THE FOREIGN MARKET
The Foreign Market is the bazaar of the independently produced movie. Here "B-movies" rub shoulders with ... Madonna and Tony Curtis. You can get an autograph from Peter Yustinoff or say, "Hi!" to Norman Mailer and he won't punch you out!
You can walk up to an executive from Twentieth Century Fox and chat with him while having a drink at the bar in Hotel Majestic on the French Riviera. You could never do that in Hollywood.
There are three international markets which dominate the foreign distribution business: AFM (American Film Market, held in Los Angeles the last week of February,) CANNES, (held in Cannes on the French Riviera in the middle of may,) and MIFED (held in Milan, Italy during the last week of October.) These three markets transact 90% of the independents' movie deals.
Major studios used to ignore the foreign markets before the mid-eighties, what with their international offices in world capitals doing all their foreign distribution for them. But after a while they realized that the foreign market was the best place to sell the studio "bombs". They discovered that their worst films could compete with independents' "B-Movies."
Ironically, the majors pushed the independents into the "B-Movie" market originally, by overpaying stars and whenever an independent came up with a gem, they either bought the independent out or, if they couldn't, they ruined his chances of getting a theatrical distribution.
You'd be surprised to what lengths studios will go to, to keep an independent's movie out of theaters and sometimes out of distribution. If this book was about that sort of thing, I'd tell you stories that would raise the hair on your back (if you have any)!
Then the majors found out that the foreign market is a terrific place to sell video rights. That's when they came in like gangbusters. They've driven the participation fees of the once-reasonable foreign markets into the stratosphere, and they've glutted the markets with their products, they've even thrown in their "A-Movies."
The foreign market still provides an opportunity for independents, but they ought to form special distribution entities that will represent them and that they control. I've always called for this type of co-operation among independent film makers. I believe we should have such companies or associations. The time has come for their formation.