22/12/2005

Confronted by the expected high cost of digital projection equipment, which is doubled as these materials may need to be replaced often with the predicted speed of technical change, not forgetting maintenance costs, Jean Labbé president of the FNCF (National Federation of French Cinemas) and Patrick Brouiller who heads the AFCAE (French Association of Arthouse and Experimental Cinemas) launched a cry of alarm – what will become of the diversity of the offer in an already competitive context? And the future of a certain number of distributors who could find themselves marginalised as simple "senders of tapes"? These concerns are shared by the filmmaker Claude Miller. "How certain films are distributed when only industrial concentration can install digital projection?" And on the Old Continent the experiment, started two years ago by the Europa Cinemas network which will provide funding to cinema theatres to equip them with 2K seems to clash with certain ten cinema theatres limits, as explained by Claude-Eric Poiroux who states that for the time being only about have 2K and funding from the European Investment Bank would be welcome. Moreover, the case of Utopolis Luxembourg which has three digital screens show the actual limits of distributors since only one European film was proposed for digital projection at this cinema as opposed to several American feature films.
So many messages well-received by Véronique Cayla who insisted on the fact that "local theatres, arthouse cinemas and multiplexes do not necessarily correspond to the same economic model". Digital projection will have an impact on the theatres, allowing them to keep their offer diverse". Words followed by actions when on 15 November, the CNC launched an expert study on the growth in digital projection. Its objective? To define the models of finance to equip theatres and the digitalisation of films, while advocating measures allowing theatres to retain their specificity and to improve the diversity of film offers in France. The next event will be in April 2006 with the preliminary conclusions of this study. The response in France to this digital revolution is that the European film industry must master and follow suit to avoid being submerged.