German distributors are planning to start talks with cinema owners about introducing more flexible programming and price structures.

The move comes amid distributor concern that exhibitor programming and pricing patterns are deterring potential cinema-goers from visiting local theatres. The distributors worry that the exhibitor's habit of increasing prices at the weekend is putting off people who do not have time to go cinemas during the week.

They also want exhibitors to open up weekend afternoon slots for adult orientated films like Minority Report or The Bourne Identity, which might be showing in their third or fourth week and would traditionally only have evening slots made available.

"We do not intend to dictate to the exhibitors how to programme their cinemas," stressed Johannes Klingsporn of the distributors association Verband der Filmverleiher (VdF).

"But each target group has only certain times when they can go to the cinema so there needs to be a flexibility in programming where the films can be seen at different times.

"In addition, there is a need for a flexible and simpler price structure to address these different needs. We see with great concern the big differences between the weekends and during the week and how this can have a negative effect on cinema-goers' choices."

The VdF's members are also calling for a re-think about the payment system adopted by exhibitors to pay the distributors' share of film rentals: initially, exhibitors had been expected to make the payments within eight days but this has since been extended to 28 days. "We have become bankers", said Christoph Ott of ottfilm, describing a situation where the distributors were in effect bailing out exhibitors in financial trouble.

In addition, the VdF has commissioned Pegasos Film's Ernst Szebedits to draft a working paper for an initiative to strengthen the arthouse market. At the recent Art of Distribution conference during the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, Szebedits, whose company releases such films as Sleeping Rough (Tussenland) and Ayurved, described Germany as "the worst arthouse market in Europe" and identified a "principal difference between Germany and the rest of Europe".

"We were really educated with American films. The building up of the cinema market was very closely connected with the Re-Education Program and so cinema for us is always entertainment", Szebedits explained. "In the 60s and 70s there was a countermovement with good repertory cinemas [Programmkinos]. But they then squandered their spiritual capital. They often don't have any kind of profile these days. They now scramble to get Harry Potter. But what is Harry Potter doing in a Programmkino'"