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"Tosca" Triumphs
in Venice - Case Study
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Screened off competition at the 58th Film Festival in Venice this year, Benoit Jacquot's ambitious film version of Puccini's timeless opera has received standing ovations by the public as well as rave reviews in the Italian papers.
Little did the audiences know, however, that the co-producers had all the more reason to celebrate, having finally received confirmation of British nationality from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport in London after a tortuous nine months of complex negotiations.
Set up originally in 2000 as a co-production between France's Euripide Film, Germany's Ingegral Film, Italy's Veradia Film and the UK's Axiom Films, "Tosca" was initially presented to the national authorities as an official co-production among France, Germany and Italy only in order to avoid the complications of having to apply for certification in the UK under the terms of the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-Production of 1992. Axiom Films' Douglas Cummins was, however, involved as an effective co-producer from the beginning and indeed played a significant role in raising some of the financing for the project.
When the DVD pre-sale which was to form one of the main sources of funding for "Tosca" suddenly fell through in Autumn 2000, however, the co-producers had to re-think their structure and, with the help of Carlo Dusi of Davenport Lyons, decided to re-structure the official set-up of their co-production in order to include the UK so as to access sale and leaseback monies which would effectively replace the loss of the DVD deal.
This set in motion a long period of correspondence and negotiations with the DCMS for Davenport Lyons and Axiom Films, as one of the main requirements for British nationality is that a co-producer should be shown to have been actively involved in the making of the relevant project from the outset. Having effectively demonstrated this to the DCMS through a rigorous information collation exercise, Carlo and Douglas then proceeded together to manage, with Baker Tilly's invaluable help, the intricacies of an audit of production costs involving four European countries, which took several weeks to perfect.
Last but not least, the DCMS last month queried France's role as the majority co-producer under the European Convention, which generally places a 30% maximum threshold for participation. At the last moment, Davenport Lyons and Axiom Films managed to re-structure the official co-production set-up once again by focussing instead on the Co-Production Agreement between the United Kingdom and France of 1975 and linking Italy and Germany to France through the relevant bi-lateral treaties.
At long last, the Certificate of British Nationality was consequently issued just as "Tosca" was receiving its fair share of the limelight in Venice, and the sale and leaseback transaction could be completed, thus releasing the share of budget required to settle all outstanding production invoices and finally close the balance on all co-producers' accounts. Carlo Dusi is now busy assisting Axiom Films as well as the Italian co-producer for "Tosca" in structuring their future productions, which everyone greatly hopes will not be as complex as this one!
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