IT IS well known how much sweat and stress goes into the creation of a film, but it is less recognised how much of an endeavour it is to get the movie out from the production studio and into the theatres.

Marketing Manager of Four Star Films Aida Rizk knows all too well the challenges that distributors face, which include time-crunches, shipping complications, unconvinced theatre owners, and threats of piracy.

Four Star Films, based in Cyprus, the Middle East, and the Gulf, is the distributor of Universal Studios, Paramount, Warner Brothers and Dreamworks. It is the only distributor in Cyprus that deals directly with US studios, unlike the others that work through Greece.

Rizk said that blockbuster movies, like the upcoming King Kong and Pride and Prejudice are released on a single worldwide date, but the release dates for other movies often depends not on the studios but on the territories, which lead to certain piracy concerns.

“Piracy rates in Cyprus are very high because if the movie is not released close to the US release date, it leaks somehow, comes on DVD, and then others download it,” Rizk said, adding that it is not always possible to release close to the US release date because of the high costs involved.

For protection the screens are sent “in partial shipments, on different airlines, on different dates, under different names,” with many of the shipments going out late at night so that no one knows the shipment is taking place. The prints also often have to be hand-delivered by trusted people within the company.

Screenings and premieres bring other piracy concerns, since people often smuggle video cameras into the theatres and then surreptitiously film the movie from the back of the theatre, resulting in low quality – but nonetheless lucrative – copies.

Time pressures are another concern for distributors. A screening will have to be postponed if even one of the partial shipments get lost or tied up en route to the theatres. Rizk said that they have even had to go through official outlets in the past to make sure that some tied-up shipments went through.

“Every time we have a worldwide release we are really tense that we get the print on time,” Rizk said, describing how there was a strike once before the release of Troy and they only managed to get the prints to the theatres a mere hour before the show.

One of the final but critical challenges facing distributors involves persuading the exhibitor in the cinema that the movie is worth showing over others.

“Lately the theatres are getting very congested,” Rizk said. “Competition is very, very high. And sometimes the exhibitor says, ‘I don't want to show it'.

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