Abstract
France is arguably one of the systems that is most supportive of its national film and cinema industry among its European neighbours and even in the rest of the world. It includes a generous and wide-reaching subsidy programme for cinema and TV channels worth roughly two billion euros yearly across all the different types of subsidies provided. This chapter synoptically presents France’s state aid scheme and critically evaluates the efficacy of mainly direct selective subsidies for supporting film diversity and audience demand in France. We argue that the scheme’s efficacy delivers mixed results. While a complex support framework has helped building up a strong French film industry, a success which can greatly be attributed to the measures taken by the National Film Board (CNC), in which grants and public subsidies coexist with tax incentives directed at private investors, we find, however, that the subsidy scheme does not live up to its promises with regard to audience attractiveness and demand. As a result, we consider it both being too complex and expensive as well as too ineffective.
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Notes
- 1.
Value added is the value of the products or services sold by a sector minus the inputs (goods and services) that this sector needs in order to produce its own goods or services. For instance, film production includes inputs such as travel expenses for shooting films in various locations. The value added of the cinema sector correctly excludes air services produced by sectors other than the film industry.
- 2.
This is an approximation because the massive French subsidies combined with the many bilateral co-production agreements induce French investment in non-French films.
- 3.
This section does not look at the attractiveness of French films internationally because reliable data on total admissions around the rest of the world are not available.
- 4.
These five films are Taxi 2 (2001) 10.3 million admissions, Astérix et Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre (2002) 14.6 million, Les Bronzés 3 (2006) 10.4 million, Bienvenue chez les Chtis (2009) 20.5 million, and Intouchables (2011) 19.5 million. Only one of these five films (Intouchables) has received wide acclaim in the rest of the world. In 2014, a sixth movie (Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait au Bon Dieu?) has entered this very small club, followed by a return to a stagnant situation. 2015 is one of the 3 worst years since 2000 in terms of admission shares for French films.
- 5.
See, Bonnell (2013).
- 6.
- 7.
Forest’s work on the digitisation process in French cinemas reveals transformations in the distribution and exhibition sectors since moving to digital screens. He shows how these changes have modified the professional landscape, bringing in technical transformations and new financial partners. This has affected the balance of the different stakeholders and increased France’s reliance on norms and technological developments coming from the United States (Forest, 2013, p. 163).
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Messerlin, P., Vanderschelden, I. (2018). France’s Protected and Subsidised Film Industry: Is the Subsidy Scheme Living Up to Its Promises?. In: Murschetz, P., Teichmann, R., Karmasin, M. (eds) Handbook of State Aid for Film. Media Business and Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71716-6_18
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