Angouleme (AFP)
Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Friday, at the opening of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival (FFA), that support for cinematographic creation would be reinforced by the State to the tune of 165 million euros.
"The CNC (national center of cinema and animated image) will see its means reinforced by the State, by 165 million euros to which will be added funding in favor of investments for the future", unveiled the minister at launch of the first major film festival in France since the cancellation of Cannes.
"These unprecedented support measures in their scale and ambition will have a ripple effect on the entire industry, from authors to broadcasters and theater operators," assured the Prime Minister, who came to Angoulême with Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Culture and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Secretary of State, in charge in particular of the Francophonie.
This measure, which is in addition to the aid of 432 million euros for the live performance announced Thursday, is part of the recovery plan of 2 billion euros to breathe life into culture, brought to its knees by the crisis sanitary.
"Everything will be done so that the French (...) resume the path of dark rooms! (...) The State will continue to accompany and support the cinema", he again declared, to the applause of the masked audience of the Angoulême theater hall.
The drastic conditions for the public to return to theaters and theaters, and particularly the limited gauge in the red zones, in addition to wearing a mask, worry professionals.
"The mask for the eyes in the cinema, it will be catastrophic, I ask you to give it up", moreover launched with humor to the Prime Minister, Gustave Kervern, who co-chairs the jury of the festival with Bruno Délépine whose crazy " Clear History "with Blanche Gardin opened the party on Friday evening.
"People are going back to the theaters, it's nice and it's important", rejoiced for her part the actress-producer Julie Gayet, questioned by the press. Even with the mask: "you have to get used to it, we will eat popcorn, afterwards, before".
About sixty films including twenty premieres and ten feature films in competition, will be screened until Tuesday, for a deliberately reduced edition with 28,000 seats available, far from the usual attendance (40,000).
Ten French-speaking films are in competition for the "Valois" of the FFA, including "Petit pays" by Eric Barbier, "The enemy", a thriller by Belgian Stephan Strekker or "Un triomphe" by Emmanuel Courcol.
© 2020 AFP