Dear Alain Terzian, President of the Académie des César,
Madam President of the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, dear Frédérique,
Dear Melita Toscan du Plantier,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
Here we are tonight, and I want to thank you for your warm invitation, dear Alain Terzian, a few days before the César Ceremony.
So I know some of you are hoping for an award next Friday from your peers, from the profession—
Tonight is already a time to gather and look at the work accomplished.
So, in a few moments, we will know which producer will be awarded the Daniel Toscan du Plantier Prize, and will succeed the duo elected in 2013 formed by Gaëlle Bayssière & Didier Creste from Everybody on Deck.
I did not personally know Daniel Toscan du Plantier but I wanted to pay tribute to his action, at the beginning of February, during the 50th anniversary of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, as much as what he gave to the cinema and the spectators was great. His love of cinema was part of the project’s desire, the enthusiasm of the meeting with the artistic and technical team, and the hope of surprising the audience.
I know all of you, producers, particularly motivated by the same desire to be touched by the story of an author, and by the desire to accompany and concretize projects, as well as to meet with spectators.
So I wish the winners of this evening good luck!
2013 was as creative as in 2012, with 209 works approved by the CNC.
209 opportunities to dream, to discover, to wonder, to escape. 209 traces of a hard and inventive work, of which you know and measure intimately the contribution to our country, its creative wealth ... and its economic wealth!
Collectively, we must take pride in and continue to promote this “French-style” model that so many artists around the world envy us.
Because beyond the culture of numbers, what is it?
It is a matter of reaffirming that cinema, in its most striking creative diversity, of styles, formats and nationalities, is a cultural good, common and specific, that market rules cannot blindly make flourish or even exist.
It is this conception of art and the film and audiovisual industry that some of you, together with the President of the Republic, Nicole Bricq and myself, reaffirmed 20 years after their predecessors, in Brussels last June, the draft free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States.
The fight for what we call the cultural exception was important, and we won it!
Similarly, at the risk of seeing the States and the Regions disengage massively, it was not conceivable to me that the European Commission would question the rules that have governed since 2001, the state aids to cinema and audiovisual, particularly in the area of territorialisation. A full dialogue was necessary. But here too, it is with vigour that you mobilized and that we won last November!
In 2013, I agree with you that the dialogue between the social partners made it possible to conclude, in October, with almost all the employee unions, an amendment to the collective agreement for film production in January 2012. Your commitment was complete: it enabled the implementation of this agreement and its derogation regime. And because we know the issue of the financing of production is one of the major stakes of the sector, the State for its part has voted in Parliament in December, a new reform of the film tax credit, after that started in 2012, to increase to 30% -instead of 20%- eligible expenses for works with a budget of less than €4 million.
Also, this reform of the CICA, added to the validation in November by Brussels of the reform of the TSTD on providers of access to television services by broadband Internet, which will allow a better security of the resources of the CNC, Does it authorise us to embark on structural reforms deemed necessary by everyone for 2014.
While the year 2013 was marked by major victories to consolidate the system, 2014 will be the year of reform because areas of improvement have been identified and concerns persist.
Frédérique Bredin clarified the course of these reforms on 8 January last during the second Conference for the diversity of cinema.
Each of the producer organisations was therefore invited to join the consultations initiated under the authority of the CNC, which were announced on 6 February, around 3 axes: consolidate the financing of the diversity of French production, improve economic transparency between operators, improve the distribution of films.
So I am counting on each of you, so that, together with the other professional organizations, we will be able to adapt the mechanisms of the cultural exception that were conceived in the analogue era, in the digital age.
At the same time, you can count on my full commitment to what will promote the influence of French cinema, through some reforms that I have begun to announce:
- Continue our efforts to broaden the legal offer, for example by continuing to help digitize works of film heritage;
- Continue the fight against piracy on the one hand by transferring the device of the graduated response to the CSA through the law creation under interdepartmental review, and on the other hand by implementing, the proposals that will formulate Mireille Imbert-Quarretta on the fight against illicit sites;
- Convince the European Commission of the merits of the implementation of automatic support for VOD, as a guarantee of strengthening our existing actors;
- Make better contributions to the financing of the creation of SMAD, through a video tax extended to advertising revenues: I intend to propose it in the framework of the LFI 2015... And I do not omit that foreign actors of the SVOD question the attractiveness of the French market and examine our tax legislation and our system of regulation and financing of creation: On this point, I would like to reiterate how much I believe in the performance of French actors, who respect these rules in favour of the funding and dissemination of French and European works, and in their capacity for innovation and editorialization.
You will have understood that 2014 is a year that will be essential for the diversity of film creation and its dissemination.
Creation cannot be done without intermittence!
I am deeply attached to the intermittence and its preservation, when others like Medef would like to give it up, because the intermittence enjoyed by artists and technicians, allows just as much as the creators, producers and financial partners of culture, our country to remain proud of its works, proud of the jobs that culture creates every year in France, and our country to shine beyond our borders!
Creation in France is strong in the jobs it creates: at a time when we have managed to perpetuate the systems of territorialisation of aids to cinema and audiovisual, and when we strengthen our fiscal arrangements in favour of a better relocation of filmmaking, I invite you to choose France even more whenever you are called upon to develop a new production, because together we will be able to silence the detractors and gravediggers of culture and cinema, and that we will be able to continue to better build the creative space that works need.
So, dear all, when we see the tremendous French cinematographic creativity, whose nominees for the next César are exciting examples, let us gather around these principles and rejoice-our talents, those talents that you accompany on a daily basis and that we bring to light and celebrate!
Excellent dinner to all; thank you for your attention.