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The Motion Picture Association of America
announced a blanket prohibition on screeners:

An Attack on Independent Films
By Henry Sheehan

On Saturday, October 18, 2003, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) canceled its 2003 awards in protest against a policy of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). LAFCA will reinstate the awards if the policy is rescinded.

The MPAA is a business organization made up of the major Hollywood studios (minus DreamWorks). It lobbies the government for laws favorable to the film industry, maintains a film rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17), and enforces agreements the studios make among themselves.

The policy against which LAFCA protested has to do with "screeners." Screeners are, simply, DVD or video copies of films that are eligible for awards in a given year. These videos and DVDs are manufactured and delivered prior to the release of commercial video and DVD releases. Sometimes, the films themselves are still playing in the theaters when the screeners go out. They are sent to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscar voters) and to the members of critics' organizations.

Over the past ten years, the number of theatrically released films in the U.S. has grown 33%; the total number is well over 300.

A medium-budget studio film opens its first weekend on 2,000 screens. For a major, big-budget studio film the number of screens exceeds 3,000 and may exceed 5,000.

An independent film is released on perhaps only 15 screens in five major cities its first weekend. An untypical "big-budget" independent film may eventually make it on to as many as 500-800 screens. But if an independent film does not do very good business right away, it may never grow beyond 5-50 screens during its entire run.

Obviously, the studio films crowd out the independent films. This is not so much a problem for critics, although it can be. If one attends a film festival outside the U.S., for example, one can miss the release of one or two significant independent films. So it is nice to have a screener to fall back on. Also, when deciding which awards to give, it is nice to have the screeners to go back and examine even when one has already seen the film, especially for such categories as musical score and production design.

It is a bigger problem for Academy members (the Oscar group). This group of 3,700 people are either employed in the film industry or retired from it. They may not have the time or means to see so many films.

The existence of screeners has been a boon to independent films. Many more Academy members have not only seen independent films, but voted prizes for them. To give only one example, surely Hilary Swank won the Oscar for best actress for "Boys Don't Cry" thanks to screeners.

Last month, the MPAA suddenly announced a blanket prohibition on screeners. No member of the MPAA would be allowed to send any out to any voter of any organization (critics groups and the Academy). DreamWorks agreed to go along with the prohibition.

This is a crushing blow to independent films because, in fact, most independent films in the U.S. are now distributed by arms of the major studios: Miramax (Disney), Paramount Classics, Sony Classics, Fox Searchlight, Focus (Universal), UA Classics (MGM). One large company (Lions Gate) and several small ones are not members of the MPAA and so are not subject to the ban.

The reason the MPAA and its spokesman, Jack Valenti, gave for the ban was piracy. According to their argument, screeners were ending up in the hands of illicit manufacturers who were making pirated copies of the films.

The MPAA offered no proof for this claim. When challenged over the actual sources of piracy and what the screeners had to do with them, Valenti responded that even if "only one quarter of 1%" of piracy could be traced to screeners, it was worth prohibiting them. That was it as far as evidence goes.

Within Hollywood and the American film and critical community generally, the MPAA ban is considered a direct attack on the influence of independent films. The MPAA's claim of piracy is regarded as a mere excuse, and not even a faintly persuasive one.

The executives who run the independent arms of the studios have loudly protested the ban on screeners. Nearly every leading American director has signed a protest against the ban. Only the major studio executives, the MPAA and Valenti speak up for it. But they hold all the power.

Because of the protests, the MPAA has been negotiating to modify the ban. But it has been a slow process with little to show for it.

Since statements had been made, letters written, and petitions signed with no effect, LAFCA decided to act. If the MPAA was going to impose an atmosphere of discrimination on the awards process, then LAFCA's members could not in good conscience proceed in voting for awards.

It is not a question of Los Angeles film critics throwing a tantrum and saying "We want our screeners!" The point is that independent films should not be forced into a cinematic ghetto where they can be ignored artistically as well as commercially. It is clear what is going on. To say that screeners are the source of piracy is absurd; no doubt most piracy begins inside studio walls, in labs, in projection rooms, and wherever prints are digitized. This is a situation of corporate giants trying to extinguish all other life in their path.

Henry Sheehan
© FIPRESCI 2003

If you wish more of Henry Sheehan's explanation on the LAFCA action, it is on his website, henrysheehan.com. Access it directly at henrysheehan.com/newsreel/jkl/la-crix.html.

If you wish to read Henry Sheehan's highly polemical speculations of the actual source of piracy, you can access henrysheehan.com/newsreel/stuv/shanghai-studios.html (Note: "to Shanghai" means to kidnap, as 19th-century U.S. and U.K. ship companies would kidnap sailors to serve on such long voyages as those to Shanghai).

LAFCA's website is www.lafca.org

The LAFCA resolution:

October 18, 2003

Whereas, the members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association are committed in our annual awards process to a fair and unbiased evaluation of all films theatrically screened in Los Angeles during the year, whatever their budget or production source;

Whereas, the ban on screeners seriously inhibits our ability to work as professionals and compromises the integrity and fairness of the evaluative process;

Therefore, be it resolved that unless there is a timely rescinding of the ban on screeners, LAFCA, with great reluctance, is compelled to cancel this year's voting on awards.

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