27/09/2007

Unveiled yesterday by Minister of Culture Christine Albanel, the 2008 budget has allocated €528.5m (a rise of 4.54% from last year) to state cinema body, the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC).

The generous sum – comprising €280.8m for cinema and €247.7m for audiovisual works – is further supplemented by a tax on cinema tickets (10.72% per ticket), which is expected to generate a revenue of €119.9m based on estimates of 185m admissions for 2008.

A tax on television services (€135.8m, up 7.95% on last year) – which in 2007 took account of sponsorship revenue from television broadcasters after having integrated revenue from surtax calls and text messaging in 2006 – will next year be extended to revenue earned by distributors on television services, as well as those by Internet providers and telecom operators.

Lastly, the tax on the VOD sector represents €24.6m (+10.77%). These resources are further supplemented by the SOFICA tax incentive mechanisms (€65.7m in 2006 in cinema and audiovisual for investment in 2007) and tax credits (€50m for cinema and €40m for audiovisual).

In total, 2008 cinema tax credits are divided between €156.4m for automatic support (€71.5m for producers compared to €21.8m for distributors, €57m for exhibitors and €6m for video publishers) and €110.9m for selective support (up 11.2% on 2007).

After emphasising that she heard "the most ambitious, the most daring and the most demanding speech by Pascale Ferran at the Cesars award ceremony on the fragile state of a sector of French cinema", the Minister of Culture announced as a priority the re-evaluation of advances on receipts (€24m, up €2.4m on last year) and pre-production funding: development of feature projects (€3.4m), scriptwriting support (€1.8m) and creativity funding (€1.1m).

Albanel and Minister of Economy and Finance Christine Lagarde this week announced a mission on the theme of "Cinema and the Right to Competition". Helmed by Jean-Pierre Leclerc, the study will suggest concrete measures at the end of December following an analysis of exhibition conditions in cinemas, in particular films’ theatrical runs, which are currently subject to an accelerated rotation. The issue of ticket prices will also be addressed.

(Translated from French)