Ramon Colom: “laws must be adapted to new models and forms of digital consumption”

The president of FAPAE recognizes at the San Sebastián festival that "we already have a scheme agreed upon with the Administration for a new model, but there are issues that we continue to work on. Among them, it is necessary that the Film Law be of a general nature and not only affect Amortization Aid."

“Laws must be adapted to new models and forms of digital consumption.” Ramon Colom, the president of FAPAE, the Confederation of Spanish audiovisual producers, made these statements within the framework of the 63rd edition of the San Sebastián Festival. The president of the producers has congratulated the director of the Festival, José Luis Rebordinos, for being “this year the year with the greatest Spanish participation in the San Sebastián Festival.”

“We already have an agreed upon scheme with the Administration for a new model, but there are a couple of fundamental issues that we continue to work on,” said Ramon Colom. "Above all, it is necessary that this Law be general in nature and not only affect amortization aid." In this sense, the president of the producers has carried out an analysis of the new ways of viewing content, "the Laws must be adapted to the new models and ways of digital consumption, the keys to which, in part, are found in the reasoning about the digital single market."

Furthermore, the president of the producers has asked the Government and the different parties (in case the deadlines did not allow it for the current Government) “to implement this new model for aid, since it has been a hard work carried out by the industry and the Administration to reach an agreement that, exactly now, because we broke the news at this Festival, has been in more than 3 years of negotiations.” “This is another of the problems we have with the Administration, the deadlines for the implementation or application of the different issues,” he indicated.

The president of the audiovisual producers has been accompanied by Benoît Ginisty, representative of FIAPF (International Federation of Associations of Film Producers), who has carried out an analysis of the European audiovisual panorama and the problems it faces, among which the digital single market stands out.

For his part, Colom has stressed that "Spain must not forget that European policies must be linked to the new model that we are creating."

Screen share

Furthermore, the vice president of FAPAE and president of IBAIA, Joxé Portela, analyzed the data of the Spanish industry in San Sebastián. This year, which is the year with the highest Spanish participation in the San Sebastián Festival, which reflects the great creative moment of Spanish cinema, general cinema receipts have increased by 4%. The box office share for Spanish cinema is similar to that of previous years at this time, around 12%, but "we hope that, with the titles that have yet to be released, this year we will also achieve an excellent share that exceeds 20%," said Portela. “It should also be noted that this month of September, Spanish cinema is performing excellently at the box office, reaching 40% this week and 50% the week before.” It has also shown that filming budgets remain low and that 52% of them have a budget of less than one million euros.