International Herald Tribune
Tuesday September 7, 2004
AFP
VENICE Viviane
Reding, the European Union's culture commissioner,
announced plans Monday to double future EU financing for the film and
audio-visual industry, to more than E1 billion.
.
The proposed outlay was part of a
package of aid measures, entitled "Media 2007," that Reding outlined at the Venice International Film Festival.
.
"From a budget of roughly E500
million, we are going to go over E1 billion," or $1.21 billion, Reding said.
.
But she warned that the financing, to
be spent over the 2007-2013 period, would very likely be opposed by finance
ministers across the 25-member union, and she urged industry members to support
the project.
.
"We are going to have good allies
in the European Parliament, but we are going to be facing big problems from the
ministers for finance and budgets," she said.
.
"Audio-visual works represent the
main factor for the transmission of cultural, social and democratic
values," Reding said. "We need that. And we
will need that more in an enlarged
.
Reding said a primary aim of
the program was to double the number of films shown outside their home country.
.
"The problem is to have national
films leave the national market and profit from the big European market," Reding said, noting that only one in ten currently do so.
"If that is true for the traditional EU countries, it is even more the
case in the new countries. We have to help them in a specific way, because they
have specific problems."
.
EU studies have shown that nine out of 10
national films that obtain international release do so with the help of funding
from the EU media program.
.
Reding said the commission
would also work for a stronger European presence at international film
festivals.
.
Media 2007 will also finance scholarships
for budding filmmakers and technicians from the new member states to study in
the more developed schools and industries of the original 15 states.
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Special attention will be given in the
program to new technology.
.
"New technology really can help us
to reach regions which do not have film theaters any more," Reding said. "But with new technologies they can see
the newest European films at the same time they will be shown in
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