Sao Paulo’s Spcine Bows $22 million fund

Fully-launched, Spcine, a new and exciting Sao Paulo film-TV-vidgame fund, will make its international market bow Friday, as it looks to invest up to R$ 65 million ($22.3 million) over 2015.

Spcine’s roadmap takes in film, TV and game development, production and distribution, firing up the Sao Paulo Film Commission, growing Sao Paulo’s alternative screen park, and fostering innovation, audience development and training programs.

Last includes LEIA, a 7,000 square meter (75, 350 square-foot) high-tech film lab-come-talent hub for animation, games, digital content and production start-ups.

Spcine president Alfredo Manevy will make a formal presentation at today’s Rio Content Market, a platform for Brazil’s most international-leaning TV companies.

Though open to further development, some initial major guidelines are now set. An equity investment fund, Spcine will announce its first film production investments, worth a total R$20 million ($6.9 million) around the second week of March, said Rodrigo Guimarães, Spcine executive manager.

R$7 million ($2.4 million) is set aside for art films, R$6 million ($2.1 million) for commercial projects. Equity investment will be around R$400,000 ($137,160) – R$700,000 ($240,650) for art pics, R$1 million ($343,790) for mainstream movies, For every 1% invested, Spcine will take a 0.8% equity investment in a project. Commercial projects are defined by minimum screen and P & A commitments in films’ Brazilian distribution contracts, Guimarães added.

In distribution, where Spcine will take a distributor’s fee, it has earmarked R$3 million (art pics, $1.0 million) and $4 million ($1.4 million, commercial movies) for films’ P & A, he added. Tapping into a R$ 10 million ($3.4 million) budget, first TV series production funding recipients will be announced in May. Game development-production funding will be put together second semester, Guimarães said.

Sao Paolo already runs a Film Commission. Per Guimarães, Spcine aims for its to function quicker – providing rapid shoot licenses, for example – and to promote Sao Paulo’s vast range of services and locations: “Beaches, forests… the only thing we don’t have is snow,” Guimarães said.

Spcine will also back continuous training – Pronatec Audiovisual and CoLab programs for technicians – and events: NinJin and SP Bits, both gaming meets; BR Lab for film project development; international co-pro forum Film Cup.

Per Guimarães, Leia will see a call for public investors by around year-end, with ground broken first semester 2016. Spcine will install digital projectors in 82 culture centers in Sao Paulo.

The City of Sao Paulo (R$25 million: $8.6 million), the state of Sao Paulo ($8.6 million) and federal film-TV agency Ancine (R$15 million: $5.2 million), in a partnership investment, all back Spcine.

Its launch catches Sao Paulo – and Brazil’s film-TV industries at large – on a roll. Creative industries’ GDP near doubled from R$25.9 billion ($8.9 billion) in 2004 to R$43.9 billion ($15.1 billion) in 2013, accounting for 2.6% of Brazil’s total economy, per Spcine stats. Over 2009-18, Spcine estimates compound annual growth rates for TV publicity at 9.1%, cinema at 7.4%, and cable TV subscriptions at 7.2%. An average annual $66.2 million over 2009-13, incentives from the federal Audiovisual Sectorial Fund, Brazil’s central film-TV incentive source, rose to $363 million, Dec. 2013 to Dec. 2014.

But the sectors still face large challenges, and large opportunities. Most Brazilian art films – and most are made out of Sao Paulo – see scant distribution.

Sao Paulo cable channels, 72% of all those in Brazil, are required by law to plough some $180 million a year into Brazilian TV content, per Spcine estimates. To turn a profit, however, this content has to be exported outside Brazil.

With 44.0 million inhabitants, on a par with Spain, Sao Paulo has 82.5% of Brazil’s equipment rental companies. Yet it is hardly known as a billion dollar international shoot locale.

Brazil is beginning to see crossover international success in movies: Produced by Sao Paulo-based Gullane Filmes, “The Second Mother” won at 2015’s Sundance and Berlin. The Match Factory has sold it to much of the world. Yet Brazil’s film industry needs to scale up to impact more insistently abroad. Spcine could co-invest with RioFilme, its counterpart, if a film is produced out of both cities. That is a tantalizing prospect for an industry that is still a work in progress.

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