Some Perils in the Making of a Film Town: A Brief European Case Study
Author
Summary, in English
During the last decades, regional film funds and tax breaks have altered the geography of European film production. Sweden may be among the countries where the tendency has had the most radical effect in that most feature production presently takes place on and around the location of the regional film funds. The communities in which the most important funds are based have, accordingly developed into ‘film towns’ (lately, a fund based in Stockholm has been started to lure back production).
In this paper, the southernmost fund in Ystad will be under scrutiny. Established later than the other two, it has now been in operation for a decade. However, since the fund has received less financial support than its competitors while also being dependent on certain kinds of productions, its existence have occasionally appeared uncertain. Hence, signs of what has been termed the ‘unstable and unequal partnership between a footloose international production economy and situated local actors and intermediaries’ has been noticeable. To counter this, however, local authorities have tried to involve the town’s residents and commercial sector in various enterprises linked to film so as to highlight the town as a location ‘permeated by film’. Accordingly, the shifting fortunes of three of these enterprises will be briefly discussed: they include the establishing of a local film fund , the creation of a locally based master’s programme in film production and a local annual film festival. The exercise will be undertaken in an effort to examine some perils associated with the growing European phenomenon of regional film funds.
Keywords: European film production, regional film production, Scandinavian cinema
Key bibliographical references:
Elmer, Greg, Charles H. Davis, Janine Marchessault & John McCollough (eds.) (2010), Locating Migrating Media, Lanham (MD): Lexington Books.
Goldsmith, Ben & O’Regan, Tom (2005), The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (6th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hedling, Olof (2010), ‘The Regional Turn: On Recent Developments within Scandinavian Film Production’, in Mariah Larsson and Anders Marklund (eds.), Swedish Film: An Introduction and Reader, Lund: Nordic Academic Press. pp. 334-345.
Hedling, Olof (2010), ‘Murder, Mystery and Megabucks? – Films and Filmmaking as Regional and Local Place Promotion in Southern Sweden’ in Erik Hedling, Olof Hedling and Mats Jönsson (eds.), Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media, Stockholm: Royal Library, 2010. pp. 141-152.
Vonderau, Patrick (2010), ‘Just Television: Inga Lindström and the Franchising of Culture’, in Erik Hedling, Olof Hedling and Mats Jönsson (eds.), Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media, Stockholm: Royal Library, 2010. pp. 141-152.
Technical requirements: Powerpoint
Name of the presenter and institutional affiliation:
Olof Hedling is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at Lund University, Sweden.
In this paper, the southernmost fund in Ystad will be under scrutiny. Established later than the other two, it has now been in operation for a decade. However, since the fund has received less financial support than its competitors while also being dependent on certain kinds of productions, its existence have occasionally appeared uncertain. Hence, signs of what has been termed the ‘unstable and unequal partnership between a footloose international production economy and situated local actors and intermediaries’ has been noticeable. To counter this, however, local authorities have tried to involve the town’s residents and commercial sector in various enterprises linked to film so as to highlight the town as a location ‘permeated by film’. Accordingly, the shifting fortunes of three of these enterprises will be briefly discussed: they include the establishing of a local film fund , the creation of a locally based master’s programme in film production and a local annual film festival. The exercise will be undertaken in an effort to examine some perils associated with the growing European phenomenon of regional film funds.
Keywords: European film production, regional film production, Scandinavian cinema
Key bibliographical references:
Elmer, Greg, Charles H. Davis, Janine Marchessault & John McCollough (eds.) (2010), Locating Migrating Media, Lanham (MD): Lexington Books.
Goldsmith, Ben & O’Regan, Tom (2005), The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (6th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hedling, Olof (2010), ‘The Regional Turn: On Recent Developments within Scandinavian Film Production’, in Mariah Larsson and Anders Marklund (eds.), Swedish Film: An Introduction and Reader, Lund: Nordic Academic Press. pp. 334-345.
Hedling, Olof (2010), ‘Murder, Mystery and Megabucks? – Films and Filmmaking as Regional and Local Place Promotion in Southern Sweden’ in Erik Hedling, Olof Hedling and Mats Jönsson (eds.), Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media, Stockholm: Royal Library, 2010. pp. 141-152.
Vonderau, Patrick (2010), ‘Just Television: Inga Lindström and the Franchising of Culture’, in Erik Hedling, Olof Hedling and Mats Jönsson (eds.), Regional Aesthetics: Locating Swedish Media, Stockholm: Royal Library, 2010. pp. 141-152.
Technical requirements: Powerpoint
Name of the presenter and institutional affiliation:
Olof Hedling is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at Lund University, Sweden.
Department/s
Publishing year
2011
Language
English
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Arts
Keywords
- Scandinavian cinema
- regional film production
- European film production
Conference name
Sonic Futures: Soundscapes and the Languages of Screen Media, NECS Conference 2011
Conference date
2011-06-23 - 2011-06-26
Status
Unpublished
Project
- Europeisk, skandinavisk och regional film och filmproduktion