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International co-production

In filmmaking, an international co-production is a film made by production companies from different countries. Due to the expense of filmmaking, many films made outside the United States are international co-productions. For example, Amelie is set in France and stars French actors, but many scenes were shot in a German film studio and the post-production work was undertaken by a German film company. International co-productions open new markets for films and television programs and can increase the output of high quality productions through the sharing of equity investment.

Official co-productions are made possible by agreements between countries. Co-production agreements seek to achieve economic, cultural and diplomatic goals. For filmmakers, the key attraction of a treaty co-production is that it qualifies as a national production in each of the partner nations and can access benefits that are available to the local film and television industry in each country. Benefits may include government financial assistance, tax concessions and inclusion in domestic television broadcast quotas. International co-productions also occur outside the framework of official co-productions, for example with countries that do not have an agreement in place, or projects that do not satisfy official co-production criteria.

In many cases, co-productions are a response to the challenges of internationalisation by countries with small production sectors, as they seek to maintain a viable production industry and produce culturally-specific content for national audiences. However, these dual goals also produce tensions within national film and television sectors. Although a co-production agreement may mean more resources, an international production risks being less relevant to its target audiences that purely local productions.

Benefits of international co-production

As a response to internationalisation, co-production offers both benefits and drawbacks. A 1996 survey of Canadian international and domestic joint ventures identified the benefits as:

• the ability to pool financial resources;
• access to the partner government's incentives and subsidies;
• access to the partner's market, or to a third market;
• access to a particular project initiated by the partner;
• access to a desired location; or to cheaper inputs;
• cultural benefits; and
• the opportunity to learn from the partner.

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Costs of international co-production

Hoskins, McFadyen and Finn also identify drawbacks of international co-production:

• increased co-ordination and shooting costs;
• increased costs of dealing with government;
• loss of control and cultural specificity; and
• opportunistic behaviour by production partners.

Debate concerning international co-productions centres on the potential for productions to have little cultural specificity in any of its home countries. Internationalisation brings tensions in terms of cost, benefit and opportunity. In Australia, for example, O’Regan and Ward have argued that an influx of international productions to Queensland’s Gold Coast in the 1990s presented a distinct challenge to local producers. In the face of such challenges, local producers need to learn ‘how to internationalise local film and television production in order to retain and hopefully build market shares; and how to develop new models of financing that combine both local and foreign sources’. One approach has been to reconcile this tension by creating ‘local production with an explicit international orientation’. But not everyone agrees this is the best approach. For example, the idea that Australia should produce more ‘deterritorialised’ programming such as fantasy and science fiction has been met with disquiet in some sections of the industry.

In Australia, some have suggested that a narrow definition of ‘local content’ has restricted Australia’s ability to engage with international partners. Julie Hammett-Jamart reflects on the different approaches taken by France and Australia to this issue and argues that a literal-minded definition of Australian culture has been 'antagonistic to the collaborative nature of film production, and in particular international co-production'.

The Canadian study found evidence that, for television projects, domestic joint ventures performed better than international joint ventures. However, in the case of larger budget projects, domestic joint ventures were found not to be a viable alternative to international joint ventures. In their later study of co-production in Australia, the authors identified financial pooling as the most important benefit and increased co-ordination costs as the greatest drawback. This suggests that co-production is more suited to larger budget productions, primarily film, which have greater capital needs but do not carry the same dollar-for-dollar coordination costs as smaller projects.

Government bodies are keenly aware of these concerns. A review of Australian co-production rules acknowledged the tensions between cultural and economic objectives, and argues that 'requiring the program’s aims to be predominantly economic or cultural would hobble the program and reduce its effectiveness in achieving either outcome'.