The Delicate Balance Between Money and Art
By Leonardo Mecchi

"You can't have art without money and you can't make money without art". This inevitable dichotomy of filmmaking was the main issue addressed by film producer Iain Smith to a full room of young producers and filmmakers in the panel "Calculating Risks and Taking Chances", which took place as part of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Known for being able to work both on big-studio projects (such as Seven Years In Tibet and Alexander) and more personal projects (as his last two works: Children Of Men by Alfonso Cuarón, and The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky), Smith affirmed that the key to success as an independent producer is to balance both the director's and the studios' confidence. "Usually the studios want to work with talented directors, as was the case of Universal Pictures and Alfonso Cuarón, but they are afraid of what they might do. That's when they look for someone who can say to them 'don't worry, everything will be fine'", said Smith.

During a film's production, Smith states, the crew tends to be divided between those worried about money and those worried about art. "What I try to do is to make one side try to understand and appreciate the other. I need to make them understand why this extremely complicated shot the director wants to do is important to the film."

About the differences in producing for American and European companies, Smith says that "there are differences in approach but more and more filmmaking at its heart is very much the same in whichever color you make it. But obviously American productions historically had more money, more facilities. European productions have to prove their existence more. Money usually is the more important thing in the American system and art is the more important thing in the European system."

Currently, besides being a producer, Iain Smith is also a board member of the UK Film Council. In that way, talking about public policies on national cinemas, Mr. Smith thinks that subsidy is a dangerous thing. "What governments have to do is to incentivize the capital, the money that is already there, to flow toward film. The best kind of money is money that needs a good film. Money from tax shelter policies (where an enterprise can invest in film production instead of paying taxes to the government) can be a dangerous thing, because in that way films get made for the wrong reasons".

At the end of the interview, I gave him a trick challenge: would he accept to produce a Brazilian film, where the average budget for a feature is about one million dollars (sometimes, they get made for as low as 300,000 dollars)? To that, Mr. Smith answered: "It's a challenge. Maybe the answer to that is no, but you never know, as I'm always open to it. I don't make big films; I just make hopefully good films. Sometimes small ones."

Leonardo Mecchi

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