The Göteborg Film Festival’s 6th Nostradamus Report – ”Relevance in a New Reality” is here! The annual report looks into the future of the screen industries 3-5 years from now through research and interviews with industry experts.

This year’s report, ”Relevance in a New Reality”, discusses the uncertain future of public funding, major movements on the streaming market, the role of cinema in the new value chain, potential paths forward for VR, and the need for a rebooted industry conversation around tech and shared challenges.

Johanna Koljonen, author of the report, said:
”We’ve talked about ’structural change’ for a while now. In the next three to five years, a sector where we will see what the new structures look like in practice is the streaming market. It will be dominated by a handful of tech companies and consolidated majors and how this affects smaller languages and local players is not certain. The big players keeping their content exclusive to themselves might create new opportunities for others. But the question everyone will have to find answers to is how do you compete when there is always competition that can outrun you, outspend you, and produces content of a very high quality? Only with relevance.”

”Unprompted, all of the interviewees in this year’s report raised questions of meaning, values, purpose or sustainability. We’re moving towards a time when public funding is more important than ever, but also likely to decrease. The European industry will need to find ways to prioritise, and get better at communicating to lawmakers and citizens why what we do is vital.” says Johanna Koljonen, author of the Nostradamus Report.gote

This year’s interview subjects were: Efe Cakarel/ Founder and CEO MUBI, Thomas Gammeltoft/ CEO Copenhagen Film Fund, Ani Korpela/ Director and Head of Content and Application Business Elisa, Ben Luxford/ Head of Audience BFI, Glenn O’Farrell/ CEO GroupeMédia TFO, Liz Rosenthal/ Programmer Venice VR and Founder of Power to the Pixel, Sten Saluveer/ Founder and CEO Storytek, Åsa Sjöberg/ Director of Content Bonnier Broadcasting, Maria Tanjala/ Co-Founder Big Couch and Film Chain.

The presentation of the 6th report at Göteborg Film Festival February 1 was followed by a discussion with Tomas Eskilsson, Head of Strategy, Film i Väst; Maria Tanjala, Co-Founder, Big Couch and Film Chain; and Glenn O’Farrell, CEO, GroupeMédia TFO.

The Nostradamus Project is run by Göteborg Film Festival and aims to sketch out the future of the screen industries 3-5 years from now, through interviews with industry experts and research. The annual report is written by Johanna Koljonen. Editorial board: Cia Edström, Åsa Garnert, Johanna Koljonen, Josef Kullengård.

How are the screen industries changing in the next 3-5 years?

The screen media are changing fast. With production, distribution and consumption almost entirely digital, business models, audience behaviour and funding systems are in flux. New opportunities arise and old ways of thinking fall by the wayside, while the purpose of film remains the same. Regardless of format and platform, it is still all about moving the audience: sharing, entertaining, challenging, moving, uplifting.

The Nostradamus Project has as its mission to document and predict these changes on a 3-5 year horizon, and to present analysis in a manner that is equally comprehensible to producers and policymakers, stars and students. We do this through interviews with change-makers and people in strategic positions in the industry about what they are doing and creating today. Context is provided by the excellent research and journalism that is publicly available, but which you may be too busy to close read.

We have published five annual Nostradamus reports, on topics ranging from audience expectations to ad-blocking, from distribution to diversity, and from holdback windows to VR. The reports are free to download here; because of the scope, at least the last two tend to be up-to-date.

In addition, we organise international seminars in Göteborg during the Nordic Film Market and in Cannes at the Marché du Film, and with a more Nordic focus during Audiovisual Days. Nostradamus Project analysis has also been presented at film markets from Berlin to Rio, to film funds, and at meetings of for instance the EFADs Think Tank and the EFARN.

The 6th annual Nostradamus report will be released on Feb 1, 2019.

Project presented by

Contact information

Cia Edström, Head of Nordic Film Market and Nostradamus, cia.edstrom@goteborgfilmfestival.se

Johanna Koljonen, Nostradamus editor, johanna.koljonen@participation.design

General Information: industry@goteborgfilmfestival.se