Even Lars von Trier? 150'000 Euros!

Cyril Thurston (62) looks at a printed Excel list. "Xavier Dolan would now have to", says the head of the rental company Xenix film distribution, which is grown in 1996 from the cinema Xenix in Zurich. For about the twentieth Time, Thurston continues this year at the Marché du Film , in Cannes, to acquire rights to films so that he can show it here. In the "territory" Switzerland, as it is called in the technical language.

Around a quarter of the visitors to the film market for distributors. Many have bought their movies after having read the script. Others, such as Cyril Thurston bid for the largest part of their annual programme during the festival in the world sold, the offering of the rights. In Switzerland, the market for art-house is not protected movies such as those of the canadian Xavier Dolan ("Mommy") to some extent, since it takes care of big Studios and streaming providers, who sells them in us. This is bought in Switzerland aggressively, and the competition is big. Recently, the renowned rental Look Now! announced that he is bringing any new films in the cinema.

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Will others follow? Thurston knows the Problem: Here, the Superiority of the "Avengers", there are the niche films that are always "nischiger". "The curiosity for the Unknown is not risen." At the beginning of the year, Thurston showed at the last Cannes market, acquired Korean Thriller "Burning" that is not ran with around 10'000 spectators't so bad. Better than the other Cannes films in the Xenix rental, they were called "Leto" or "Dogman". The gay drama "Plaire, aimer et courir vite" World Sales offers "for almost nothing" for a strike film "En guerre", says Thurston. In the current Situation, this is a bit of the strategy: small livestock manure also makes.

Cyril Thurston. Photo: HO Xenix

Before Cyril Thurston travels to the Festival, he goes to the movie list. Of the approximately seven hundred titles, eligible strokes he's 90 per cent – they are artistically and commercially unproductive. 10% remain, of which some of the other Swiss distributors have been purchased. Everyone wanted to see the movies as early as possible, in order to have a head start. Sometimes disinformation strategies would be used: "When I hear that a movie is awful – is that right, or wants me to lead someone astray?"

It is also found that the distribution of the price of lowers, like last year in Cannes at "The House That Jack Built" by the Dane Lars von Trier. First 150'000 euros were demanded, then the price was cut in half. Eventually would have been able to afford to Cyril Thurston, the Meditation of a serial killer. But as a cinema operator refused to in Basel, to show the Film, it would have a rental for the Xenix-even less revenue.

streaming services handles driving the rates high

then Elite, a rental, will acquire almost any movie in the script stage, and the projects so financed. Elite was, for example, at the Cannes closing film in 2018, "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," Terry Gilliam – "because the Director is an icon, and remains," as the business line writes. "Of course, the finished Film would have deserved a better result, but as in many business the truth: "You win some, you lose some.""

Before the visit to the Marché reads the Elite Team of a hundred screenplays. In making its decisions, trials, a large denominator of the society. "Could it have fallen to our children, my aunt or my mother?" On the market you don't notice only the competition from Major Studios, but also through Amazon or Netflix. On Netflix, the rental I lost the one or the other Deal. In addition, the streaming services would drive the prices up because they can pay Stars and Directors are very good salaries. According to Corinne Rossi, Boss of the distributor Praesens-Film, would also buy Studios like Fox Searchlight or Sony Classics more and more often, the world rights for a movie – what must a already signed contract.

Cyril Thurston today is not only cinema, but also the streaming world in the eye. Of the films in his offer the potential of Video-on-Demand, however, is "equal to zero". In the case of iTunes or Swisscom TV its movies appeared to be hardly ever on the home page. With the Satire "The Square", which has won in 2017, the Golden palm, he has taken over all on-demand services together around 10'000 Swiss francs. For titles that are often streamed in, could be the revenue but ten times as high, says Praesens-Boss Rossi.

The rental Outside the Box has shopped for the last Time in Cannes, the Swedish Troll story "grän's". Despite the risk, you can, thanks to Ticket and television sales, earn money from a movie, means there. The subsidies that the distribution of film would be. According to the European model, Media Desk Suisse promotes the launch of European films; in this context, almost 800'000 Swiss francs flowed in the last year. The Federal office for culture, subsidised with a total of 350'000 Swiss francs, the launching of 29 non-European films.

is Not correct in view of a younger Generation of distributors. Who wants to join at the present time in this business? A rental is characterised as an SME, with strong personalities, says Thurston. Personalities, the Directors, accompanied, and all sorts of aesthetic developments have witnessed. In the scene there is a strong sense of historical consciousness, which also relates to the own structure of power and the commitment to a certain kind of cinema. The cinema, the Cannes celebrates each big, so that it radiates out into the world.

"Matthias & Maxime" by Xavier Dolan is now no longer have to. For Switzerland, someone bought the rights, but Cyril Thurston, it was not.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 13.05.2019, 22:49 PM