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Monday, August 8, 2011

A European Hollywood?

As a film fan I can't help noticing one thing: the lack of European productions that hit our screens. The lack of funds that we dedicate towards making big block buster movies and of course promoting them in Europe and beyond. Our cinemas are flooded by mainly American productions.

Few European directors, actors, music composers or other artists can make a successful career outside their country though Europe is the largest market in the world! In a way, we are culturally assimilated by the Americans, because our leaders are using their model to manage and rule our countries and create a society after their model ; with their values and all their faults.

European movie makers are restricted to small national audiences, with result in being unable having big budgets to produce something bigger. The EU is subsidizing everything else, apart investing in promoting our culture and way of thinking. Even with this situation, European cinematography has produced some real gems over the years.

Imagine if there was a  group of movie makers funded by an EU ody, that produced European movies. A body that would finance movies in all European countries, from different directors and producers. Filmed in many different European regions, any language the producers wanted, depending the country they were coming from, or they chose. 

Circuit those movies in the European market, make profit and reinvest the money in making more European movies, matching our mentality and promoting our culture to the immigrants living here.

Actors and other artists from all over Europe would be able to find work in their own countries or any other European country they could. That would lead to having native stars and multilingual artists, resulting in a real cultural renaissance of Europe.

A Greek, Finnish or a Hungarian actor for example would be able to play in any film of any country, in any language they could speak, making them and their work famous all over the continent. A great way to create a dialogue and support multiculturalism in our continent.

We would be able to promote to other continents our values, way of thinking, culture and with our own distinct version of the Western civilization. Thus seeing a surge of new talent and many opportunities for young actors or other artists in Europe. They would not need to leave for America anymore to have a successful career.


Other regions of the World produce their own movies. India has Bollywood, China has their own movie industry, but Europe is still massively relying on America! Very few European movies make it internationally and our own actors find it harder to have a successful career, unlike their American or other English speaking colleagues.

Time for a European Hollywood then, but where will it based? Well we could base it in one of the many European cities that have already an established film festival. The Cannes for example being the most famous, but perhaps in Berlin, Dublin,Thessaloniki or Venice that also host film festivals. Can this be decided without Europeans arguing over who will take the lead again?