01/10/2013 - As the collective convention for production comes into play today, directors address the French President

In an open letter addressed yesterday to the President, François Hollande, more than 100 French filmmakers, including Abdellatif Kechiche (photo), Laurent Cantet, Jacques Audiard, Xavier Beauvois, Guillaume Canet, Arnaud Desplechin, Bruno Dumont, Pascale Ferran, Robert Guédiguian, Mia Hansen-Love, Christophe Honoré, Agnès Jaoui, Cédric Klapisch, Michel Ocelot, François Ozon and Céline Sciamma, have asked the President to suspend the order of extension of the collective convention for cinematographic production of January 19, 2012, which is applicable from today and has been poisoning the atmosphere of the French cinema industry from over a year (read the article and the news).

Emphasizing that the State Council has already temporarily suspended the application of the convention for films whose budgets are bellow 2.5 M€ and expressed a first negative opinion concerning the representation of only one employer’s signatory syndicate (the API which includes Gaumont, Pathé, UGC and MK2 only produced around 1% of films of French initiative), the filmmakers consider the convention “profoundly unsuitable to the majority of our cinematographic production”. Without denying the importance of revalorizing the work of technicians, they believe that the constraints imposed by the convention go against the “necessary flexibility for the creation of films”: forbidding weekly packages, individual counting of work hours and very important mark-ups for the hours of filming preparation, night time and overtime. 

"These increases will lead to considerable additional costs (from 10 to 20% of the budgets) to the extent that a significant number of author films might not get over it. We are here talking about films with small or medium budgets, which, especially on television, hardly find their place, but are the films that proudly promote French cinema abroad and in the big international festivals. It is also about films with tiny budgets, often first or second films, which guaranty the emergence of new talent.”

"French cinema deserves more than this bad negotiation”, conclude the signatories of the open letter who demand the reopening of the discussions, “the rewriting of a good collective convention” and for the President to consider the fact that “the historical balance between the artistic and industry parts of our cinema could be disrupted for ever."

The list of the first signatories:

Siegrid Alnoy, Yves Angelo, Solveig Anspach, Mathieu Amalric, Yvan Attal, Jacques Audiard, Xavier Beauvois, Lucas Belvaux, Mehdi Ben Attia, Olivier Babinet, Djamel Bensalah, Claude Berne, Diane Bertrand, Julie Bertuccelli, Serge Bozon, Guillaume Brac, Jacques Bral, Patrick Braoudé, Catherine Breillat, Stéphane Brizé, Guillaume Canet, Laurent Cantet, Marilyne Canto, Catherine Castel, Laurent Chevalier, Malik Chibane, Hélier Cisterne, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Samuel Collardey, Catherine Corsini, Dominique Crèvecoeur, Emmanuelle Cuau, Isabelle Czajka, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Stéphane Demoustier, Dante Desarthe, Arnaud Desplechin, Antoine Desrosières, Rachid Djaidani, Lola Doillon, François Dupeyron, Bruno Dumont, Philippe Faucon, Léa Fazer, Léa Fehner, Pascale Ferran, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa, René Féret, Hélène Fillières, Emmanuel Finkiel, Marc Fitoussi, Tony Gatlif, Denis Gheerbrant, Thomas Gilou, Delphine Gleize, Fabienne Godet, Yann Gonzales, Robert Guédiguian, Eugène Green, Mia Hansen-Love, Mickael Hers, Tran Han Hung, Christophe Honoré, Raphaël Jacoulot, Agnès Jaoui, Sam Karmann, Abdellatif Kechiche, Liliane de Kermadec, Cédric Klapisch, Héléna Klotz, Nicolas Klotz et Elisabeth Perceval, Gérard Krawczyk, Arnaud et Jean-Marie Larrieu, Eric Lartigau, Michel Leclerc, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Anne Le Ny, Serge le Péron, Sophie Letourneur, Katia Lewkowicz, Sébastien Lifshitz, Jean-Pierre Limosin, Philippe Lioret, Julie Lopes Curval, , Frédéric Louf, Haroun Mahamat Saleh, Jean Marboeuf, Gilles Marchand, Tonie Marshall, Agnès Merlet, Nadir Moknèche, Xabi Molia, Dominik Moll, Gérard Mordillat, Emmanuel Mouret, Anna Novion, Claude Nuridsany, Michel Ocelot, François Ozon, Arnaud des Pallières, Nicolas Philibert, Thierry de Peretti,Laurent Perreau, Pierre Pinaud, Martin Provost, Katell Quillévéré, Alain Raoust, Magaly Richard-Serrano, Bruno Rolland, Axelle Ropert, Brigitte Rouan, Jacques Rozier, Christophe Ruggia, Pierre Salvadori, Julien Samani, Céline Sciamma, Julien Seri, Coline Serreau, Charlotte Silvera, Claire Simon, Juan Solanas, Jean-François Stévenin, Brigitte Sy, CarineTardieu, Pascal Thomas, Christopher Thompson, Danièle Thompson, Justine Triet, Cyprien Vial, Virgil Vernier, Marion Vernoux, Elie Wajeman, Alice Winocour, Xiaoling Zhu, Rebecca Zlotowski, Erick Zonca.