largest international content markets: MIPTV, MIPCOM, and Marché du Film in Cannes, European Film Market in Berlin, FILMART in Hong Kong, American Film Market in Santa Monica.
The Ukrainian Cultural Foundation (UCF) is a state-owned institution established in 2017 in correspondence with the Law of Ukraine with the aim to facilitate the development of culture and arts in Ukraine, to provide a favorable environment for the development of intellectual and spiritual potential of individuals and society, wide access for the citizens to national cultural heritage, to support cultural diversity and integration of the Ukrainian culture into the world cultural space. Activities of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation are guided and coordinated by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine according to the current legislation.
Ukrainian State Film Agency is a centralized body of executive power, operation of which is directed and coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine through the Minister of Culture of Ukraine. The Ukrainian State Film Agency is conjoined with the system of the executive governmental entities and provides realization of state policy in the sphere of the cinema.
The American Film Market (AFM) is a film industry event that takes place annually in early November in Santa Monica, California. The 2019 AFM will be held November 6-13. More than eight thousand people attend the eight-day event each year to make new contacts, sell, fund and buy movies.
Participants from more than 70 countries visit the movie market, including company executives, agents, filmmakers, distributors, festival directors, financiers, producers, writers, etc.
AFM is held by the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA), a trade association representing the world's producers and distributors of independent cinema films and television programs.
