Cinema of Caputia

The Cinema of Caputia is a growing market, metonymously referred to as Blakestown, known quickly landing among the largest producers of single-language films in Micras, with more than 200 Common Tongue films released on average every year. A favorable tax system and relaxed regulatory system for films has led to the rise of studios and corporations that became national leading pioneers in motion picture engineering and technology.

The major film studios located in the cities of Judah and Zalae are the main sources of the most commercially successful and highest-grossing movies in Caputia, such as Lakeside, La Fin Absolue du Monde, Adrift, and Breaking Point".

History

Prior to the Declaration of Zalae, the Commonwealth of Hamland had a thriving local film industry, centered around the cities of New Kirrie and Judah. The first Hammish film studios were New Kirrie Films and Barrymore Productions, which later grew into the two film studio giants of the late Hammish Commonwealth cinema.

For decades, both New Kirrie Films and Barrymore Productions controlled a combined 88% of the Hammish film market. Both companies grew quickly as the two major motion picture studios in the country by producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract, and dominating exhibition through the ownership or effective control of distributors and exhibition. This helped guarantee additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques called block booking, where theater owners were forced to take large numbers of a studio's pictures sight unseen.

Under the National Provisional Authority, controls enacted over the creative output of the nation led to El Silencio, which was a series of national crack downs on the national media after the assassination of Donat Ravaillac. A series of laws and regulations were enacted by General Augustus Eliphas to crackdown on dissent, imposing draconian government media standards to censor film, radio, TV and newspapers across the country. The Hammish Civil War and the Alexandrian flu were national crises that the old Hammish film industry did not survive, which led with the forced nationalization of New Kirrie Films and Barrymore Productions at the height of the war.

The close of the Hammish Civil War and the foundation of Caputia led to the mass deregulation of Caputian media and the enactment of "cultural incentive laws" which offer subsidies to film, TV, theater, and music companies based in Caputia. The Caputian film market is incredibly competitive, boasting several important movie studios. Though there is no official law in place, the general policy of the Caputian Government has been to act against media consolidation, to ensure a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media is avoided.

Most Caputian film studios are based in the cities of Zalae and Judah, with Zalae taking the title as the capital of Caputian cinema. Generous government subsidies for reconstruction helped film studios purchase old warehouses and built massive film studios in the Zalae suburb of St. Cloud.

St. Cloud quickly developed, mainly due to Premium Micras Pictures, the largest film company in Caputia. Owned by the prominent Blakeslee family, the studio produced box office successes that are considered by many to be "defining to the current Caputian existence", among them the documentaries Trials and Trbulations and Extinction.

With the establishment of the Royal District of Zalae, St. Cloud was assigned to the state of Northpass during the delicate settling of the national internal borders. It incorporated itself into a city in 1653, and elected independent pro-movie business Mayor Michael Artone. As Mayor, Artone changed the name of the city to Blakestown.

The first film by a Blakestown studio, Meir Networks, was shot in 1653. The home of Benjamin Meir in Abeis was used as its set. It was a romantic film called The Lands We Met.

The development of the film industry in Judah follows a different trajectory than the development of Zalae. While most of Zalae's growth is from the establishment of favorable tax and subsidy programs, Judah has always been home to the Judah Film Festival. Held by the city's Academy of National Film, it started as a fundraising dinner to finance the prestigious school and its programs. Its winners usually go on to perform well in the Zalae Film Festival.

Studios and Persons of Prominence

Main Distributors

Minor Distributors

Backovic Productions

Foreign Distributors

Actors

Directors

Film Technology

Zalae Film Festival

Judah Film Festival

Film and Politics

Studios, actors and directors tend to have money from their large profits in the current state of the Caputian economy. They begin to "donate" to political campaigns to help "advance" the careers of bureaucrats/politicians that help them.
Many of them trend to be more politically-left in outlook, currently split in favor between the National Salvation Front and the left elements of the current largest party, the National Unity Party.

Foreign Distribution

Movie Posters

The film Lakeside was a blockbuster horror film directed by Caputian film director Hans Backovic.
La Fin Absolue du Monde, the latest horror film by Caputian film director Hans Backovic has been called "avant-garde", having formed a devout cult following across the world.
Adrift is a film inspired by the struggles endured by the people of the Old Oil Rig and their recent disaster that had many of their people adrift in the high seas of Micras until they found land.
Breaking Point is an adventure film based in Kasterburg, where an expedition into the Benacian Green faces arduous challenges to the survival of the explorers.
Goldspectre is about a Caputian secret agent that fights for Queen and country around the world.
Trial and Tribulations is a transcendentally honest and universally praised documentary by two respected Caputian journalists on the Hammish Civil War.
Extinction is a haunting documentary about the Alexandrian flu and its deadly rampage across all of Micras.
The Life of Queen Elizabeth I is a documentary about the life of Regina Ravaillac - better known as Queen Elizabeth I.