26-06-2020

A global initiative by TIFF for establishing geoblocking in online festivals

    The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has taken on a global initiative for the protection of films and festivals in the digital era, starting a plea for using geoblocking technology in online film festivals. The plea has already been signed by 18 big film festivals from all over the world.

    The outbreak of the coronavirus forced many festivals to move online. In the new situation that takes shape, following the rule of geoblocking is essential to the protection of the films, the filmmakers and the festivals.

    It is important that festivals organizing digital screenings should limit them in their country in order to protect the audiovisual ecosystem in a digital environment and not jeopardize the distribution of films in other countries and their screenings in festivals, movie theaters, national streaming platforms and TV channels.

    In this new environment, we call for concerted action between the festivals and the industry players.

    In the meantime, and in order not to further weaken the audiovisual sector, we undertake to:

    - Geo-block for the audience the online diffusion of national and international premieres

    - Loosen, as much as possible, our rules on international premieres for films that have been recently premiered online.

    The plea is signed by the following festivals:

    Amiens International Film festival

    Cinemania Film Festival

    Film Fest Gent

    Fipadoc International Documentary Festival

    Gijon IFF

    International Film Festival Mannheim Heidelberg

    Istanbul Film Festival

    Jerusalem Film Festival

    Luxembourg City Film Festival

    New Horizons IFF

    Noordelijk Film Festival

    Sarajevo Film Festival

    Seville European Film Festival

    Stockholm Int Film Festival

    Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

    Thessaloniki Film Festival

    Torino Film Festival

    Trieste Film Festival

    We call more festivals to sign the text, in order to secure the future of films, to support the filmmakers and to ensure the sustainability of the film industry.

    Find the plea and more information here:

    https://form.jotform.com/201551821474047

     

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