17/12/2003

The row sparked off this summer by the “Jeunet-2003 production affair” doesn’t seem to coming to a resolution. The film Un long dimanche de fiançailles is significantly funded by Warner, but with a production structure judged to be French. It was finally given authorisation from the National Film Centre (CNC) as a French feature length film, thus allowing it access to further grants form the support fund. The decision taken by David Kessler, the director general of the CNC, has disorientated all the professional organisations. And so, the Trade Union of Independent Producers (SPI) and the Association of Independent Producers (API) have filed an appeal, though the outcome of this action still isn’t known. In addition, the CNC has started a series of consultations to clarify the thorny question of access to grants from the support fund, currently forbidden to “non-European companies”, which leads to the temptation to cheat and get round the law. There are proposals being looked at to tackle this issue, though these haven’t been met with unanimous approval.

The CNC is considering opening up access to the support fund for non-European companies for the first time since 1992, on the following conditions: the shooting has to be in French: the European percentages have to be respected and at least 76 points out of 100 have to be French. “This means that almost all the production spending (on artists and shooting) is in France, and with a French contract. The production is obliged to have a European producer, as an associate or executive producer, who is based in France”. It’s worth noting something David Kessler always stresses, namely the example that before 1992, François Truffaut’s films were produced by the Americans and that the Support Fund is also currently open to American distributors.

But this row looks set to continue, because even if ARP (Authors-Directors-Producers) and the Trade Union of French film Exporters are in favour of the CNC proposals, SPI, API and BLIC (the office for cinematographic industrial relations) led by Marin Karmitz are firmly against the plans. BLIC has made a statement on the matter to the French daily paper “Le Figaro”: “The Americans would use our system to produce films that they could also make without this support. It’s worth adding that we totally reject these proposals, there is no mention at all about cultural diversity”.

(Translated from French)