We, Europa Cinemas, Europa Distribution and Europa International, representing together an important European audiovisual and cinematographic chain, would like to express our support to Alta Films. This very important independent Spanish film producer, distributor and exhibitor (200 screens, 530 employees) is forced to close down due to the current economic and political situation in Spain. We would like to underline once again the importance of independent films companies for the local and international distribution and theatrical exhibition of arthouse films.

The impressive work of Alta Films in terms of distribution and exhibition of independent European films over the last 40 years (Michael Haneke, Nanni Moretti, Stephen Frears, Roman Polanski and Michel Hazanavicius among others) shows how important this company has been for the European film sector.

The fate of Alta Films is mainly due to the increase of VAT on cinema tickets from 8 percent to 21%, the decline in cinema attendance, the increase of piracy, and clearly a “present lack of political sensitivity with respect to culture” as Enrique Gonzalez Macho, Head of Alta Films, underlines.

We, Europa Cinemas, Europa Distribution and Europa International, would like to appeal to the European institutions and national governments to take into account the specificity of the European audiovisual and cinematographic sector, and to keep a strong focus on its traditional core, the local and international distribution and theatrical exhibition of European works.