Country Focus: France

€125m allocated for cinema digitisation fund

by  Fabien Lemercier

22/09/2010 - While Parliament last week ratified a bill introducing a compulsory contribution from distributors to financially support exhibitors so they can equip their theatres with digital (see news), Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand yesterday announced that €125m would be allocated for the cinema digitisation fund.

This budget managed by the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC) is intended for the most vulnerable theatres (in rural areas and small towns), while France has already passed the threshold of 1,500 digitally-equipped screens. The Culture Minister will outline the terms and conditions of this financial support today at the 65th National Federation of French Cinemas (FNCF) Conference, which is currently underway in Deauville.

Four films have so far been screened at the FNCF Conference (September 20-23): Italian director Gabriele Muccino’s Kiss Me Again [trailer] (see news); Jean-Pierre Améris’s Les Émotifs Anonymes (“Anonymous Emotional People”, see news); Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key [trailer] (see news); and Pierre Salvadori’s De Vrais Mensonges (“True Lies”, see news). Tomorrow, distributors will present their full line-ups to exhibitors, using film trailers.