03/06/2005

Appointed yesterday as Minister for European Affairs, Catherine Colonna leaves her post as director general of the National Film Centre (CNC). The first woman to be given the job of heading up the public institution which looks after the interests of French cinema, she will only have spent nine full months at the CNC. Last September she replaced David Kessler who had held the reins of the National Film Centre since March 2001. A reminder, the two previous general directors were Jean-Pierre Hoss (1st July 1999 - March 2001) and Marc Tessier (1995-1999).

Someone with no previous experience of the cinema and the audiovisual sector, Catherine Colonna inherited notably at the CNC the thorny question of the French approval accorded to Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles by Jean-Pierre Jeunet which was subsequently called into question by the tribunals, a "casus belli" which violently divided the professional organisations within French cinema. Rather than getting involved in a fight, the director general of the CNC instead demanded that the Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres (reappointed to his post yesterday) get involved in the dossier, which slowed down the decision (currently being studied) to open, under certain conditions, the French funds to production companies outside Europe. Until the Minister of Culture proposes a new director general of the CNC to the President of the Republic, which could happen next week, current assistant director general Monique Barbaroux will take interim control of the institution.

(Translated from French)