Cinema and audiovisual media

A Survey on National Cinematography
Conclusions
Production

A first comparison with data from the 1980s shows a worldwide decreasing trend in film releases, although cinema attendance and television audiences have been increasing continuously since then. In addition to economical trends, other determining factors can be identified in the evolution of this sector. For instance, the new roles played by broadcasting companies as combined co-financiers, producers and distributors have been decisive to the film industry. Technological developments in digital and video imagery have also changed the entire organization, and even the composition, of the professional community. Whereas previously there were 60 professions involved in the film production process, there will be more than 100 different specialists participating in multimedia productions in the near future.

Three categories of countries emerged, according to their average yearly national film output, each of which may be further divided into three clusters:

First cluster:

1. Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States of America together produce 500 films and form a homogeneous and structured English-language market. This is traditionally the category that receives the least amount of state funding in relation to the volume of production.

2. The second group includes all of continental Western Europe with 450 films in a variety of languages and different cultures. This is the category receiving the largest amount of state funds.

3. Four distinct Asian countries are the largest world producers: India (839), Philippines (456), Hong-Kong SAR (349) and Japan (238).

Second cluster:
There exists a second, intermediate category of 25 medium- producing countries with an average of from 20 to 199 releases. They have in common a dramatic fluctuation between the number of their annual releases. This may imply an unstable technical industry, as illustrated by Egypt or Mexico where the figures have varied widely over the last decade. They may be grouped geographically as follows:

1. Asia: Thailand (194), China excluding Hong-Kong SAR (120), Pakistan (64) and the Republic of Korea (63). The main social correlation between these countries is their high population density.

2. Latin America: Brazil (86), Argentina (47) and Mexico (20 on average, though 10 in 1998).

3. Eastern Europe, the Arab and Scandinavian States where several countries have an average production of from 10 to 20 yearly releases.

Third cluster:
The last category includes some fifty sporadically producing countries – i.e. with very small production –equally distributed throughout the five continents. This cluster coincides with countries with the highest or lowest population rates and lowest and highest GNP. This dichotomy appears more clearly between, on the one hand, the poor and highly populated nations, and, on the other, the richest countries with a small number of inhabitants. Most often, they never have had a structured cinematography sector at all. This situation does not exclude a legitimate interest by the authorities to launch, to reorganize or to maintain a national audiovisual sector.

Last update 02/10/01