A truce in the Catalan cinema war

The Catalan government is no longer at war with Hollywood. The evidence lies in the fact that today, Harry Potter will be speaking Catalan. The newly installed occupants of the Catalan regional government have managed to smooth over a war that had been sparked by the Catalan Cinema Law, and has broken the deadlock that has existed since the region's former administration faced off with the big distributors.

On paper, nothing has changed, with a law that was approved by parliament ? which demands that half of the dubbed or subtitled films released in Catalonia be in Catalan ? still waiting to be implemented. The North American industry, which is most affected by the measure, threatened to release its most popular films in English only. As a warning shot, Hollywood boycotted the Sitges Festival last year.

But the region's culture department, now led by Ferran Mascarell, who has been employing a bit of diplomacy and tackling suspicion, has managed to ease the situation. Both parties are now ready to talk once more. The objective will not be about deciding on a set number of copies that should be in Catalan, but rather managing to boost the number of tickets sold to cinema-goers who prefer to see films in that language.

The law envisages a period of seven years during which time the presence of Catalan on the screens will become commonplace. The change in attitude of both sides could not be more high-profile: today, 17 copies of the final film in the Harry Potter series will be released in Catalan.

After the approval of the Catalan Cinema Law, in June 2010, the majors left little doubt about their opposition to having to dub half of the films they released into Catalan. Failure to do so would result in hefty fines. The majors made clear that if things didn't change, they would be releasing their biggest movies in English, with no dubbing nor subtitles.

"The Cinema Law meant the rules of the game were changed, given that before just two or three films were dubbed into Catalan every year," says Luis Hernández de Carlos, head of Fedicine, the association that groups together all of the majors.

"The problem has been focused on the big distributors, but it has also affected the theaters, dubbers, the audience, and even the politicians, because the whole issue has ended up coming to nothing. The situation was crazy, and made no sense," explains Hernández. "With the current government the situation has changed. There has been a compromise with the commitment of analyzing the pros and cons and finding a deal where there are no winners or losers."

The progress made will also affect the Sitges cinema festival, which will take place between October 6 and 16. Last year's edition was marked by the boycott by US distributors, in protest against the law. One of the few exceptions was Julia's Eyes, which opened the festival and was distributed by Universal.

Culture chief Ferran Mascarell hinted at what was to come on June 30, when he presented his departmental budgets to the parliament's Cultural Policy Committee. "A positive solution to the conflict created by the law is close," he said at the time. Now that the conflict has been resolved, those words make more sense.