-By Andreas Fuchs

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary EFA Awards this Dec. 1 in Malta, the European Film Academy has launched the first Young Audience Award. Facing what they called “a great challenge” due to “the great diversity—in form and content—of the submitted films,” experts from children’s film festivals in France, Poland and Germany nominated three titles. To the committee, Blue Bird by Gust Van den Berghe (Belgium), Kauwboy by Boudewijn Koole (the Netherlands) and Sister by Ursula Meier (France/Switzerland) are “high-quality films which will challenge young audiences but haven’t necessarily been made exclusively for them.”

On Young Audience Film Day, June 10, we will find out if they were right. The nominees will be shown in Amsterdam (local partner: EYE Film Institute Netherlands), Belgrade (Film Center Serbia), Copenhagen (Danish Film Institute), Erfurt (Deutsche Kindermedienstiftung Goldener Spatz, Germany), Norrköping (Swedish Film Institute) and Turin (Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Italy). The 10- to 13-year-olds in attendance will vote right after the films, with an award presentation following in Erfurt on the same day. (Editor's note: The winner, announced on June 11, was Kauwboy by Boudewijn Koole.)

dcinex Launches at CineEurope
As you stroll the aisles of the tradeshow floor at CineEurope in Barcelona, make sure to look for a new logo and corporate identity of three companies that you have known and trusted for some time. D-cinema service providers XDC, FTT and Bewegte Bilder have merged their respective names to become dcinex.

“Our individual brands are all very strong in their respective markets,” FTT’s sales and marketing director Till Cussmann noted about the organization that employs some 200 people in 14 European countries. “With dcinex, we will become one single entity while optimizing our different strengths and local footprints.”

The Exhibitor Services division continues to encompass equipment supply and installation, virtual-print-fee financing, network operations center support and maintenance services. On the Content side, dcinex will focus on offering the full range of post-production and mastering services for distributors and content owners, as well as pan-European physical and electronic delivery and digital rights management.

Colorful Tech for Cannes Selections
Technicolor announced that 11 films in the Official Selection of the 65th Festival de Cannes—from opening night’s Moonrise Kingdom to Dario Argento’s Dracula at midnight—benefitted from the company’s “legendary visual and audio know-how.” The Technicolor teams in North America (Hollywood, Montreal, New York, Toronto) and Europe (Boulogne-Billancourt, France and Rome) supplied creative services in post-production, visual effects, animation, digital cinema distribution and content coding and formatting for transmission. “While Cannes has always been a central event,” Technicolor noted, “this year’s festival is especially important in light of the company’s recent launch of digital post-production and dubbing services in France.” (www.technicolor.com)

Speaking of color, the folks at digital workflow tools provider Assimilate were able to congratulate eight facilities in as many countries on “their high-quality post-production” of 14 feature and short films shown in various sections at Cannes. “Assimilate and its Scratch product line have been at the epicenter of the global digital-cinema revolution from the very beginning, and the main catalyst for this revolution has been independent productions,” noted marketing VP Steve Bannerman. “We’re honored that so many of the entries accepted at this year’s festival were conformed, color-graded or finished in Scratch.” (www.assimilateinc.com)

Put Travel on Your EuroScreen
Support and promotion agency Film London received a €1.9 million (US$2.39 million) grant from the EU’s Regional Development Fund-financed interregional cooperation program for a new initiative “to capitalize on the major economic and cultural opportunities presented through screen tourism.” Adrian Wootton, Film London’s chief executive, has seen “visitor figures to some destinations in the capital soar after being used as a filming location on big-budget movies.” EuroScreen, as the 2012-14 project between nine organizations from eight countries has been named, “will enable us to take this knowledge and experience to the next level. Working with our partners across Europe, we aim to develop feasible business strategies and bring together the production and tourism industries to the benefit of our cities.”

Take a Filmtrip
During the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the U.K. Trade & Investment Government Department presented the official launch of Sensum, “an emotional response entertainment platform that enables both your conscious and emotional choices to personalize any entertainment experience." To measure and facilitate this, the team of Filmtrip Ltd, the Belfast, Ireland-based boutique production company behind the idea, hooked up attending guests. After answering a series of questions about the content they were about to see, smart-phone connected wrist and finger sensors monitored and recorded their physical reactions, such as heart rate and skin response, as the various elements unfolded on the video screen.

At the end of each presentation, the plugged-in individuals were able to review their responses on the phones, as the entire group’s data had been collected anonymously and automatically condensed for instant recall. (Your ever-faithfully reporting guinea pig scored an emotional index of 88 of a possible 100 when watching the original theatrical trailer for Raging Bull.)
In addition to reviewing the science, philosophy and technology of how plugged-in we already are, company founder Gawain Morrison made a compelling case for how these statistics would be useful for audience testing and marketing purposes—of commercials, trailers, movie scenes and endings. With Sensum, he opined, an audience’s reaction can also be used to reshape the content. Provided with various options in the unfolding narrative, Sensum-measured peaks and lows could actually control the ultimate direction that the content is going in.

“Whether it’s live, on demand, second-device TV or interactive cinema,” Gawain said, “Sensum brings you closer to your favorite forms of digital entertainment. You plug your sensor into your phone, open the app and you’re good to go; your emotions become part of the story, wherever you go.”

For more interactivity at the cinema—setting aside that sharing the experience is the best interactivity of all—check out our recent report on the pre-show.

Journey to Indigenous Cinema
While still some eight months away, the first major focus of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival has been set (www.berlinale.de). Under the heading of NATIVE, a curated line-up with “milestones of indigenous filmmaking” and current titles will be shown at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele alongside panel discussions and other events. “We wish to reveal the significance of indigenous film for cinematic art and, above all, for indigenous peoples,” noted festival director Dieter Kosslick.

E-mail news and comments for Andreas Fuchs to kevin.lally@filmjournal.com.