On the occasion of the 75e The Congress of the Fédération nationale des cinémas français (FNCF), held on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 in Deauville, Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture, presented a set of exceptional measures to support the film industry.
These measures of unprecedented ambition complement those for the audiovisual sector, which were presented on Thursday, September 17, 2020 at the Folies Bergères in Paris, during the Fiction TV Festival.
The State’s comprehensive action plan for the cinema and audiovisual sector is twofold:
- It includes, on the one hand, in accordance with the Prime Minister’s announcement of August 27, 2020, to encourage the resumption of activity of theatre operators, an exceptional fund managed by the CNC to compensate for the losses in box office revenues remaining at the expense of cinemas due to the drop in their attendance from September to December 2020, to the tune of €50 million.
- The France Relance plan, on the other hand, provides for the allocation of 165 million euros to the CNC:
- EUR 60 million is earmarked to rearm the TNC, fully offsetting its net losses in assigned tax revenues. This sum makes it possible to guarantee the maintenance at their current level of all the support mechanisms for creation and dissemination;
- EUR 105 million will finance new exceptional measures.
In keeping with the insurance and guarantee fund set up in June to support the resumption of filming, all these measures will enable all those involved in audiovisual and cinematographic creation to prepare a lasting recovery of their sector,” said Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture.
The new measures included in the France Relance plan are part of a global recovery and modernization strategy structured in seven areas:
- Encourage the release of films during the period of resumption to bring the public back to the cinemas by supporting actors of film distribution (€17.7 million);
- Capitalize on the talents of the future that will be the true reconstructors of the sector, by detecting and supporting talent as soon as possible to invent the stories and formats of expression of tomorrow (€6 million);
- Catch up in film and audiovisual production, support for the activities of producers to create a rapid ripple effect on the entire sector (€38.4 million);
- Ensure the viability of the theatres in the short and long term by reaching out to tomorrow’s audience in all regions, with increased support for exhibitors and a strengthening of cultural dissemination and image education activities (€34.3 million);
- Accelerate the modernization of technical industries, to position France as a central player in productions, through an investment in film studios and digital production (€10 million);
- Strengthen the internationalization of the sector by making France an engine of the global recovery of the sector, thanks to its exporters, co-production partners and the attractiveness of its filming facilities (€8.3 million);
- Support the promotion of film and audiovisual heritage, by promoting the dissemination of the repertoire’s major works to a wide audience (€1.8 million).
All of these measures amount to €116.5 million, including €105 million in stimulus funding and €11.5 million committed by the CNC when the theatres reopened, in June, to support the risk-taking of distributors and producers who have released their films.
The mobilization of the State is more essential than ever to support our film and audiovisual sectors that are hard hit by the crisis. We must work to preserve an economic sector that creates wealth everywhere in France, but also to strengthen our capacity to create, disseminate and export works that reflect our identity in all its complexity and richness,” says the Minister of Culture.