Mr Prefect, dear Jean Charbonniaud,
Dear Philippe Augier, Mayor of Deauville,
President of the Fédération Nationale des Cinémas Français,
Dear Richard Patry,
Dear Frédérique Bredin,
Honourable Senators and Members of Parliament,
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
I am particularly pleased to be with you this evening for the first time. This is also one of my very first interventions on film and I wanted to address you. Because it is through you, the exhibitors, that the relationship between each of us and the cinema begins. It is with you that I wanted to congratulate myself on the success of French cinema with the public. With you, again, I wanted to commend the ongoing discussions that show the capacity of the entire sector to mobilize to reform and remain one of the greatest French successes. With you, finally, whom I wanted to pay tribute to one of the greatest authors of French cinema, Jacques Audiard, who embodies cinema as we love it and as the world envies us, daring and popular, whose excellence and success contribute to France’s influence in the world.
All of us here tonight share the same conviction: the theatre experience is irreplaceable. Without it, cinema would not be what it is.
The success of a film is measured in theatres. This is where the desire for cinema is born: in the darkness of the room and the light of the big screen, where the work and its audience meet. Where individual discovery is enriched by collective experience and shared emotion.
The hall is a hobby, an outing, dear to the hearts of our fellow citizens: the numbers of attendance in the hall prove it again this year. With more than 200 million admissions, France beats all the records in Europe. 200 million admissions, that’s more than one and a half times the attendance in Germany!
The hall is also the first – and sometimes the only – means of access to cultural works. Our film theatres have a key role to play in ensuring access to culture for as many of our fellow citizens as possible, especially young people. These are real local facilities: with more than 5,500 screens, the network of cinemas irrigates the entire territory and helps to strengthen the social link but also the attractiveness in our regions. I want to commend the contribution of the exhibitors to arts and cultural education, through the many operations carried out throughout France within the framework of the Film schools.
This popularity of cinema among our fellow citizens, this very French passion, we owe them of course to the works and authors: it is moreover one of the stakes of the Congress to discover and discuss next year’s programming. For this year, I am still delighted with the excellence of the French offer, its diversity and its ability to meet a large audience: this is what allows our cinema to gather in 2014 48% of market share, level without comparison in Europe.
But if the room remains this place so loved by the French, it is thanks to the operators who have, with the support of the CNC, modernized the rooms to offer a unique experience, to make them more accessible and open to the renewal of audiences and their diversity.
Thus, all French cinemas are now digitized. I want to pay tribute here to the parliamentarians who have carried out the law on digital equipment: thanks to this law, thanks to the commitment of the public authorities around the plan of digitization of the rooms led by the CNC, France has not experienced what other countries are going through today - the closure of independent rooms that have not been able to digitize.
Recalling its attachment to cinema, the State has taken its responsibilities to strongly support the sector, with the plan of digitization of cinemas and by consolidating last year the reduced rate of VAT on cinema tickets. The announcement of the finance bill today confirms this commitment: in a budgetary context that you know extremely tense, there will be no capping of taxes, nor levy on the reserves of the CNC; the integrity of the support fund and its original funding method is therefore preserved.
To make your rooms more accessible and more open, you have launched the «4€ for under fourteen years» operation, which we can rejoice in the success. According to a study by the CNC, in the first four months of 2014, 2.6 million 6-14 year-olds went to cinemas, an increase of 17,6% in one year. 80.5% of spectators indicate that this operation makes them want to go to the cinema more often. It is a very strong signal in favour of youth, and a signal that must be maintained: it is to this public, the public of tomorrow, who lives in a universe where screens multiply, that we must give very early the taste of the dark room.
Opening up movie theatres, making them more accessible, means finally addressing the issue of accessibility so that people with disabilities can experience the theatre and have access to the works in the best possible conditions. I am counting on you all to implement this democratic and civic ambition. Everyone recognizes that we will need a little time, and the timetable for the entry into force of the legislative framework is being adapted for this purpose; but I have asked the TNC to work on the implementation in 2015 of an aid, which will allow, under conditions, to accompany this modernization of the most fragile rooms.
Modernizing the cinema and making it more accessible to all audiences means that it can continue to play this fundamental role of meeting the needs of a work and its audience, at a time when digitization is changing the conditions under which films are broadcast.
With Nicolas Seydoux, you spoke this afternoon about piracy and its impact on the cinema economy. The Prime Minister recently reiterated the importance this government attaches to the fight against piracy, whether it is the graduated response, which must remain the priority of Hadopi, or the fight against commercial piracy. Mireille Imbert-Quaretta made important proposals several months ago, after extensive consultations. One of my first actions was to resume consideration of these proposals, and I will soon have the opportunity to detail an action plan on this priority topic. Fair remuneration for authors and rights holders, respect for the integrity of works, are at the heart of our fight for cultural exception.
At the same time, professionals are mobilizing to continue to enrich the legal offer. As such, I would like to commend the ongoing discussions under the auspices of the TNC to modernize the media timeline. While proposing a simpler mechanism for the video release, these discussions logically recognize the singularity of the room window so that a work is born and weaves a link with the audience. It is one of the pillars of our system. It is up to the professionals to reach an agreement, and I hope that, by the end of the year, the current discussions will lead to concrete progress, with measures that are simple and readable for the public.
Our model has always been able to adapt to changes of all kinds and to public usage. I have no doubt that it will do so again today. And I want to reiterate my attachment to what justifies the cultural exception: the diversity of films. Offer the widest choice to the widest audience. This is the strength of the French model: allowing popular films to live together, in which the French meet and share emotions, chills and laughter, and more demanding films, that affirm our creative ambition and the uniqueness of our voice.
This is the strength of the French model, it is also the strength of Jacques Audiard’s cinema, to which we pay tribute this evening: a cinema that succeeds in the magnificent challenge of combining popular success and critical success, in France and abroad. A cinema for all and for which nothing seems impossible, which allows itself all the daring and takes all the rewards. Who directs with as much success renowned actors, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris or Marion Cotillard, and others that he reveals and become essential thanks to him, Tahar Rahim. It highlights, in films where music and image play the leading roles, all the professions of cinema, writing, light, music, editing, etc. contributing to the spread of our know-how throughout the world. Popularity and artistic requirement, it is the beautiful cinema lesson that offers us the one that we expect each of the films with an always great impatience. This is the recipe for the success of French cinema. Thank you Monsieur Audiard!