MEDICI — The Film Funding Journey

Methodology, Skills and Professional Benefits Participants Participants' Comments MEDICI Head of Training «The 12 Labours of Hercules» Report of the Reports – Workshops 1 to 4

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Third Workshop Report — 17 to 19 September, 2013 — Château de Limelette (Belgium)

Module 7 – Profiles of experts, consultants, selection committee members

Introduction

Project assessment requires various specialized skill-sets: writing, packaging, legal know-how, production, distribution, international marketing, and more. Hence selection committees usually consist of working professionals, i.e. producers, writers, script experts, studio people, broadcasters, distributors, exhibitors, and people from alternative distribution platforms.
Funds are also obliged to have political representatives in attendance, as well as representatives of public institutions, of socially relevant groups and of prominent film festivals.

Presentation of selected funds

1. Austrian Film Institute, presented by Roland Teichmann, CEO

Composition of the selection committee

The composition of our selection committee is clearly defined and governed by the Film Funding Act. It cannot be easily changed.
The Austrian Film Institute funding committee consists of five people. There is always one person representing production, one person representing directing, one representing scriptwriting and one representing distribution (from the movie theater or festival field). The fifth person is the film institute's CEO. In this way, we cover all core parts of the industry.
Four people represent each of the said professions. So, we need to find four producers, four directors, etc. for our pool of experts comprising 16 people.
Each profession represented in the expert pool has one main expert, and each main expert has three substitutes.
We also respect gender equality: 50% of the selection committee consists of women.

Ideal profile of a selection committee member

We have a rather general approach to the profiles of the experts to be involved in the selection process, but we do put great emphasis on the human factor.
Committee members are expected to contribute their experience and expertise. We always look for experienced people who come straight from the film industry, and whose work is widely known.
The committee members are required to be curious, passionate, and not over-focused exclusively on one school of filmmaking. They have to be ready to discuss any subject-matter and be open-minded.
Our general objective is for the committee to be marked by experience, credibility, authority, and knowledge. However, our second objective is to develop a very open culture of discussion within our committee. Everything must be honestly put on the table and nobody must be afraid of being too harsh.

Appointment of the committee members?

It is the Ministry that nominates the experts. The only thing the CEO of the Austrian Film Institute can do is to make suggestions to the Minister, after which the competent authorities go through the suggested names and appoint the experts.
The experts are appointed every three years, and so far we have managed to fill in the committee with new people every time.
A rule exists that if a member of the Committee submits a project during a respective open call, he or she cannot take part in the decision-making.
We choose the Committee members from the pool by alphabetical order, in order to ensure transparency. If somebody either cannot come or intends to submit a project of their own, we appoint their substitute by alphabetical order.

Decision-making process

Experience has shown our decisions are unanimous on 80% of the supported projects. Regarding the remaining 20%, we always prolong our discussion.
We are in more or less constant contact with the producers, writers, and directors, and we endeavor to answer all the questions that come along before making our final decision.
If we need extra information, we set out to find it. If necessary, decisions can be postponed until such information is found. In Austria, bringing TV into a project in order to raise its chances of being funded is unnecessary. Although not directly involved in our decisions, TV usually supports any projects that have already earned the support of the Austrian Film Institute.

The challenges

In a small country like Austria, it is really difficult to find 16 people actively engaged in the business and willing to do this job without receiving a lot of money. All the more so since each of their decisions is constantly subjected to professional and political questioning.
Our selection committee does not include anyone from TV.
Usually the Ministry puts too much emphasis on how politically suitable our selection committee candidates are.

2. Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein GmbH: presented by Eva Hubert, CEO

General facts about the two selection committees

Our Committee members change every three years (but one person can serve for two terms).
We try to maintain a gender balance, and appoint only open-minded people.
The age of the committee members is also important: we do not need people only between the ages of 48 and 60, but also experienced younger people (in their mid or late thirties).
We are open to including film critics; on two occasions we had directors and, from time to time, also editors.
Each committee is involved in three application deadlines per year.
There are outside experts who evaluate scripts submitted by producers, providing the selection committee with additional input.
The competent Ministry makes the final decision on the committee members.

Committee for small-budget films

Designed for films with budgets of up to 800,000 Euros, this committee covers a lot of low-budget movies, shorts, documentaries, and experimental films.
It covers all phases of funding - from scriptwriting to distribution.
The small-budget films committee usually comprises one professional representing each broadcaster and three representatives of the film industry (including the managing director of a training programme or workshop for young filmmakers, the Fund's CEO, and the head of the Department of Schleswig-Holstein. There are also two substitutes (i.e. casting agent, actor, short film artist and curator).
We tend to also invite lecturers from film schools outside Hamburg—in Cologne or Berlin, for example.
We include experts from the big film festivals, like the Berlin Film Festival for instance.
We also involve a distributor or exhibitor of small films, and movie theater owners from Hamburg.
Under this scheme, we sometimes receive up to 30 applications for documentaries, and they are all good! So we end up with 7-10 documentaries and 2-4 short films, plus 1-2 low budget feature films.

Higher-budget films committee

This committee is designed for films with budgets over 800,000 Euros.
80% of the scheme’s budget comes from the government and 20% from broadcasters. The broadcasters are not shareholders but partners, and they request one seat in the higher budget films committee.
The CEO of the fund sits on the committee, together with 2 representatives of the public broadcasters and 3 representatives of the film industry.
For this committee, we always want to include somebody familiar with the international market. We currently have a second-term expert from Amsterdam on our committee. We also have people attached to such world sales companies as Universal. The upcoming selection committee will include the Head of the Goethe Institute in Munich—someone who ran the Munich Film Festival for ten years.

The challenges

The Fund's CEO can merely suggest Committee members; it is the Ministry that makes the final decision. So far this has functioned well, but in the future it may create limitations.
It is sometimes impossible to maintain a gender balance. There are occasions, for example, when the selection committee comprises only women.
Our experience with having producers sit on the selection committees has not been very positive.
Once decisions are made, we ask all applicants if they are interested in reading the outside experts’ comments on the script. Often, those comments are not very positive, so we avoid giving them to a director or scriptwriter.

3. Swedish Film Institute, presented by Anna Serner, CEO

The selection of commissioners

It is the Head of the Production Department who interviews all candidates, but the CEO decides which commissioners are to be hired and informs the Board thereof. However, approval by the Board is not required.
The first criterion in selecting the commissioners is their credibility. We seek to choose someone who is appreciated by the rest of the industry. The only proof of their credibility is their having a long experience in the industry, either in choosing or making films.
The personal criterion is also important. Commissioners need to demonstrate good social skills, to be able to see eye-to-eye with people and explain decisions to them in a diplomatic and polite manner.
Commissioners need to be courageous and ready to make hard decisions, as well as curious about new technologies and new platforms.
They are required to attend film festivals, to set aside some time in their schedule to regularly keep in touch with the industry, and to remain updated on all the latest trends.
Age-wise, it is almost always quite senior persons who gets the job, especially for fiction feature films.
The commissioners are appointed 2+2 years, but their term can be extended to 5 years.
We try to have gender equality and achieve diversity in other aspects such as age and demography. Diversity stimulates more discussion within the department.
A commissioner needs to be an ambassador of our film institute. When they travel outside of Sweden. they represent us.
Foreigners can also apply for this position. They have to be able to understand and read Swedish. Right now we have a Danish commissioner for documentaries. We appreciate having an outside perspective because our national industry is really quite small.

The challenges

Commissioners do not receive a very high salary.
It is also a time-consuming job that keeps people away from the other activities.
You are a constant target of unsuccessful applicants.
Commissioners need to be flexible and cooperative. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Keeping a gender balance is always a challenge. At the moment, 5 out of 6 commissioners are women, which is not good.

4. Swiss Federal Office of Culture, presented by Susa Katz, Head of Production

How are the experts selected?

We hire people from the film business for our selection committees. However, we do not invite people from the distribution sector, because distributors tend to use their involvement in the selection committee to obtain advance information and thus improve their own competitivity, which is not fair.
We have a pool of film professionals that right now consists of 33 people. This includes people who have experience with the film industry in general: scriptwriters, script consultants, editors, DoPs, etc.
We hire foreign experts for specific areas like trans-media or multi-media projects, and for other fields in we lack expertise in Switzerland. We invite such people twice. First they come to present themselves for 15 minutes. Moderating these sessions is a delicate matter, and the applicants must be prepared for discussions and questioning.
Committee members rotate, so we try to renew the committee every time.
Our experts must know French and German.
Our committee members have to be approved by the competent Ministry.

The challenges

The rotation system prevents continuity in discussions about the same projects, because at every selection session the participants are completely new and know little about the previous projects. Thus, continuity is quite random, when by chance the same persons return. Since they are so few in a country the size of Switzerland, this can and does happen.
I wish we could bring in more experts from other countries, but that is not foreseen by the Law.
Our pool of 30 experts is not enough for the time being, because they are often either busy with their own projects (editors and DoPs in particular), or they are ineligible because they are submitting a project of their own for selection.

5. Slovak Audiovisual Fund, presented by Anton Skreko, Slovak Ministry of Culture

We have a committee for each scheme (development, production, post-production, distribution and digitization of movie theaters).
There are six calls a year for different schemes, and for each call we set up a special committee.
We have a pool of approximately 60-70 people who are able to work in a committee. The Fund's Director chooses nine committee members for the production scheme and five members for every other scheme. The committees are composed of producers, directors, scriptwriters and distributors. Movie theater people are involved only in the movie theater support scheme.
There is a rule that you are allowed to work on your own projects while you are in the pool of experts but that, once you are appointed to the selection committee, you need to declare that you will not submit your own project during that open call.
Committee members can remain in the pool for two years. Hypothetically, it is possible that during that period of time we never see you on any committee: you may simply have been blocked by a conflict of interest on every occasion.
We do not have a commissioners system, and producers do not have a chance to meet committee members on a formal basis. They can come and present their projects only if there is a public hearing of the applicants.
We do not really evaluate the work of our committees once the projects and their distribution are finished. Thus, we need to develop an evaluation strategy, and to call in experts to evaluate the results within different schemes.
We try to make committee members do a lot of their work online – for example, the ranking and the application of the point system. That leaves only the budgets and monetary redistribution for the final meeting, with the best-ranking projects already listed. This system is very practical.

The challenges

The downside of doing the rankings and point system online prior to the final meetings is that this leaves no leeway for people within a committee to convince each other to change their mind during the final discussions.
Usually committees allocate less money than the amount applied for. The final meeting is always about negotiating the amounts to be awarded.
Slovakia is a small country (5 million people) with a small audiovisual sector where everybody knows each other. The problem is, therefore, to find people who do not have a conflict of interest.

Outcome group discussions

Profiles of experts, consultants, selection committee members

German Federal Filmboard/FFA: We have seven selection committees for different funding areas. Committee members are appointed by their professional associations, which are defined by the film law. Political institutions (Parliament and Ministry of Culture) appoint two additional members. The CEO of the FFA, who is also the Chairmen of all meetings, has no vote.
Nordmedia: Our selection committee numbering 9 members is nominated by the financiers/stakeholders of the Fund. The director/chairman of the Fund has no vote.
Swiss Federal Office of Culture: We have a pool of 33 professionals/experts, each appointed for a 4-year term by the Ministry of Culture, upon recommendation by of each professional association or other groups (producers, authors’ guild, technicians union, etc.).
FUZZ: In selecting the commissioners, we seek a mix of various specialized skill-sets. Comissioners are usually not specialized in sales and distribution issues, but they are knowledgeable in international finance and the implications of the “digital world”.
Swedish Film Institute: We recruit commissioners on the basis of their strong independence and integrity, and their knowledge and understanding of how the film business works. Regarding the issues of distribution, international financing and the implications of the “digital world,” the distribution and production consultants lend them assistance.
Cineforom: We have a pool of 54 members that include directors, producers, screenwriters, film critics, festival directors and professional lecturers. Members are selected on the basis of their CVs and lack of conflicts of interest. Every selection committee is knowledgeable about distribution, international co-production and digital issues.

Do funds publish written guidelines for committee members?

Cineforom: No particular handbook for committee members is prepared. The selection process is guided only by Règlements des soutiens a la production and Règlement de la fondation (available in French only).
German Federal Filmboard/FFA: We follow a special procedure. First, all projects go through a straw vote. If a project receives at least one vote, it will be discussed and there will be another open vote. If the project then fails to receive the necessary number of votes (7), it is rejected and the reasoning is communicated in a rejection letter. The applicant is entitled to file a formal objection, whereupon the project is to be discussed again in one of the ensuing committee meetings.
Swedish Film Institute: The set of guidelines for the commissioners is available only in Swedish on the SFI’s website (sfi.se/About-SFI/what-we-do/Organisation/Film-Funding-Department/)
Swiss Federal Office of Culture: The procedures are based on the applicable law (Section 2, Art. 21-24 /Abschnitt Art 21-24), which is available in German and French (www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20022273)

Impact of Digital in Film Business and Production

Decision Making Processes

Module 5 — Goals and selection processes/methods
Module 6 — Selection criteria
Module 7 — Profiles of experts, consultants, selection committee members
Module 8 — Relations with higher authorities and producers

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MEDICI Third Workshop Full Report (PDF)

Illustrations by Jean-Philippe Legrand – called "Aster"

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