Do people invest in cinema?

Charso Press: According to the public relations of the Farabi Cinema Foundation, the ceremony of signing the memorandum of understanding “collective financing of cinematographic films” in cooperation with the Farabi Cinema Foundation, the Vice President for Science and Technology and the Karen Entrepreneurship Pioneers Group, at noon on Saturday, July 25, at the Abbas Kiarostami Memorial Hall of the Farabi Cinema Foundation and It was held in the presence of Seyed Mehdi Javadi, CEO of Farabi, Alireza Deliri, Special Assistant to the President’s Science and Technology Vice President, and Ali Omidi, CEO of Karen Entrepreneurship Pioneers Group.

The CEO of Farabi Cinema Foundation stated that one of our main concerns in cinema is the issue of financing, and said: The format of cinema productions, especially the productions that are supposed to be produced luxuriously, need detailed financing, which the existing resources of the country’s cinema cannot meet.

Continuing his speech, Javadi stated: Considering that the current cinema budget is mostly government and government budgets are also facing limitations in production, one of the missions of Farabi’s five-year development plan is the issue of economic development in the form of using modern financial tools. The starting point of one of the five-year plans announced by Farabi can be the signing of the collective financing memorandum, today the first step in this area was taken.

He added: In the recently started crowdfunding project, the project was successfully completed within less than 20 estimated funding limits. An issue that shows that financing has the capacity to attract public participation more than we estimate.

Emphasizing that crowdfunding is one of those tasks that we are at the beginning of and we have a long way to go before it comes to fruition, Javadi continued: financing in cinema, apart from being effective in the field of investment, Production and screening can also be effective, because since people are involved in the financing of that project, they will also be concerned about the screening of their products.

The CEO of Farabi Cinema Foundation emphasized: Therefore, we hope to see projects of this kind at this year’s Fajr Film Festival; Projects that are produced based on crowdfunding, this can be considered a good starting point in our cinema.

According to this report, in the continuation of this meeting, Alireza Deliri, the special assistant to the vice president for science and technology, said: In the last decade, the topic of startups has penetrated into various fields and provided the same field for domestic production. For this reason, one of the fields in which new technologies needed to penetrate and be present was the financial field, so in the past few years, we have developed the subject of financial technologies in addition to production and knowledge-based activities.

He continued: One of these areas that can facilitate the financial sector is crowdfunding, which has grown in the world. More importantly, crowdfunding collects petty cash and makes it available to producers. Previously, we were looking for a group to invest in the traditional way, but this model would increase their monitoring and taste, and in some places they might even put the brakes on the company, but in crowdfunding, small money is involved.

The special assistant to the vice president for science and technology stated: This investment model has been responsive and more than 50 projects have been financed so far. Although their initial number and figure was not high, but it has passed the test period, so that we have increased the total ceiling of projects to 75 billion tomans, which means that it is possible to invest up to this amount. I think that one of the sustainable and attractive ways of attracting capital is financing, which happens to be done without bureaucracy, which means that the long process is no longer carried out. In this model, in some cases, financing is done in one day. This topic can be a good facilitating field at least for the field of cinema and we hope to be able to expand this project. As the vice president of technology, we are ready to help in film discussions.

Also, Ali Omidi, the CEO of Karen Entrepreneurship Pioneers Group, in line with the definition of this memorandum, said: The issue of crowdfunding is an old debate in the culture of our country, but it has grown and developed in the last few years. This mechanism is legally formed in the stock exchange organization and its main purpose is defined as participation in various projects. This issue first started with knowledge-based companies and was financed from the people to meet their needs, and then the companies returned the expected profit to the people.

Umidi called the cinema industry an attractive industry and stated that we tried to move towards its financing with special sensitivities and vigilance. We are trying our best to create a good experience of people’s participation in cooperation with Farabi Cinema Foundation.

The CEO of Karen Entrepreneurs Group stated: So far, we have financed more than 50 billion tomans from people for various projects. In a movie project, this crowdfunding has been done in which 215 people have invested in it with an average of 18 million Tomans. We hope to make new projects public as soon as possible so that these projects can be implemented with crowdfunding.

Therefore, in the continuation of the report, in response to the journalists’ question about what will happen to people’s capital if a film is not allowed to be screened, Umidi stated: In every industry, some projects have high risk and some have less risk. We go for collections and designs that firstly have construction permits and secondly have less risk. Now we are in the first step and we want people not to suffer in these projects and to be able to taste the sweetness of investment.

He continued: In the crowdfunding plan in the field of cinema, we try not to let people’s capital enter before production, because we can inject capital into the project from the beginning of production to the release, and we will try to inject capital in the final stages, which is less risky for have investors.

Alireza Deliri, the special assistant of the vice president for science and technology, also stated in an explanation: the profit of all projects that have been financed is higher than the profit of banks and other markets, and the return period will be different, so these investment plans will definitely be attractive to the people. .

Seyyed Mehdi Javadi also stated in response to this question: Every product that is produced has a risk. One of the principles of financing is that institutions come and guarantee the principal of the capital and reduce the risk. In fact, the institutions that come as guarantors of the principal of the money guarantee the principal of the money and if the principal of the investor’s money is at risk. will not allow the investor to suffer losses and reduce the risk percentage to zero.

He continued: We are now signing a general memorandum to create a sustainable mechanism. Each project requires its own economic plans and must be considered and calculated separately. Now it is not possible to talk about a project in a certain way.

The CEO of Farabi Cinema Foundation added: Most of our attention in crowdfunding is focused on first-time films, because our view of first-time films is a new look, and we believe that the future of cinema is in the hands of first-time films and young people in the cinema field, and for this reason, these dear ones should be used as tools. Dominant financing and they seem to welcome this plan more than veterans, but all films will have the opportunity to use this financing model.

In the end, Javadi emphasized the necessity of culture building in the field of collective financing in cinema and stated: the traditional shell of cinema must change and this requires culture building. In other areas, these points may be clearer, but here it is necessary to provide more information to cinematographers and cinema audiences. Soon the Farabi Innovation Center will be put into operation, and this center can be the beginning of such activities.

According to this report, the memorandum of cooperation between the Farabi Foundation, the Vice President for Science and Technology, and the Karen Entrepreneurship Pioneers Company is the beginning of a rail for the use of people’s funds in the field of culture and art, which can play an important role in the cinema industry.

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