26/09/2003

The budget for French cinema and audiovisual production is to be increased. The announcement was made yesterday by the French Culture Minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, during the presentation of the 2004 budget plans.

A sum of €531.8m will be made available to support cinema and audiovisual production for 2004, an increase of 4.8 %. The overall financing comes from contributions from the support fund (€475.7m) and the budget of the Culture Ministry , to the tune of €56.1m.
The money for the support fund comes from the tax on tickets (€107.17m for an estimated audience level of 185 million), the TV broadcasters (€326.49m) and the video releases (€40m). In 2004, cinema will benefit from funding worth €247.9m (+7.76%), while the audiovisual production sector will have €199.51m.
The Minister also used the opportunity to clarify priorities for the film industry. January 2004 will see the introduction of the production support funds from local associations (with a total budget of €10m, with €1 given by the State for every €2 invested by the associations). Following on from the advances on box office receipts there’ll be financing worth €21.2m and funding estimated at €11.35m in 2004 for the move of the Film Archive/Libraryto Bercy.
Finally the famous tax sweeteners will be introduced to encourage more film sets to be located on national territory: 20% of production and post-production costs would be reduced from taxes or refunded, up to a maximum ceiling of €500,000.

The objectives set for public television in the outline Budget also include an increase in investment and the scheduling of cultural and educational programmes on France 2 and France 3.

(Translated from French)