Madrid hosts the course 'European co-production: legal and financial aspects' from the Erich Pommer Institut

City of Madrid Film Office sponsors this advanced training course in financial and legal matters to develop co-productions in Europe.

Madrid hosted the advanced training course between November 20 and 24 European co-production: legal and financial aspects, organized by the prestigious Erich Pommer Institute with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA and sponsorship of City of Madrid Film Office.

After a warm welcome from the Director of Tourism of the Madrid City Council, Miguel Sanz, in which he highlighted the strength of the Madrid audiovisual sector today, seven international experts have unraveled over three days the keys to audiovisual co-production in Europe from the point of view of financing and legal agreements.

Coordinated by Bernie Stomper, founder of the German company International Film Partners, the course included sessions offered by Nina Crone, by European Film Bonds, Wolfgang Brehm, del bufete de abogados alemán Brehm & Moers, Marta García León, Spanish lawyer expert in intellectual property, and Valeska Neu, sales agent for the German Films Boutique. A program in which we have delved into the different financing structures to articulate a feature film project, the common co-production framework contracts in Europe, the possible agreements between independent producers and the digital platforms that have burst into the market with force in recent years, and different international distribution and sales strategies.

Added to this are two sessions dedicated to case studies in which real examples of co-production have been analyzed. Leontine Petit, from the Dutch production company Lemming Film, offered details about the co-production agreements for three projects: the feature films Monkeys (Alejandro Landes, 2019) and Do not hesitate (Shariff Korver, 2020), and the upcoming series Heirs of the night (Diederik van Rooijen, 2019). John Gordon, from the Spanish production company Morena Films, spoke about the feature film July (Icíar Bollaín, 2018), mostly Spanish co-production with companies from five different countries. In addition, Juan Gordon offered a session in which he reviewed the 20 years of Morena Films' history, in which they have produced projects such as Champions (Javier Fesser, 2018), everyone knows it (Ashgar Farhadi, 2018) o What, guerrilla (Steven Soderbergh, 2008).

Aimed at active producers, the course included 28 professionals from 12 different European countries, including seven professionals from Madrid who were able to take advantage of the scholarship offered by the agreement with the City of Madrid Film Office. The participants had the opportunity to get to know the city and part of its industry during the days of the workshop and at the joint reception held with the ICAA of the Ministry of Culture, which was attended by Madrid representatives from companies such as Avalon, Malvalanda, Mediapro, Tandem Films, The Screen of the ECAM, Latido, Smith Pixel, Nobody is perfect or WeLaw.

This training course in European co-production joins other training and industry revitalization activities promoted by the City of Madrid Film Office during 2019, such as the Producing sustainably is possible, which took place on October 26 within the framework of Another Way Film Festival, and the masterclass Festivals and markets: an introduction to the labyrinth, given on November 12 by Taskovski Films within the framework of Progressio, an emerging film platform promoted by Cineteca Madrid together with ICA London, the Sundance Documentary Institute and Kingston University. These projects are aimed at facilitating the specialized training of professionals in the Madrid audiovisual sector and their meeting with experts and professionals from other territories.