29/10/2002

The atmosphere behind the scenes was one of anxiety and alarm. The issue under examination by the participants at the 12th Beaune Meetings was the financing of French films, and the tone of the discussion was very different to that of a year ago.
Despite all this, David Kessler, the director general of the CNC reassured the audience when he said that “Everything is going well in terms of the macro-economy, number of films and budgets.”
The number of films produced in France has increased over the last decade, from 146 features of 1991 to this year’s, 204, with a corresponding increase in funding: Euros 749 million in 2001.
This upward trend conceals anxieties that came to the fore during the summer of 2002 when the issue in everyone’s minds was the uncertainty about the future of Canal+. This TV channel is French cinema’s main source of funding. The imbalance grows in direct proportion to the exponential growth of major productions. Small films only manage to survive amidst huge difficulties but the main victims of the current climate of uncertaintly are the medium-sized productions which have seen their sources of funding dry up. This serious situation is only made worse by a knock-on effect where the problems encountered by one operator have negative consequences on the rest of the film industry.

The French minister for culture and communications, Jean-Jacques Aillagon tried to come up with different solutions to this state of affairs. He announced he was setting up a commission to investigate the entire funding issue, that will report back in January 2003. Aillagon said that the aim was to maintain current levels of French film industry funding by sourcing television channels but also to diversify and find other sources.
The instruments that it is hoped will achieve this goal and which were discussed at Beaune are promising but limited. There is an awful lot of work to be done to encourage European co-productions; this includes simplifying deals and developing more contact between producers, increasing support funds and ensuring fast-track access to TV airing of films. Good news was forthcoming from the regional finance sector: the support fund for the film and audiovisual industries will be Euros 10million richer in 2003 in the Ile-de-France region (near Paris). However, the permanent extension of this type of financing is unlikely to become reality due to the huge disparities that exist between one region and another. Also uncertainty about the future of a proposed law governing the decentralisation issue only exacerbated anxieties.
The issue of a redefinition of fiscal instruments failed to trigger a wider discussion amongst the participants although the advent of the EIB (European investment bank) in the French film and audiovisual industry last December was welcomed. The EIB, in collaboration with Coficiné and Cofiloisirs extends loans that reflect market reality for film projects with a good chance of success (ie TV presales, a minimum guaranteed by film distributors)