11/11/2005

18 French international sales companies accumulated last year 223, 3 million euros of export receipts, 20,4% higher than 2003 according to the report by National Film Centre National (CNC) with the collaboration of Unifrance, ADEF (Association of French exporters of film and audiovisual material) and IFCIC (Film and Cultural Industries Support Institute). This total includes the sales of film, TV and video rights, taking account of the minimum recouped from foreign distributors, the amount for royalties being more difficult to assess. In total, the receipts for 2004 were made up of 141,2 million euros of receipts from abroad for French films (+14,2%) and 82,1 million (+32,7%) for foreign films in the line-ups of French companies.

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For sales of French films, the principal export market is undoubtedly Western Europe with 79 M€ (55,9 % of receipts), way ahead of Asia (21,7 M€), North America (17,2 M€) and Eastern Europe (13,8 M€, up by 50,3% compared to 2003). Country by country, the results placeGermany in first position with 22,2 M€ of receipts (15,7%) ahead of Italy (17,7 M€) and Japan. But Spain rose to a high of 11,8 M€ , thanks mainly to commercial films bought at a lower price. As for other European markets, worth noting an improvement of 85,8% of receipts from the UK and Ireland (6,6 M€ in total), territories which remain difficult to open up due to the dominance of Anglo-Saxon films. Progress, too, in Belgium (5,2 M€) and above all Holland (3,8 M€), while Scandinavia (3,8 M€) remains difficult to access for non-commercial French films, with many sales made in packages to these territories and many French films bought directly for video. Lastly, worth noting Greek receipts (2,8 M€) and Hungarian (2 M€), and not forgetting a rise in Poland (1,9 M€), while underlining the fact that Eastern European countries make few pre-sales and above look for high quality commercial product.

(Translated from French)