17/06/2005

Vacant since the 2nd of June with the nomination of its previous head Catherine Colonna to Minister Delegate for European Affairs, the general direction for the National Film Centre the (CNC) may, according to the magazine Le Film Français, turn to Véronique Cayla, director general of the Cannes Film Festival since January 2001. What she has to offer: a long immersion in the world of cinema and audiovisual, as her CV testifies. Arriving in the Ministry of Culture in 1973, she first worked in Cultural Intervention Funds, then in the offices of Michel Guy (Secretary of Sate for Culture) and of Jean-Philippe Lecat (Minister of Culture from 1978 to 1981) where she was Cinema Advisor. Appointed in 1982 to the Vidéothèque in Paris, she became director general in 1989 before joining MK2 in 1992. Director general for six years, she was nominated on the 20th January 1999 as a member of Advisory Council for the Audiovisual (CSA) before taking the road to the Cannes Festival.

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Since the nomination for the head of CNC cannot be announced until Wednesday’s Council of Ministers, the suspense remains nonetheless, with some outsiders laying in wait, in particular Michel Boyon, head of office of the previous Prime Minister and former president of Radio-France. This choice is obviously of great interest to the section of the industry who hope to see a cinema specialist and a consensual personality taking over the reins of the CNC within the context of the battle between those for and those against the opening up of the CNC fund to producers from outside Europe.

(Translated from French)