The independent producers, on a war footing, after the draft of the General Law of Audiovisual Communication that, they assure, “loses the objective of the European directive, which is to protect us”
“For five days, when we were caught by surprise by the technical amendment introduced in the General Law of Audiovisual Communication that will be voted on tomorrow in Congress, we have tried to contact the Minister of Culture, but he has not even answered us,” he said. regrets Jordi Oliva. The technical amendment to which he refers is in article 110.1 of the draft of the new regulations and corresponds to the definition of what is understood by an independent producer: «It is considered an independent producer […] to the natural or legal person who is not linked in a stable way […] with an audiovisual communication service provider […] and that assumes the initiative, coordination and economic risk of the production of audiovisual programs or content, on its own initiative or by request, and in exchange for a consideration makes them available to
saying service provider”.
In the new definition, where it used to say ‘a’, it now says ‘said’, and although it seems like an insignificant change, the new description would allow, according to the producers, that production companies dependent on television and platforms can be considered independent when they produce for other channels of TV. For this reason, this afternoon, all the associations of film and audiovisual producers (Aecine, Diboos, MAPA, PIAF, PROA and Profilm, grouped in the Audiovisual Platform of Independent Producers) gathered together at a press conference and a subsequent photo before the Congress of Deputies, with faces as familiar as that of the director Fernando Colomo, under the slogan ‘Let’s save democracy, let’s save independent production’.
The producer María Luisa Gutiérrez was the first to speak. «You are our last chance that tomorrow a barbarism does not occur in Congress. The audiovisual ecosystem has to be diverse. If they cut us down and leave only service providers producing, in the long run biodiversity is being killed and this directly violates the European directive, which is the one that is being transposed into our legal system and which dates from 2018. Lost of focus the objective of it, which is to protect the independent producer?”, he asked himself. The producer assures that the European directive tries to protect independent producers because “they are the ones who contribute to enriching the brand of our country, because they are the ones who are going to be able to tell the stories that reflect our wealth of heritage and thought, the diversity ultimately culture. They are the guarantors.
And he has asked politicians to reflect “to channel a definition of independent producer”, that does not leave them at a “clear disadvantage” with respect to the rest of the producers in the market. «The generational renewal in the audiovisual, the clear commitment to new talents, is made by independent producers», he stated.
José Nevado, María Luisa Gutiérrez and Jordi Oliva. /
For his part, the producer Jordi Oliva, assures that what is proposed in the bill “opens a panorama of devastating consequences for the cinema and for all the audiovisual.” He has cited two films that if the law had already entered into force “they would not have been carried out anyway”: ‘Alcarrás’ and ‘El hoyo’. «We want -he has said- that our cinema travel through festivals, triumph in an increasingly globalized world, in the diverse and the local, because that makes us unique and stronger. The law proposed by the Government makes us less competitive and leaves us touched to death. Oliva has also explained that not only cinema is at stake, but also series or documentaries. «We have an enormous talent for fiction, we want our series to be the most watched, the most versioned, but from the perspective of the cultural diversity of Spain that we represent, and not from the monolithic tyranny of private television that is governed by an Excel table. The bill pushes us into a barren land of creation, of content, a cultural desert that Spain does not deserve and we have time to avoid. Independent production is the only guarantor of this cultural diversity. Let’s not give him a death sentence,” he stressed.
Podemos, ERC and Bildu agree on an amendment to change the definition
The Confederal Group of United We Can, ERC and Bildu have agreed on a transactional amendment to the text of the draft General Law on Audiovisual Communication to once again modify the definition of independent producer of the law, which is being debated this Thursday in the plenary session of Congress. Last week, the Economic Affairs Committee of Congress gave the green light to the opinion of the draft bill, which included a controversial socialist amendment to article 110, which has put Spanish independent producers on a war footing. The text went ahead with the votes of PSOE, United We Can, PNV and ERC, and the rejection of PP, Vox and Junts, and the abstention of Bildu and Ciudadanos.
After the independent production sector will take its demands, already known, to the Cannes Festival, United We Can, ERC and Bildu have presented an amendment on Wednesday, to which Europa Press has had access, in which it returns to replace the word “said” with “a” in article 110. With this change, “an independent producer is considered to be a natural or legal person that is not linked in a stable way in a common business strategy with one or more service providers of audiovisual communication” and “in exchange for a consideration, it makes them available to ‘a’ (with the amendment of the PSOE ‘said’) provider of the audiovisual communication service”. The spokesman for United We Can in Congress, Pablo Echenique, already asked the PSOE yesterday to rectify the Audiovisual Law, after criticism from the Spanish film sector for the treatment of independent producers and female quotas.
Oliva assures that one of the problems is that “it is a law that has been transposed late and badly, and with its back to the independent production sector. It is being done now in a hurry because there is a sword of Damocles that is a fine that comes from Europe. We feel really bad and abandoned by the government. It is not fair to the sector when they say that Spain is the audiovisual paradise of southern Europe and the audiovisual panacea. It is the audiovisual panacea for those who come from outside, but for those of us who are inside it is real torture », he lamented.
For his part, the producer José Nevado has also charged the inks against the duopoly of private television -Atresmedia and Mediaset-. “His commitment to European content stands out for having discovered German low-budget cinema and Austrian series,” he ironized. In his opinion, one of the greatest fears arises “from the crack that can be opened with this law by further tilting the value chain on the side of the issuers, the windows.” Even so, he was hopeful and has asked politicians for “political height” because they face “a matter of state, not of ideologies.” In this context, Nevado has warned that they do not rule out “any type of action” and has warned that they are willing to go to the European Union and the Constitutional Court if necessary.
a manifesto
Independent producers have launched a manifesto in defense of the sector which, according to Gutiérrez, has the support of many professionals and institutions such as the Spanish, Andalusian, and Catalan Film Academy, the ACCION directors’ association, among others. “We have had and are having a lot of support from the entire sector,” he said, later adding that it is not a war of independent producers against dependent producers but rather a “coexistence.”
Although the independent producers maintain that the hopes of being able to stop the approval of the text “are few”, they express their intention to “continue” with their claims because “it represents the jobs of many people.” “For us this is war. It is a statement of intent. We are not going to sit idly by if the worst sensations occur”, Gutiérrez has riveted.
In recent days, the producers have received the support of various political groups, including the deputies of United We Can in Congress, Antón Gómez-Reino, Pilar Garrido and Aina Vidal, who this Wednesday have attended the mobilization ‘In defense of the spirit of the Law Proposal for the compensation fund for asbestos victims’ in front of the Courts, despite the fact that his group voted in favor of the opinion of the bill in the Economic Affairs Committee, which included the controversy socialist amendment.
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