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INDUSTRY France

Record production for 2012 accompanied by financial tensions

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- TV pre-purchases, mandates, public subsidies… the CNC deciphers the funding of French cinematographic production

Presented yesterday to the press by Eric Garandeau, the CNC’s president, the 2012 balance sheet of French cinematographic production revealed a contrasted panoramic survey with a record 279 feature films (+7 with 209 films of French initiative and 70 minority coproductions), declining investments at 1.34 billion euros (-3.4%) and a persistent tendency towards bipolarisation.

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The CNC’s president stressed that "production remains very lively, despite an increasingly tense financial context, especially in the case of public channels whose advertising revenues are on the decline. The most expensive projects were not as affected as much by this drop in investments as more fragile films”. He also announced the launch of a study on the profitability of films throughout their careers on the various distribution media.

The number of feature films with high budgets (over 15 M€) showed a significant increase, from 12 in 2011 to 18 in 2012, receiving 33.7 % of investments. At the other end of the scale, films with estimated budgets of less than 1M€ leapt from 47 to 58 (including 30 documentaries). However, the number of middle-range films (with budgets between 4 and 7 M€) fell sharply (from 38 to 25), a strange evaporation especially concerning productions ranging from 4 to 5 M€ (down from 12 to 3), which could be explained by a desire on the part of producers to compress their budgets so that they fall below the threshold of the diversity clause of Canal+ (which must dedicate 17 % of its pre-purchasing budget to films with budgets of 4 M€ or less): the 2 to 4 M€ bracket is, in fact, on the rise (from 41 to 46 films).

This analysis of funding confirms the driving force of television companies which covered 31.9 % of investments in the 209 films of French initiative (FIF). Private channels pre-purchased 155 of the 279 films produced in 2012 for a total amount of 231.71 M€, with notably the essential Canal+ (186.43 M€ in pre-purchasing for 130 films), Ciné+ (24.14 M€) and Orange Cinéma Séries (18.52 M€). Public channels invested 127.31 M€ (down 12.6 %) in 109 films with TF1 (34.19 M€, -34%), France 2 (39.18 M€), France 3 (22.21 M€), M6 (22.03 M€), Arte France (6.55 M€) and the youngest channels of the free TNT (3.16 M€ in all for Direct 8France 4GulliNT1TMC and W9).

The share of mandates in the overall funding amounts to 223.89 M€, ie. 19.5 % of FIF funding. 117.36 M€ were generated by cross-lateralized mandates (encompassing several categories of exploitation rights) versus 74.33 M€ for the MG alone (Minimum Garantee) of international sales, 22.94 M€ for those of French theatre distributors and9.20 M€ for French video editors.

French producers make directinvestments of up to 28.9 % of the funding, giving 315.15 M€, backed up by 98.73 M€ in foreign investments (9.3%). Finally, commitments from the Sofica (investment companies in cinema and audio-viusal production) are to be added on, amounting to 42.1 M€ (4 % of this year's funding).

As for public subsidies, the automatic support account (28.39 M€) stands out, together with selective subsidies (24.86 M€) from the CNC, regional funding (15.85 M€) and tax incentives which benefited 121 FIFs. 

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(Translated from French)

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