25/10/2011

There was a western-style atmosphere, suspicion and score-settling last Saturday at the Dijon Film Meetings with the debate "Production/Distribution: a necessary transparency". Continuing on from Michel Gomez’s report delivered at the end of September to the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC) about the transparency of the film sector and the relationship between producers and their proxies, the discussion gave rise to heated exchanges.

Producer Marc-Antoine Robert (2.4.7 Films) pointed out that while movie theatres’ box-office takings were transparent, questions arose about distributors’ release print expenses (with very different costs for 35mm prints) and the entertainment expenses billed by sellers for major festivals.

Jean Labadie (Le Pacte) retorted that in 92% of cases, release print expenses were not recouped: "We lose nine times out of ten and we only gain from releases of foreign films to which we hold all the rights". Moreover, he added "nowadays, producers pre-finance their films by 90-100%, including their salaries, which isn’t the case for distributors who only have a salary if the films do well. And people always say it’s our fault when the films don’t do well! And when a film doesn’t do well in theatres, it doesn’t do well on video: 90% of French films sell only 3,000 DVDs each and on VOD, €40,000 is a very good result. Nowadays, all distribution companies have cash flow problems." Reminding those present that distributors are often the first ones to commit to pre-financing films and then there are the release print expenses which are never below €200,000, Labadie emphasised the decisive role of distributors in the diversity of French film production.

According to Victor Hadida (Metropolitan Filmexport and president of the National Federation of French Distributors), "the French market is very competitive between French distributors, even if it means paying huge MGs (Minimum Guarantees) and working for next to nothing. There has been major progress in transparency in recent years and even if there are still some dubious practices, the fantasy of backend rebates on prints will disappear with VPF. Moreover, France is a haven of virtue and audits are very common, including with foreign producers."

According to Emilie Georges (Memento Films International), "the stakes for exports are very similar to those of independent distribution. Exhibition at the risk of exporters has completely changed in ten years: it has become insane." Emphasising that the monitoring of the increase in takings proves that France is very transparent compared to many other countries, she also pointed out the fact that 100 out of 200 French films are sold internationally, but only about 40 on more than three territories. "The pressure on pre-financing has never been greater, while takings are dwindling on all media". Finally, on the issue of entertainment expenses for films at major festivals (between €12,000-€20,000 per film in total), Georges specified that the cost was broken down between different films and that the audits that have become widespread in the sector are not a source of conflict.

Gomez contributed to this lively debate by saying he believed that the risk today in the film sector was on the distribution side and that if there were some opaque areas in the relations between film publishing companies and producers, French professionals should have the maturity to sort out these issues in a current climate where they absolutely must stay united in the face of the threats hanging over the French film industry’s financing system (see news).

(Translated from French)