We welcome the publication this January of the Review of Progress on the Film Policy Review, report on the UK film industry achieved 2 years ago by an independent panel led by Lord Smith. We especially support the panel’s position on the VPF issue in the UK.

In particular, it is to be noted that the panel encourages the BFI to lead a task-force in order to facilitate negotiations on VPF between distributors and third party consolidators. The panel asks them to go further with the idea of calculating the VPF on the basis of the widest point of release and of giving a waiver to films with a WPR under 99 “prints”.

As of today, the distributors are indeed obliged to pay a fee each time they move a print from one cinema to another, with no limit in time, adding expenses they didn’t have before with the 35mm. As a consequence, it sometimes prevents them from increasing their release scope during the exploitation of the film in theatres or even stops them from exploiting them further. Independent distributors, already the most at risk, are even more effected by this situation as they usually release their films on fewer prints and exploit them on the long run.

The full report can be found follwing this link: It’s still about the audience