Contacting the owner of a film’s screening rights is a problem every film society runs into sooner or later. If no one holds the rights, or the rights holder can’t be found to give permission, you can’t screen the film — so tracking them down is worth doing properly.
Who Holds the Rights
The people who own screening rights are usually the Australian distributor or the producer:
- If you have the DVD or Blu-ray case, the rights holder is generally the studio or production company named on the cover.
- If the production company is obscure, search the film’s title at classification.gov.au — the distribution company holding the Australian screening rights is listed as the applicant.
Other Sources
If you’re willing to spend around $250 a year, an IMDbPro subscription gives you access to the producer of a film and who distributes it in each country — IMDbPro offers a 30-day free trial if you want to test it first.
Once You’ve Found Them
Make contact directly — see our Australian Film Distributors list for contact details. They’ll send you an approval to screen the film, and from there you can start publicising it.