Romanian producer and chair of the European Film Academy (EFA) Ada Solomon has warned against an “over-production crisis” in Europe and wants to
Romanian producer and chair of the European Film Academy (EFA) Ada Solomon has warned against an “over-production crisis” in Europe and wants to see funders bolster support for training and exhibition.
“My perception is, in terms of production, we are fine, we are secure… But the cinematographic chain doesn’t mean only production,” said Solomon while giving a talk on European financing at Transilvania International Film Festival. “The big problems I see in our sector chain are standing before and after effective production. I think we are now having an over-production crisis – there are way too many films made.”
Solomon qualified she doesn’t want to see levels of production circumscribed, but noted, “When we talk then to the distribution chain, the exhibition chain, the development, the investment in development, that should be really increased.”
Solomon, a producer at Bucharest-based Microfilm, has won two Golden Bears at the Berlinale, for Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn (2021) and Child’s Pose (2013). She is also a co-producer on Jude’s Dracula, which is playing this year at Transilvania, after debuting at Locarno.
She was elected chair of the EFA board at the end of last year, having served for six years as deputy chair.
“We need younger programmers and distributors”
She spoke emphatically about nurturing the next generation of filmmaking talent. “We are facing an ageing of the community. We only feed the big names, the older generation.”
Solomon noted there is a “chain reaction” as senior programmers stay for long periods at festivals, and continue to prioritise the work of a compact group of established filmmakers. “We need younger programmers, younger initiatives, fresher initiatives to grow to exhibit the recent trends, the daring ones.
“We need younger producers to access the bigger budgets. We need younger distributors to adapt to the new requirements of the market.”
As the industry grapples with AI tech advancements, Solomon believes protecting European creativity is of utmost importance. “In terms of technology, we can catch up, but we will never be one step ahead of the rest of the world, meaning maybe the Americans but not only, in terms of technological discovery and advancement. They are several steps ahead and we cannot catch up with that.
“But instead, we have something we need to preserve and promote precisely – our creativity. This is not something that can be bought or generated. We as European culture, we have this unique capacity, creativity, that we need to nurture and grow and expose and protect.
“If you look at, let’s say the big ones, the Americans, they are trying to grab European talent. They want this creativity, they want to incorporate it, but what happens is they standardise it in order to touch economic revenue points, to be accessible to all, to feed the general taste, without daring. While what we have as particularity is this daring approach – we try, we experiment.”
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