BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE WORLD CINEMA FUND IN PROMOTING CO-PRODUCTION IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES

BACKGROUND: WORLD CINEMA FUND’S VISION

World Cinema Funds (WCF) works together with the Federal Foundation for Culture and in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, the Foreign Ministry and German producers to expand and support Global South countries which lack infrastructure in film, while increasing the cultural diversity in German cinemas. Fiction, documentary, and films with all genres in between that have outstanding aesthetic approaches, powerful stories, and deliver an authentic image of their cultural roots which cannot be produced without any supplementary funding, will be supported by the WCF. It gives opportunities for talented filmmakers to increase their international awareness and reach a world-wide audience.

Despite going to the competition with neighboring countries, Germany has a well-earned reputation as one of the world leading countries which support and fund films from developing countries. For more than 15 years, The WCF supports the production and distribution of developed countries such as Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Central America, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Caucasus as well as Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. Based on the WCF’s booklet 2020, the program focuses on decolonising cinema and being aware of local content and history. More than money, it is talking about cinema, working together to realize the visions. Especially during the pandemic, the film industry is facing the challenge of cancellation and postponement of the production schedule. The risk management based on health issues caused an increase of logistic needs. In times of crisis, WCF helps filmmakers to deal with the financial problem, thereafter continuing the production.

THE SUCCESSFUL CO-PRODUCTION FILMS

WCF successfully supported film production with the filmmaker in the region with various funding programmes (WCF, WCF Europe, WCF Africa, and WCF African Caribbean Pacific) since 2014. Deborah Shaw (2021,p2) wrote that the funding program has an important role for creating the new auteurist voices on the art film circle, increasing awareness of the director's profile who won the prestigious international film festival and deals with distributors for their film which is watched by the cinephiles. Film studies in the universities and film school also use the film as the learning material, often with little awareness of the funding received.

With the co-production scheme, unpopular talented directors in Southeast Asia such as Edwin, Carlo Francisco Manatad, Le Bao, and Midi Z also were finding a way to express their opinion by producing award winning movies. They gained art cinema fans because they placed the WCF logos in the opening of their film. For example, Revenge is Mine, All others Pay Cash which successfully intrigued Indonesian movie fans to come to the theatre. It became the first Indonesian film which won the prestigious Golden Leopard Award from Locarno International Film Festival. It was such a breath of fresh air for the

Indonesian film industry during the lockdown hiatus (Basri, 2021). The director is breaking up the usual film business system in Indonesia, which is usually invested by production companies or in association with other corporations from other sectors who will interfere with the independence of the directors based on profits and marketing opportunities. It's good news for new talents in Indonesia to level up their networking in International level and realize their ideas and voices through the film. The other movies from Thailand, Vietnam, Philippine and Myanmar also have the opportunity to premiere in the International Film Festival, and further have a chance to win the competitions.

Tittle	Director	Country	Year of Release	World premier	Key Festivals and Awards
Revenge is Mine, All others Pay Cash	Edwin	Indonesia	2020	Locarno International Film Festival	Top Honour Golden Leopard Locarno International Film Festival
Whether the weather is fine	Carlo Francisco Manatad	Philippines	2019	IDFA 2019, Competition for First Appearance	FIPRESCI Award, IDFA 2019, Grand Prize for Best International Feature, RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival 2020; Beyond the Screen Award, DocAviv 2020; Amnesty International Human Rights Award, Thessa- loniki Documentary Festival 2020
Tase	Le Bao	Vietnam	2021	Berlin International Film Festival 2021, Encounters	Berlin International Film Festival 2021
The Tree House	Truong Minh Quy	Vietnam	2019	Locarno International Film Festival 2019, Concorso Cineasti del presente	Locarno International Film Festival 2019, Rotterdam International Film Festival 2020
The Road to Mandalay	Midi Z	Myanmar	2016	Venice International Film Festival 2016, Venice Days	Fedeora Award for Best Film, Venice International Film Festival 2016; Golden Unicorn for a Feature Film ; Toronto International Film Festival 2016; Busan

International Film Festival 2016; Viennale 2016; Rotterdam International Film Festival 2017

ECONOMIC IMPLICATION

The funding bodies have an enormous impact for the world wide cinema, even though the total funding is relatively small. For example: producers only received 40000 euro for producing, in fact they needed 10000 euro to produce the film but they have access to develop the story with a German co-producer who understands the international market system and the European taste, so the value is uncountable with money. It is part of nurturing talent in the Southeast Asia countries which initially improve their film industry steadily. WCF introduced the filmmaker to international sales agents and other stakeholders to enlarge their networking. They have the opportunity to open the distribution window internationally, despite the fact that foreign language films are hard to sell world-wide. Apichatpong Weerasethakul said that even though his films have been shown at various places, finding funds remains a challenge. Perhaps because the only way to make films is to do something deeply personal. WFC supports him to be able to continue exploring the film (World Cinema Fund Booklet 2021, p5).

In Southeast Asia, there are seven South Asian films that have been funded in the Jury Meetings for the last five years. Up to 470.000 euro funded for productions. The total amount of funds is increasing from 2017 to 2019, but declined during the pandemic. In 2017, Southeast Asia started to receive funds from WCF Europe, while there was no funding recommendation in WCF. Both of the programs give the opportunity for Southeast Asian filmmakers from 2019 to 2020. This year, they only endorse a feature film from Vietnam called Viet and Nam, and support it with 30000 euro fund (World Cinema Fund Booklet 2021, p7-117).

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL IMPLICATION: DECOLONISING CINEMA

The Southeast Asia region and society have a rich history of storytelling rooted in their mythologies and legends. WCF juries are looking for diverse stories and strong authenticity with its local wisdom originating in the region where they will be filmed. It’s part of giving a voice for the filmmaker outside Hollywood (Cizmecioglu, 2021). The co-production project initiated cultural diversity in German cinemas. WFC united the local filmmaker with a German co-producer and promoted the cooperation between them. In 2018, WCF initiated a new program called Berlinale Spotlight which collaborated with other international festivals around the world to screen their films. It is presented in the Berlin Film Festival “Around The World in 14 Films” every year (World Cinema Fund News, 2021).

Submitted projects in WCF are mostly derived from regions or countries which have to deal with colonialism and postcolonialism. Colonialism is economical, political, cultural dominations which are linked to natural and human resource exploration e.g. slavery. These activities placed indigenous society and culture as an object. Looking back into cinema history, the beginning of the European Gaze marked when Lumiere Brothers captured the colonized countries as the object of the films. Decolonising is the interdisciplinary process inflicted in mind and body that needs focus and understanding regarding capitalism and domination of the Global North (Berlinale - Berlin International Film Festival, 2021). In Southeast Asia, Thailand is the only one country which has not been colonized, while others colonised by Netherland, England, France, Portuguese, Spain, and Japan alternately for more than 350 hundred years. Decolonising in the cinema will be a long-term process to change the European mindset about the indigenous, grassroot culture and the way to structure the film.

In order to give freedom for everyone, racism also became a serious global issue to be solved. In terms of content and structure, providing the space for those countries to express their ideas on the film is very important to break the stereotype and acknowledge the audience about the importance of diversity and liberation. For example Independencia (2009), a movie about a man who rescued a woman and their child living in total isolation from the growing chaos all over the country during the arrival of Americans in the Philippines in the early 20th century. Raya Martin, the director, highlights the occupation of America which caused the disappearance of the villagers and death in many villages. The mysterious disappearance influenced many family lives in the Philippines. The loss of emotions and affections are the biggest grief that they faced (World Cinema Fund Booklet 2021, p74). Love and compassion is the universal language to increase the awareness of humanity.

CHALLENGES

Decolonising cinema emphasizes the changing of western centricity to global equity and white privilege to ethnic equality. Based on the conversation in the European Film Market podcast, instead of creating diversity for German Cinema, filmmakers in emerging countries rarely have freedom to explore their film regarding the story structure of European arthouse films. Filmmakers usually face a co-producer who has a strong European film perspective and defend their opinion. When a filmmaker shows disagreement, sometimes German producers are offended without realizing it. Even though it does not burn the idea or representation of the countries, it became a serious issue on the relationship between the production companies (European Film Market, 2021).

The Tree House (2019) from Vietnam was premiered in Locarno International, and Whether the weather is fine (2019) from Philipine was premiered in IDFA, but both of them are not yet commercialized in global industry. International Film Festivals are the main screening platform of arthouse films. Their achievement in international level intriguing arthouse film fans, which is a niche market, to buy the tickets but not the mass moviegoers who usually buy the Hollywood films tickets. In the sales perspective, award-winning arthouse films seldom become box office movies, even in their own country. To such an extent that the lack of understanding in data analysis is a major issue, consequently, filmmakers have to learn about negotiation skills to convince the sales agent with its business potential. The option to solve this problem is by involving diaspora as the gatekeeper or communicator to help negotiate between South Global and North Global (European Film Market, 2021).

In future projects, Southeast Asian filmmakers have to consider the independence of their film industry. Despites nowadays, they are still dependent on European funding for financing or if this is an intrinsic part of the industry in today's globalized film sector. Possibility of cooperation between Southeast Asian countries must focus on the talent development, upgrading technologies, and placing the southeast asian value in the audience. (European Film Market, 2021)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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