Results 2005 (1): Records to keep an eye on
At the press conference this morning to present French film production results for 2005, Véronique Cayla, the director general of the National Film Centre (CNC), emphasised the reasons to be cheerful about the industry’s dynamism, as well as the potentially disturbing 2005 results, with 240 financed features, of which 187 were of French Initiative Films (FIF) and 53 minority co-productions (see news).
In fact, financing for FIF (approximately €933m of a total €1.29bn) is progressing slower than the number of films made, and the cinema and TV market risks difficulties in absorbing production volume. The CNC also advocates stabilising production to better finance films and contemplating the re-orientation of early financial aid so that producers will be encouraged to invest in development and screenplay rewriting.
Cayla also noted the conspicuous divide in production, marked by an increase in very low budgets of less than €1m (41 FIF in 2005 as opposed to 20 in 2004) and very expensive films (39 FIF with a budget of over €7m took more than 60% of investment funds). According to the CNC, this tendency towards a bilateral industry will require great vigilance in order to avoid creating a precarious production environment and decreasing medium-sized budgets, which account for most of the successful French films abroad.
However, the news is better in the rest of Europe, with the spectacular recovery of co-productions, both majority (61 as compared with 37 in 2004) and minority (a record 53 in 2005, compared to 36 in 2005).
The European Convention on Film Production, which is applied to co-productions that bring together three European countries, brought positive results, with 39 films in 2005, as compared with 25 in 2004. Also of note is the rise in French investment in majority foreign productions (from €30.7m in 2004 to €79.6m in 2005), which contributed to compensating foreign investment in FIF (€96.3m).
Finally, Belgium was France’s main co-production partner in 2005, with 20 films (up from 10 in 2004) and ahead of Italy (12, as compared to 9 in 2004), Canada (10), Germany (6), the UK (5, compared to 13 in 2004) and Spain (4).
(Translated from French)
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