Despite there being some exceptions to the continent’s anemic motion picture industry (without quite rising to the level of counter-examples to the massive theatre closings and weak productions), there is little evidence that digitizing the industry will help it overcome its structural problems completely. We must go beyond the general consensus of pity and lamentation to analyze the industry’s failings and their many causes, starting with the public’s expectations and behavior, and then relating these failings to larger political and economic dysfunctions that corrupt most countries and prevent the sustainable structuring of a cultural industry.