FEATURE CNC celebrates 65 years France’s CNC looks back to the future as it marks its 65th year. Melanie Goodfellow reports
T
he Cannes Film Festival is not the only French cultural institution feting its 65th anniversary this year: France’s National Cen-
tre for Cinematography and the Moving Image (CNC) also opened for business in 1946. “We were founded at about the same time,” CNC
president Eric Garandeau says of the body launched on October 25, 1946, three weeks after the first edition of Cannes. The CNC will hold its annual presentation of
activities during the film festival, this year on Tues- day, May 22, at the Majestic. Items on the agenda will include its drive to digitise France’s huge film collection, its new World Cinema Fund and the second edition of Le Jour Le Plus Court short film day in December. “Our plan to restore and digitise France’s film
heritage is finally taking off,” says Garandeau. “When I arrived at the CNC in January 2011, I insti- gated the first inventory of the country’s film col- lection since the Lumiere brothers. It’s ongoing but we estimate there are 10,000-15,000 films, repre- senting more than 1.1 million reels.” The CNC has spearheaded a state-backed
investment fund to help big catalogue-holders to finance the restoration and digitisation of their vin- tage titles, in return for a percentage of any profits from their exploitation over a 15-year period. Gaumont was the first company to sign up for
the scheme earlier this year, announcing the digiti- sation of 270 titles including classics such as Jean Renoir’s Toni and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Murderer Lives At Number 21. A second scheme managed by the CNC and
aimed at less commercially viable titles is also kick- starting its activities. “We have already agreed to look after the films
of Agnes Varda, Jacques Demy and Max Linder,” says Garandeau, who will announce the first wave of films to be restored at the presentation.
n 40 Screen International at Cannes May 16, 2012
‘There are very few films made in France that are not backed
by the CNC’ Eric Garandeau, CNC
CNC has just re-equipped the restoration labo-
ratory of its Bois d’Arcy film archives and is devel- oping an internet portal, aimed at putting France’s cinema heritage online. Garandeau will also outline the new World Cin-
ema Fund. The subsidy — worth an annual $7.8m (¤6m) — replaces the Fonds Sud and the Aid to Foreign Language Films. A call for projects was launched at the beginning of May. “It is open to directors from anywhere in the
world with an original vision and no means of financing their film at home. It could even help an independent film out of the United States,” says Garandeau. “The only proviso is that it has a French producer attached.” If a US film were to receive the World Cinema
Fund’s backing, it would be an interesting develop- ment. The CNC’s creation was in part a reaction to an influx of American pictures following the Blum- Byrnes agreement of May 1946, restructuring France’s $2.8bn Second World War debt to the US. In return for the deal, US secretary of state James
F Byrnes demanded France open its markets to US goods, and in particular American productions, sparking fears from France’s fragile post-war film
Classic titles including The Murderer Lives At Number 21 (main picture) are being digitised under a CNC scheme; (below) Love (Amour)
industry that it would never recover if the market were flooded with US films. Bowing to pressure, the French government put
an annual 130-picture cap on the number of US films and introduced a 10.9% tax on all cinema tickets, the proceeds of which were put under the control of the fledgling CNC to mete out as subsi- dies for future productions. It was the first step in the body’s funding system
that underpins CNC and the French film industry to this day. Some 65 years on, CNC is one of the most powerful state cinema support bodies in the world, operating on an annual budget of around $905.2m (¤700m) made-up predominantly of broadcaster obligations and taxes on cinema tick- ets and local internet players. “There are very few films made in France that
are not backed by the CNC, one way or another,” says Garandeau. “People ask what is at the heart of the flourishing film industry in France. Of course it is the professionals, but it is also the virtuous eco- system running off a complex network of obliga- tions and selective and automatic subsidies, overseen by the CNC.” In a sign of its reach, CNC backed 23 features
and seven shorts screening in Cannes, including Holy Motors and co-production Love (Amour). Garandeau concedes the CNC’s model is under
pressure in the digital age, especially from the rise of global internet players capable of distributing content into France yet not subject to the same obligations and taxes as local operators. But he adds he is optimistic over the outcome.
“In just the same way the CNC faced up to the chal- lenge television posed to cinema, we will find solu- tions for the internet too.” n
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