The new film law is intended to force international streaming services to invest part of their income in Swiss film funding. This will not help the domestic film industry.
For decades at the top of the all-time best list of Swiss films: “Die Schweizermacher” from 1978 – the picture shows a scene with Walo Lüönd.
If you believe the Swiss film industry and the Federal Office of Culture (BAK), the so-called “Lex Netflix” is about fairness. The local industry should be able to work with “equally long tables”, as Alain Berset put it. It is correct: Digitization has turned the industry upside down. The streaming providers not only dominate the market, they have also been making their own contributions for a long time. The Locarno Film Festival will be showing a Netflix production as the opening film for the first time in 2021.
The fact that the federal government now wants to rein in the streaming services has little to do with the change in the industry, but a lot to do with Europe. The EU is using rigorous quotas against the alleged cultural imperialists on the Internet. Since September 2020, streaming platforms have had to offer at least 30 percent European production. Individual countries also oblige foreign providers to pay subsidies for the domestic film industry.
The «Lex Netflix» copies this system. If the electorate accepts the film law, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Co. must also offer at least 30 percent films of European origin in Switzerland. In addition, the streaming services should contribute 4 percent of their sales generated in Switzerland to Swiss film and series productions.
This has little to do with fairness, but a lot to do with distortion of competition. Taxes and quotas are nothing new. So far, however, only local TV stations in Switzerland have been affected. However, the private Swiss regional broadcasters benefit from license fees amounting to CHF 80 million each year, with SRG the share being CHF 1.2 billion. Foreign streaming services cannot get hold of these pots.
It also remains a mystery what EU quotas are supposed to bring to Swiss film. Consumers decide for themselves when they want to watch which series and films. If they prefer to click on South Korean doctor series than German comedies, all attempts at cultural policy control will come to nothing.
It is obvious that the “Lex Netflix” is primarily intended to improve the acceptance of the Swiss film industry in Europe. After voting yes to the mass immigration initiative in 2014, Switzerland was kicked out of the European film network Media and the domestic industry lost access to the relevant funding. Since then, the local industry has been fighting to connect to Europe.
The hoped-for additional CHF 18 million per year will also have hardly any measurable impact on local filmmaking. In any case, a lot of money does not necessarily mean quality in this industry: The animated film “Max & Co.” from 2007 was the most expensive flop in Swiss film history with production costs of more than 30 million Swiss francs.
The Swiss film has less of a financing problem than an acceptance problem. Seven of the ten most successful Swiss films are more than ten years old. With 940,000 cinema admissions, Rolf Lyssy’s “Die Schweizermacher” has been at the top of the all-time list by far since 1978.
In the 1970s and 1980s, several Swiss feature films were nominated for an Oscar, twice it was enough for an award. Since Xavier Koller’s “Journey of Hope” in 1991, just three productions have made it onto the Academy’s shortlist. And this despite the fact that never before have so many films been produced in Switzerland as in the past twelve years – obviously without the audience.
Meanwhile, the Federal Office of Culture prefers to deal with diversity regulations. A study on “Equality in Swiss filmmaking” published in 2021 shows the way of thinking that prevails in the BAK. In it, the state cultural sponsors come to the conclusion that the film industry has some catching up to do in terms of gender distribution. Among other things, “awareness training for people in key positions in film projects” should now remedy the situation.
On May 15, Switzerland will vote on a law that does not benefit the public, does not help Swiss film, but paves the way for useless funding and quota bureaucracy.