Wild Bunch SA today announced the formation of Wild Bunch International (WBI), a subsidiary focused on international film sales. The new company establishes the existing Wild Bunch international sales department as a stand-alone company, enabling the newly-formed entity to expand its portfolio of film financing and sales activities, including working with third-party partners.

Vincent Maraval will continue to lead the international team, which remains unchanged, from its existing office location. Wild Bunch SA will handle WBI’s administrative functions.

“For our international sales department, this streamlined structure offers exciting growth prospects that will benefit the entire Wild Bunch family from both a creative and financial perspective,” said Vincent Grimond, CEO of Wild Bunch. “These limited changes create an opportunity for the Wild Bunch Group to spread its international sales costs on a broader portfolio of films, generating a positive impact on its overhead costs.”

“This reorganization will have nothing but a positive impact on our willingness and ability to attract new talents and to support and promote creative ambition” said Vincent Maraval. He adds, “This operation also comes from the desire of the international sales team to focus more on market changes and to diversify the services we want to offer talents and producers abroad”.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which has long represented the U.S. rights to Wild Bunch titles, will continue to collaborate with the company via WBI.

Recent Wild Bunch films include Ladj Ly’s Cannes Jury Prize-winner LES MISÉRABLES; Rebecca Zlotowski’s AN EASY GIRL, which received the Directors’ Fortnight SDAC Prize at Cannes; and YOUNG AHMED by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne who received best director award at Cannes.

About Wild Bunch (www.wildbunch.eu)

Wild Bunch is the renowned independent European film distribution and production services company, listed on the German market, active in the acquisition, co-production, direct distribution and international sales of movies and TV series. A major player in international sales, the company has developed a pan-European distribution network in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Austria. Wild Bunch currently manages a library of more than 2200 titles. Furthermore, Wild Bunch has positioned itself on the market of direct electronic distribution via its VOD/SVOD service FilmoTV.

Contact:
Wild Bunch AG
Investor Relations
Phone +49 (30) 88091 700
Email: investorrelations@wildbunch.eu

A couple of years ago, Francois Hollande’s government appointed Pierre Lescure to lead a vast industry mission to amend Hadopi, the anti-piracy law implemented by former president Nicolas Sarkozy. But since releasing his report in May, nothing has been done with regards to piracy.

While Hadopi hasn’t been scrapped, its one sanction, which suspended offenders’ Internet subscriptions after three warnings, was removed in July.

“Piracy is (thriving) in France, and the fact that the government has not been punishing it more severely for the last two years is definitely feeding the beast,” says Vincent Grimond, president and co-founder of Wild Bunch, which owns FilmoTV, France’s first SVOD service.

Meanwhile, local VOD outfits have been plagued by the proliferation of Popcorn Time, a free, open-source app available for Windows, Mac and Linux, that lets users stream the latest movies in high resolution. It has been deemed illegal pretty much everywhere in the world, including France, and has had to move its servers a couple of times.

“Popcorn Time is a business killer for everyone involved in VOD,” Grimond says. “It’s got a terrific catalog, subtitles in nearly every language, and it’s untraceable.”

The strict window release schedule is another obstacle to fighting piracy in France. Movies can’t get on VOD services earlier than four to six months after the theatrical release, and have to wait 36 months to roll on SVOD. Discussions to bring the SVOD window down to 22 months have stalled due to the fierce opposition of exhibitors and TV groups such as Canal Plus that invest in films and are therefore entitled to a window of exclusivity 10 months after the theatrical release.

“These VOD windows are the Guantanamo of movies,” says Pascal Rogard, managing director of the Society of Authors, Composers and Directors. Rogard says he has submitted to the government a proposal to allow Canal Plus to show movies six months after their theatrical rollout. In exchange, Canal Plus would greenlight the distribution of movies on VOD before the current four-to-six-month time period.

Grimond says the real problem of the current window release schedule is the “one-size-fits-all” mandate that goes with it. “In the U.S., where the schedule of releases is negotiated contractually between the distributors and the exhibitors, the outcome remains similar to ours, but the system is flexible enough to allow for some highly successful experiments, such as the recent day-and-date release of ‘Snowpiercer’ by TWC-Radius.”

Meanwhile, with Netflix on everyone’s radar, French players have been lobbying the government and the European Commission to give the U.S. service the same tax rate and investment quotas as local VOD platforms in order to create a more even playing field.

The battle has been half-won: Starting next year, all VOD services distributing content in France will have to pay the same value-added tax of 19.6% on VOD sales regardless of where they’re based.

But Netflix, which is headquartered in Luxembourg, is still not obligated to invest 15% of its revenues in European films and 12% in French ones as every local service with annual revenues exceeding €10 million ($12.6 million) does.

However, the real issue is not just to have Netflix buy more French content, says Florence Gastaud, managing director of ARP. “ISP platforms today have tremendous power, and we need to make sure groups like Bouygues and Orange, which will soon start distributing Netflix, will reference properly French content on the service and maximize its exposure.”

Chris Libertelli, Netflix’s head of global public policy, will be on hand at the confab to discuss open networks and network neutrality, a subject that will undoubtedly heat up the debate.

As Gastaud points out: “The digital space is still a no-man’s land when it comes to regulations.”

The question is: for how long?

FilmoTV offers a catalogue of about 500 titles. The service was previously available via smart TV and as part of Numericable and Orange’s TV services. FilmoTV also launched a cloud-based version of the service in September to enable subscribers to view content directly on tablets and smartphones.

La Box VideoFutur launched late last year, available via Videofutur’s stores or its website or via operating partners Virgin Mobile, ozone and Cityplay.

According to Netgem, about 20,000 boxes had been sold by mid-February. Videofutur expects about 50,000 sales before the end of the year and requires about 100,000 to break even.

The company has launched a marketing campaign to boost sales, hiring agencies Babel and Carat to develop a campaign featuring a “mini-saga” of three “cinematically-themed” commercials that appear as pre-roll, display, TV, press and poster ads.

“This is an industrial and commercial agreement. FilmoTV is going to be responsible for all the cinema components in the editorial planning of our subscription video offering, which will allow us to concentrate on transactional VoD and distribution,” said Mathias Hautefort, deputy CEO of Netgem Group and owner of Videofutur.

As well as FilmoTV, Videofutur will offer films for download and a catch-up TV offering.