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INDUSTRY France

Profitability, transparency and solidarity ?

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- Vincent Maraval and Michel Hazanavicius try to break up the masked ball of category-related interests in the flourishing French film industry

Organized by the public authorities following chain reactions (read the article) set off by the column published in late December by Vincent Maraval (Wild Bunch), the Assises pour la diversité du cinéma (lit. Assizes for Diversity in Cinema) gave birth yesterday afternoon to a scenario showing serious divergences between solidarity and ambitions. And while caution and "double speak" were frequently noticeable during the three round-tables attended in succession by several important figures from the French cinema industry, the debate nevertheless saw the emergence of a new approach in search of stability on the matter of film production costs.

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On the offensive once again, Vincent Maraval shed some light on his claims: "We are in a protected system, and so much the better. But there is never any analysis of the evolution of budgets as compared with the evolution of receipts: an analysis is always made of the financing, but not the profits. We are ringing the alarm because we are part of the market, but we are not paid from fundings. There's been a drop in foreign investment. Lower production costs are thus advisable. Lots of young filmmakers and young producers come up against the reality of costs. And ambitious films with budgets of 30-40 M€, intended for the international market, such as The Impossible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juan Antonio Bayona
film profile
]
 or Beauty and the Beast, are tending to disappear." A speech heard by the Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti, who asked the CNC to undertake a study on the profitability of movies.

The sharing of funds seems to lie at the heart of the debate. For Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (photo), "a healthier approach to higher receipts would lower costs. Some people have an interest in making movies that cost a lot. But this inflation leads to a concentration of fundings and thus goes against diversity." Agent Elizabeth Tanner (Artmédia) hit the nail on the head : "Some producers pay themselves a lot of money. You occasionally find a kind of evaporation between gross receipts and net income." A hot topic, carefully side-stepped yesterday by the majority of attendees, like that of the concentration of financing on certain films (read the article and interview). Producers, distributors and sellers have often preferred to back their own horses (fighting amongst themselves for the title of the greatest risk-taker), while rather paradoxically calling for general solidarity. Nevertheless, everyone agreed on the need to provide greater assistance for second feature films.

The Minister of Culture, who recalled that "we should take care not to  allow legitimate discussions to be used by people who are not cinema-lovers", gave members of the industry a rendez-vous in June for a second episode in these "Assises".

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(Translated from French)

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