Future of Cinema

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On the opening day of its 60th anniversary, Wednesday May 16 from 2:30pm to 5:30pm, the Festival de Cannes is offering a moment of reflection on the opportunities and challenges of the next decade by holding a conference focused on the evolution of audience practices and on the ties between cinema creation, new promotional and broadcast platforms. 

Film industry representatives, new media players, journalists and sociologists will share their experiences and views on how the fast evolving digital economy is shaping new roles for directors, producers and distributors while offering exciting opportunities to creators and audiences. They will debate the following questions: 
- From an audience perspective, how has the digital revolution changed the way films are selected, viewed, watched, interpreted and communicated? Will the film theatre continue to be the reference for cinema viewing?
- What will the new medias for cinema and the audiences of tomorrow be: Web 2.0, screenings on demand, DVD-HD, VoD, Social communities, Blogs, Vlogs, Mobile Media, Virtual Worlds...?
- Will tomorrow's marketplace be split between different categories of films: blockbusters, film-events, author films, niche films…?  What new promotional tools are being developed and what are the new business models that are emerging? What could the role and the implication of the duo creator-producer be and what will the impact on the role of the distributor be? How can film festivals play a positive role in accompanying creators in this new environment?

Guest Speakers:
Colin Brown, Editor-in-Chief, Screen International will moderate the discussion between the following guest speakers:
Danah Boyd, Ethnographer and researcher of social media networks and doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley (USA)
Emmanuel Ethis, Sociologist in cinema and cinema audience, University of Avignon (France)
Michael Gubbins, Editor, Screen International (United Kingdom)
Thomas Hoegh, Founder and Chairman, Arts Alliance Media (United Kingdom)
Neeraj Roy, CEO, Hungama Mobile (India)
Adrian Sexton, EVP Digital, Participant Productions (USA)
François Yon, Founder and Partner, Films Distribution (France)

The conclusions of the Opening Forum will be reported by Philippe Dana to the European Ministries of Culture on the occasion of the European Day taking place on Saturday May 26.

More to be followed with "The future of Film Salon @ Cannes" presented by CFC Media Lab and filmfestivals.com offering a series of events in Cannes during the festival:
1.     Interactive Cinema Workshop

2.     Super Panel discussion on the Future of Cinema from creation to distribution.

3.     Showcase of interactive work from visionary filmmakers

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GUEST SPEAKERS 

Colin Brown is the editor-in-chief of “Screen International”, whose weekly magazine, festival newspapers and daily news service "screendaily.com" are regarded as the leading authorities on the international film business. Based in New York City, Colin has been with the publication for twenty years. During that time he has been a frequent commentator on the cinema industry for numerous business and consumer publications as well as TV networks, both in the US and Europe. He has also served on numerous film festival juries and industry advisory committees.

Danah Boyd is a doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Communications. Her dissertation focuses on how American youth engage in networked publics like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Xanga, etc. This work is funded by the MacArthur Foundation as part of a broader grant on digital youth and informal learning. Prior to Berkeley, danah received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University and a master's degree in sociable media from MIT Media Lab. She has worked as an ethnographer and social media researcher for various corporations, including Intel, Tribe.net, Google, and Yahoo!  

Emmanuel Ethis is a sociologist in cinema and cinema audience at the University of Avignon. Main works: Aux marches du Palais – Le Festival de Cannes sous le regard des sciences sociales ("At the palace steps – Cannes film festival under the scrutiny of the social sciences", La Documentation Française, 2001), Les Spectateurs du temps, pour une sociologie de la réception du cinéma ("The time watchers, for an analysis of social reception of cinema", L’Harmattan, 2005) and Sociologie du cinéma et de ses publics ("A sociology of cinema and cinema audience", Armand Colin, 2006). Plus two new titles soon to be released: Les Belles ténébreuses, une sociologie des stars au cinéma in collaboration with Joel Chapron ("The beautiful mysterious ones, a sociology of cinema stars", Armand Colin) and Les oreilles recollées, sociologie de l'acteur en devenir ("Corrective ear surgery, a sociology of the actor in the making"), a work in collaboration with the actors Gianni Giardinelli and Samuel Perche (PUG). 

Michael Gubbins, Editor, Screen International (United Kingdom) 

Thomas Hoegh is Founder and Chairman of Arts Alliance Media and Chief Executive Officer of the parent company Arts Alliance. Arts Alliance Media is Europe's leading provider of digital film distribution services, dedicated to building a European digital network to deliver film to the cinema, to the home and between industry players. Arts Alliance is involved in a number of creative industry related businesses with a technology angle. It owns cinemas, film production and distribution companies, tv-stations, mobile and in-store media, a film school and other related businesses.  To date more than 35 companies have been backed by Arts Alliance, with most notable results from Launch, Spinner, Firefly, Planet All, Interactive Investor and Lastminute. Thomas serves on the boards of: Hart Sharp Entertainment's True Film Fund; Hart Sharp Video; CityScreen Cinemas; Metropolitan Film School; LOVEFiLM; Inlive, YCD and Arts Alliance Media.  He is a trustee of Plan UK. Thomas holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from Northwestern University. 

Neeraj Roy is Managing Director & CEO of Hungama Mobile. Hungama are the owners of the three biggest entertainment portals in South Asia, Hungama.com and IndiaFM.com, The # 1 Bollywood portal in the world and GamingHungama.com. Hungama Mobile has an active Mobile Entertainment and Marketing/Applications business, which has been engaged with over 300 brands and developed over 1000 interactive campaigns. Hungama has won over 52 awards in Digital Marketing, including 4 ABBY Golds, PMAA-Singapore and the Globes in Miami. Hungama Mobile is the largest aggregator, developer and publisher of BOLLYWOOD content in the world. They hold the worldwide exclusive license to over 200,000 music titles, 20,000+ videos and have worked on over 500 movie games, etc.Hungama Mobile has now launched a Bollywood channel with over 70 operators in 25 countries on networks such as SingTel, Maxis, MTN, O2, Telis etc and also internet based services such as Apple iTunes, MSN Music, Yahoo! Music, etc. Neeraj was recently voted amongst the ‘50 Most influential People in Mobile Entertainment’ globally.  

Adrian Sexton joined Participant Productions, as Executive Vice President in charge of Digital, in January, 2007.  Sexton most recently consulted with Participant on the DVD release of the Academy Award ® nominated documentary “AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH,” Richard Linklater’s “FAST FOOD NATION” and “THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET.” Sexton comes to Participant from TAG Strategic, a digital media and entertainment agency he co-founded with EMI veteran and digital pioneer Ted Cohen.  TAG’s diverse client roster has included Lionsgate, Eyespot, Qualcomm, Revver, Sandisk and LivePlanet. Before forming TAG, Sexton headed Digital Media at Lionsgate. He oversaw the digital campaigns for such movies as the Best Picture Academy Award ® -winning “CRASH,” Oscar ® -winning “MONSTER’S BALL,” as well as “FAHRENHEIT 9/11,” and the “MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION” and “SAW” franchises.  A pioneer in the creation of studio blogs for emerging directors and audience participation, Sexton released the first MPAA-approved age-gates for online content, and negotiated an innovative digital cinema deal with BMW Films around Lionsgate titles “SHATTERED GLASS” and “THE COOLER.”  
Sexton identified multiple-platform marketing, distribution and sales opportunities for the studio’s 8000+title film library in such high-growth markets as broadband, mobile, digital cinema, peer-to-peer and IPTV. Sexton also was part of the team which secured the $350 million credit facility involving the acquisition of Artisan Entertainment. 

François Yon is founder and partner of Films Distribution a sales company which has contributed to the worldwide successful distribution of award-winning films including Indigènes » by Rachid BOUCHAREB,  « Flandres » by Bruno DUMONT, « La Raison du plus faible » de Lucas BELVAUX, « La Tourneuse de pages » by Denis DERCOURT, « Avida » by Benoît DELEPINE and Gustav KERVERN, « Vas vis et deviens » by Radu MIHAILEANU, « Joyeux Noël » by Christian CARION, amongs many others. François holds a Master in Broadcast Administration from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts from Clark University.