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Philippe Reynaert • Director of Wallimage

Five years of Wallimage

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A key personality in the Belgian film industry, Philippe Reynaert, long-time critic and cinephile has been president for five years of Wallimage, the regional funding body for Wallonia.

In a few words, what is Wallimage?
Philippe Reynaert: Wallimage is an investment fund tailored for the film industry and funded by the Walloon region. It is a sort of bank that firstly finances film productions through a mechanism, which dictates that the money invested in a film has to be spent by the producer in Wallonia and secondly, that it finances post-production companies. For five or six years now, the regional funds of the country not made up by regional associations have grown in importance. At present, Cine-Regio, the coordination body for regional funds, has 17 members.

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What is the role of Cine-Regio?
Its main objective is to represent the regions in European institutions because Europe is in a very difficult situation. It knows what is happening on a regional level, but it doesn’t co-operate with the regions because, at present, we have a Europe of member states and not a Europe of regions, contrary to what its founders would believe. The role of Cine-Regio is to give a voice to these organisations, which represent 20% of public investment in cinema but which are also the only source of funding experiencing growth. What’s important for us is not to fight for cultural diversity by opposing the US, but also within Europe. The regions have a real role to play here. To defend this position, our second objective is to be recognised by UNESCO. We have already started discussions in this direction.

Aren’t we running the risk that the member states exercise only a part of their responsibilities where funding is concerned?
Completely. That is why today it is important to delegate roles. The distinction that Malraux saw in cinema being an art, but at the same time an industry is a fitting example to illustrate this point. It is the responsibility of the member states to be in charge of making culture accessible to all its citizens while it is the regions’ role to deal with the day-to-day problems of employment, circulation of wealth, management of the business aspects of cinema. If we succeed in getting that to work harmoniously, the results will be good. I am quite proud that things are going very well here with no conflict between the French Community and Wallimage, each having found their forte. Besides these two bodies, there is a newcomer, the Tax-Shelter. It is necessary to allocate the different budgets and this is more difficult that it would seem. For example, I am convinced that the Tax Shelter should allow more films to be made than in the past. That means that we continue to make them in bad conditions. Because, let’s be honest, most of the films are made with a budget that is often far from satisfactory, especially where distribution and promotion are concerned.

What are the perspectives for Wallimage?
Where funding for film production is concerned, things have developed at a rapid pace, with 75% of productions of Belgian initiative for 25% of international initiative – the opposite to when we started out – which allows for international recognition and gives the funding credibility. However, our monoculture with France is an area that disappoints me, the French market is not as open as it once was and I would love to co-produce with English-speaking territories, Italy or Spain, for example. The second important point is to succeed in dealing documentary film projects. This isn’t easy, as it’s a different type of economic structure. Lastly, a third area we need to work on is animation. We have thought long and hard about this topic, and it is now no longer a secret that we are conducting a study on the feasibility of building a directing studio, possibly in Liege.

See the filmed interview in Cinergie's website.

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