06/12/2002

The dramatic announcement of the imminent closure of Gimages is just the tip of the iceberg as far as France’s Soficas are concerned. A survey published on 4 December in « Ecran Total » reveals some more deep-seated problems.
The Soficas (film and audiovisual industry finance companies) are amongst the French film industry’s most important sources of funding. However in recent times they have reduced the amount of funds available to the film industry by 30 per cent, in favour of audiovisual production. Even more serious is the fact that some Soficas, including Gimages and Sofinergie, only released part of the funds available in 2002. Furthermore, FR TV Images (associated with France Télévision) and Studio Images (a StudioCanal subsidiary) have indicated they are about to follow the Soficas example and hunker down.
As a result, the inactivity of these four Soficas – companies that gave financial support to 53 films in 2001 – will deprive the French film industry of Euros14.1 million, or 54 per cent of the total investments of all the Soficas in 2001.
The reason for the situation are the cuts to the Vivendi Group’s 2003 budget, (Vivendi guarantees Gimages and Studio Images investments), the budget cuts announced for 2003 by France Télévision and the disappointing results reported by Cofinergie, Cofilosirs (UGC, BNP-Paribas adn OBC) with respect to their investments.
The effective failure of the four above-mentioned Soficas will hit independent producers the hardest : they stand to lose up to 69 per cent of their 2001 investments. With that in mind, 2003 is likely to be anything but rosy.

(Translated from French)