France’s culture minister Rima Abdul Malak has announced that the French government will allot a record €4.2bn budget to cultural activities in 2023, a 7% increase from this year.
Of the total, €711m will be allocated to the financing of film and audiovisual production and video games in the coming year – a modest increase of 1.1%.
At a press conference in Paris on Monday (September 26), Malak cited “major challenges” for the industry particularly in the wake of the global pandemic.
“What will happen to our cinemas, bookshops, theatres, museums and opera houses in 20 years’ time? What kind of audiences will frequent them? What would our society look like if these places were destined to become empty?” she questioned.
Malak cited one of her priorities as introducing arts education from an early age “to develop the desire for culture in the flesh of our youth”. As part of this, €208.5m will be devoted to the country’s “culture pass”, which gives young adults an allocated amount of money to spend on cultural pursuits – up from €199m this year.
Today’s announcement comes after the minister announced an additional boost of €4m to help local distributors last week at France’s 77th annual FNCF [French national cinema federation] expo in Deauville. Malak spoke at the gathering of studios and distributors where she also confirmed that the CNC was extending the deadline for productions to file for the extra costs of shooting under Covid from November to March 2023.
France’s theatres haven’t fully bounced back from the pandemic. Ninety-six million movie tickets were sold in 2021, according to statistics from the CNC, though the 47% increase from 2020 is still far from the record 213million tickets sold in 2019, pre-Covid.
The government aid is just one step towards keeping France’s audiovisual industry afloat in the wake of industry shifts. Tensions have been brewing between global platforms like Disney+ and the government’s strict windowing laws that require theatrically released films to wait 17 months before they can become available on subscription-based streaming platforms.
Earlier this year, Netflix signed an agreement whereby the streamer agreed to invest roughly €40m per year in local production – which included a diversity clause requiring them to spread the wealth among smaller-budget films under €4m – in exchange for a shorter 15-month window.
Disney and Prime Video refused to sign a similar deal and Disney announced that it would forgo the French theatrical release of its animated feature Strange World in November, sparking outrage among local exhibitors. Disney’s theatrical-to-platform window has been set at 17 months by French lawmakers.
The US studio said in a statement last week, “The media timeline forces us to evaluate our theatrical releases film by film. We have not yet made a decision on the release of Black Panther.”
Skipping a theatrical release to send Black Panther: Wakanda Forever straight to Disney+ in France would be a big blow to the already struggling French distribution sector. The original film sold more than 3.7million tickets at the French box office and the sequel is expected to be a global hit.
Disney has released Thor: Love And Thunder and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in cinemas in France this year. French Marvel fans will have a much longer wait for the films to arrive on Disney+ than in other parts of the world.
A meeting is scheduled to take place between the French government and US platforms and studios to discuss the theatrical window constraints on October 4. Overseen by state film body the CNC, the parties will discuss whether further compromise can be reached that still supports theatres and keeps the country’s historical system of film funding alive.
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