10th Anniversary
EUFCN celebrated its 10th Anniversary in Brussels
The European Film Commissions Network celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2017: the Association organized a week of events in November in Brussels (Tuesday 7th to Thursday 9th), inside and in collaboration with the European Parliament. The full celebration received the European Parliament Patronage.
The 10th Anniversary Event was conceived to offer members the chance to present themselves to political and institutional partners, in an official and unanimous way: this occasion represented an important opportunity to give visibility to the Association and to highlight the meaningful role played by Film Commissions and Regional Film Funds in the audiovisual industry.
The event – structured in four main parts – gave its members the chance to get local institutions involved and offered them an exceptional chance of visibility.
The opening ceremony was celebrated on Tuesday 7th, together with the EUFCN Location Award Ceremony; this was the first edition of a contest organized by EUFCN in collaboration with Cineuropa, which crowns the most beautiful film location in Europe.
From Tuesday 7th to Thursday 9th, EUFCN was protagonist of the special exhibition “10 Years of Filming Europe”. The exhibition inside the EU Parliament was sponsored by the Italian MEP Sergio Cofferati. It aimed at recreating the atmosphere of a movie theatre for the audience and offered them a unique show: the viewer was carried directly inside the production process of a movie, to understand the meaningful role played by film commissions during the full movie’s realization.
On Wednesday 8th, EUFCN organized a conference to present the Network and its mission in front of the MEPs. The conference was concentrated on film commissions’ work, with a special focus on Film Tourism and the Economic Impact of the Creative Industries.
On Thursday 9th the event closed with special training sessions, reserved for EUFCN members. The main topics were Green Filming and Film Tourism.
“In its first decade, our Association has grown exponentially, reaching a dimension that was unthinkable only a few years ago.” This is the enthusiastic comment of Truls Kontny, President of EUFCN, who wants to underline that “thanks to the active participation and involvement of each member, EUFCN has been able to increase its presence in the most important International film festivals and trade shows, to raise its visibility in front of European institutions and to create several networking events with audiovisual professionals and the industry. The Board and I, we do believe that the 10th Anniversary Events represent a great goal in order to show the development potential of our Network.”
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“Film culture matters. It has a central place in shaping the national and European identity, and has an enormous impact on our global standing and economy. But we need to support it further. That’s why I was delighted to host the panel discussion in the European Parliament to bring attention to this topic and set it as one of the priorities on EU political agenda. Shared commitment of the film industry and policy makers is much needed. I wish we would further build up on our successful cooperation with EUFCN and all its members also in 2018.”
“I have been really glad and honoured to host and to participate to the initiatives organised in the European Parliament for the 10th anniversary of the European Film Commissions Network (EUFCN).
Film commissions play a very important role in supporting high quality audio-visual productions throughout Europe. They also contribute to the economic development of the European territories, by attracting investments, by creating sinergies between producers and local businnesses and services and by promoting Europe around the world, thus supporting tourism.
The initiatives organised in the European Parliament have constituted a very useful occasion to raise MEPs’ awareness about the important role of Film Commissions.”
