MPAA remedy for declining European biz.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is releasing a report this month proposing ways to revive Europe's flagging film industry. The report is being drawn up by the MPAA's Brussels office, in response to European Commission threats to tighten protection of Europe's film industry. The MPAA's suggestions are likely to include tax breaks for European film-makers.

The European Commission, taken over by France last month, is expected to place protectionism back on its agenda, possibly tightening rules protecting home-produced entertainment products. Protective measures hope to address the radical decline in European audiences for locally made films. Audiences for American films have held strong, however, making most Europeans afraid of the increased threat to the survival of Europe's film industry.

This is the latest of many attempts by the MPAA to get the Europeans back on their feet. The first try backfired on the MPAA when its president Jack Valenti couldn't leave the audiovisual industry out of the GATT agreement, thereby allowing France and other countries to continue with quotas and subsidies. While in Monte Carlo last year, Valenti back-tracked on the GATT tug-of-war by declaring "we are a guest in Europe. We'll live by their rules." Last summer, the MPAA again tried to wake the Europeans out of their stupor with statements like "Throw up barriers? We'll jump them. Protectionism is not the answer. If you want a Marshall Plan for the audiovisual industry, then present us with a plan and its cost breakdown." This statement was quickly retracted by the MPAA despite its wide circulation.

In another attempt to calm the waters, the MPAA recently came out with a plan which was originally meant as an internal memo. Reportedly, since the document's existence was intercepted by the French secret service, the MPAA attempted to turn it into a friendly advice paper on various remedies for the European audiovisual industry.

The document is the MPAA answer to the "television without frontiers" directives and the "audio-visual policy." The former is the European Union's media policy document, and the latter is a set of green papers on strategic options to strengthen the European program industry. "Television without frontiers" requires that all European television channels devote, whenever possible, a large number of broadcast hours to European programs.

The MPAA document, however, took a curious twist after first being reported in The Economist. Valenti first claimed not to be aware of the report which is to come out from the MPAA Brussells' office. Finally, Valenti said that an economic firm in Europe was studying how quotas on entertainment work.

It's "not a report" he said, "but we have been meeting for almost a year. We've talked about training programs at universities, we've talked about dubbing European films for the U.S. market to try to get more audiences for their films.

"Our goal is to try to elevate the energy and the prosperity of the local [European] industry, "Valenti explained. "Wherever there is a strong native film industry, there are more people going to the cinema. And if box office goes up, we'll get our just share. We're not in this for altruistic reasons.

"We believe that there's a strong native industry for television. There will be more people watching television, there will be more people buying tickets at the box office."

On protectionism Valenti said that "it's the worst thing in the world you can do. Obviously there has been protectionism in Europe for many years."

"There's only one way to succeed in this business and that's to have an open, competitive marketplace, because our business is very simple. And this is true all over the world. If you make movies that a lot of people want to see, you will do very well."