05/11/2025 - Le Touquet-Paris-Plage is hosting debates on transatlantic dialogue, independent cinema, artificial intelligence, Canal+’s strategy, platforms and broadcasting

An unmissable industry event for taking the sector’s pulse and identifying current and future issues, the 35th edition of the Film Meetings kicked off today, offering up three days of debates in Touquet-Paris-Plage, organised by the highly influential ARP – Civil Society of Authors-Directors-Producers. Presided over by filmmakers Valérie Donzelli (At Work [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valérie Donzelli
film profile]) and Boris Lojkine (Souleymane’s Story [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Boris Lojkine
film profile]), this year’s edition promises to be an intense event given the tumultuous state of the industry, which sees the 7th art grappling with multifactorial challenges, ranging from the struggle to return to pre-pandemic cinema audience sizes to complications in funding productions, not to mention the broader geopolitical and technological issues which are threatening to fundamentally alter the landscape. These many problems will be analysed in detail in order to better remedy them, with the same combative and resilient spirit always demonstrated by the ARP in the fight for cultural diversity.

Today, the Meetings’ focus has been on the question "Transatlantic dialogue: how should culture protect itself?", within the context of European regulations and policies coming under attack from the US administration (supported by certain digital platforms) vis-a-vis the cultural exception, the AVMSD and film funding mechanisms. The debate will be opened by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati and the CNC’s deputy CEO Olivier Henrard, further involving Kjersti Mo (managing director of the Norwegian Film Institute and vice-president of EFAD), European deputy Emma Rafowicz, Italy’s Francesco Ranieri Martinotti (chair of ANAC – the National Italian Association of Film Authors), US' Howard A Rodman (vice-president of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and academic Chloé Delaporte.

On Thursday 6 November, the topic "Independent cinema: which key factors for audience figures?" will be dissected by producers Priscilla Bertin (Silex Films), Isabelle Madelaine (Dharamsala) and their counterparts Bruno Nahon (Unité), Marc Missonnier (Moana Films and chair of the Union of Film Producers), Denis Pineau-Valencienne (Les Films du Kiosque), Marine Forde (director of film production at Gaumont), Manuel Alduy (director of film at France Télévisions) and Isabelle Terrel (managing director of Natixis Coficiné).

A debate entitled "Artificial intelligence: an opportunity for European cinema?", will then explore possible creative uses of this technology within the industry (notably involving head of film and media partnerships and generative AI at Google Johann Choron, creative director and head of AI at Google DeepMind Matthieu Lorrain, filmmaker Nicolas Saada, and co-director of La Fémis’ set design department Anne Seibel), alongside regulation and copyright (involving European deputies Axel Voss and David Cormand, and the CNC’s digital director Pauline Augrain, among other names).

Last but not least, Friday 7 November will play host to significant meetings, firstly involving Maxime Saada (chair of the board for Canal+) who will discuss the strategy adopted by French cinema’s leading partner, Canal+, and specifically its ambitions in the field of film exploitation, given its recent equity investment in UGC. Next, there’ll be an exchange on the subject of "Platforms, broadcasters and the authorities, the major issues impacting film creation?" (involving the European deputy and chair of the European Parliament’s Commission for Economic and Monetary Affairs Aurore Lalucq, Arte France chair Bruno Patino, the general manager of YouTube France and Southern Europe Justine Ryst and France Télévisions’ director of subsidiaries and programmes Stéphane Sitbon-Gomez) as well as an update on regulation, courtesy of Martin Ajdari (chair of Arcom).

Equally noteworthy on the agenda of the 35th Film Meetings are screenings of At Work by Valérie Donzelli, Case 137 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominik Moll
film profile] by Dominik Moll, L’Affaire Bojarski by Jean-Paul Salomé, The Girl in the Snow [+see also:
film review
interview: Louise Hémon
film profile] by Louise Hémon, Louise by Nicolas Keitel, and the documentaries Bardot, by the duo Elora Thévenet and Alain Berliner, and New Beginnings by Isabelle Ingold and Viviane Perelmuter.

(Translated from French)