10/04/2003

French regions have realised the importance of the national film and audiovisual industries and the prosperity they bring, and so have decided to up their financial contributions. Three regions, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (aka PACA), Ile-de-France and Poitou-Charentes announced their forthcoming projects.
On 7 April, PACA announced that it was setting up a support fund with Euros1.5m in its coffers, available both to French film and audiovisual producers and their European counterparts for French-majorityAvance sur recettes system for feature film production but in addition, it also has scholarships for writing, research and development of projects.
The PACA region is France’s second biggest in terms of film sets (150 in 2002, 100 of which in or around Marseille) and this initiative will put an end to a curious paradox: in terms of financial support for the film and audiovisual industries, PACA was lagging way behind, coming 14th out of a total of 19 regions. This chronic lack of funds was reported early last October 2002 by film director Robert Guédiguian, who is also the president of Marseille’s film directors’ association (the curiously-named La Friche de la Belle de Mai) that includes the Marseille Film Studios which are currently under construction.

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