09/10/2003

The star of To Be and To Have, the documentary made by Nicolas Philibert, the teacher Georges Lopez is taking legal action against the directors and the co-producer of the film. He considers that the film hasn’t considered his right to the images and the teacher is claiming €250,000 in compensation. This news has created turmoil in the world of French documentary cinema.

To Be and To Have was premiered in Cannes and distributed in French cinemas in August 2002 by Les Films du Losange. The documentary has had extraordinary success, registering an audience of more than 1.7 million. It was awarded the prestigious Louis-Delluc Prize in December 2002, and the film has taken €2.6 million in Germany, Austria, Britain, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Quebec, and was seen by a total of 436,000 people, putting it in 7th place of the most sold French films in the world in September 2002.

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The film’s success is certainly the basis for Georges Lopez’s decision. He stated in an interview that the production hadn’t given him due recompense, even though he was sharing his everyday work with the film. In addition, he added that “I’ve spent whole days answering questions from audiences, doing interviews, I travelled abroad to the point that I was warmly thanked for my efforts". All the co-producers of the film have also been cited in the legal action: Gilles Sandoz’s Maïa Films, with the partners Les films d'Ici, Arte France Cinéma and StudioCanal, as well as the distributors of the Video and DVD of the film: France Télévisions Distribution, France 2, Canal+ and the weekly publication, Télérama.
The whole issue has concerned documentary makers, who are asking themselves if the success of To Be and To Have may not have ended up introducing a commercial element into this arena, which may end up creating many repercussions for their future work and have particular ramifications for author’s rights and the rights of images.

(Translated from French)