03/09/2010

The French film industry is holding its course and showing high levels of production according to statistics for the first term of 2010 released by the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). 91 domestic features were produced in the first half of the year, compared to 81 films for the same period in 2009. This significant rise (+ 12.3%) has been accompanied by a drop in the number of big-budget films (none higher than €30m in the first semester 2010). This has resulted in a drop in investment of 7.2% to €471.04m, compared to the first six months of 2009 and trends are looking close to last year’s on the whole (marked by a net drop in investments, see article) since the average estimate comes in at €5.18m in the first semester of 2010 compared to €5.10m in 2009.

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The CNC has highlighted a better distribution of investment in favour of medium- budget films (€4-€7m), which has increased from 18 features to the first semester of 2009 to 28 in the same period of 2010, while big budget film production (estimates more than €10m) is falling (9.9% of film production in the first semester of 2010 compared to 17.3% in 2009). Finally, the number of production days for French titles (37 days on average) domestically is on the rise (2,450 days of shooting + 11.6%), whereas it is falling for productions shot abroad (893 days to – 6.7 %).

(Translated from French)