Report from the Headquarters for Intellectual Property/Cinema Promotion Conference

　Headquarters for Intellectual Property/Cinema Promotion Conference The results of this conference fall under three columns.

1　Production Support/Financing

　As support for the production work of both creators and production companies, including mid to small scale businesses, it was decided to utilize the CoolJapan organization and others to supply risk money.  The CoolJapan Personnel Development Research Committee was established, and a strategy decided on. I'll be participating in this conference.

2　Overseas Development

　Centering on China, it was recommended that support be provided for advancing into Asian markets and putting greater focus on the animation sector. Other measures brought up included handling regulation in overseas markets, negotiating to encourage collaborative international production, gathering funding for overseas development of production companies, etc.

3　Location Support

　The creation of a manual that involves the relevant regulation authorities such as police or fire departments in order to streamline the process of applying for authorizations from the perspective of road use and fire services was requested. A Public-Private Liaison Committee Regarding Environmental Improvement for On-Location Shoots was established, and signed on to the decisions regarding the manual, etc.

　In my position as chair, I worried that argument would break out over specific genres of film wanting auxiliary funding. However, the discussion focused on establishing infrastructure systems and tasks which ought to be undertaken by the government such as negotiating with overseas elements.

　The committee ended up having a challenging meeting on these three points:

1) A comprehensive content policy has been debated at intellectual property headquarters for over a decade, but this is the first time a strategy has been thought of by shining a light on movies as general expression.

2) That the entire cast of the Japanese film industry was assembled.

3) This was an period of time where the environment surrounding movies underwent a lot of changes due to the industry's shift towards internet and smartphones and aggressive moves from overseas.

　In the midst of all of this, we were able to put together an important strategy. Further meetings will take place on personnel development and attracting interest in shooting on-location, sparking further discussion, but even taking those points into account, the government wants to move forward with implementation.