Roundtable : Conversation with the CNC

Like every year, the MIFC hosted a Conversation with the CNC, which this time focused on relations with cataloguers as well as video publishing.

It is an annual tradition, the Conversation with the CNC starts with a presentation of the figures for heritage cinema over the last year by Benoît Danard. To find this presentation in detail, you can click here (it's in french). In outline: According to his observations, in a context of health crisis, heritage films have benefited from a super performance in theaters and on TV, noting that they have also withstood the decline of the DVD/Blu-ray market better than all films. The CNC's Director of Studies, Statistics and Forecasting also showed that the SVoD market, which is enjoying strong growth, offers broad distribution prospects for heritage films, particularly internationally, and that the television distribution of French films is concentrated in a few territories, including Spain and Italy. Unfortunately, this presentation was also synonymous with a farewell since Benoît Danard has retired and is about to leave the Centre de la Cinématographie. The room paid him a warm tribute with a thunderous applause.

After this presentation, Sarah Drouhaud, web editor of Film Français, took over, surrounded by Laurent Cormier, director of the CNC's film heritage department, Sabrina Joutard, president of the Cataloguists' Union, Natacha Missoffe, president of the Association "L'appel des 85" and Vincent Florant, director of digital at the CNC. First, the conversion was oriented around the new law on "the protection of public access to cultural works in the digital age" which was definitively adopted last September. This last one concerns, in particular, the definitive transfer of the rights on works or catalogs towards the foreigner. It started from the idea of preventing these works, considered as French heritage, from being disseminated in the rest of the world, at the risk of preventing a continuous exploitation. The government therefore decided to grant itself the right to supervise these sales so that the works continue to be distributed and accessible to the public. As Laurent Cormier explains, the process sees the seller transmit the necessary documents for the verification of the transaction, which temporarily suspends the sale. There are two possible scenarios:
- Either the documents submitted ensure that the buyer is able to meet the objective of continued exploitation of the works and the sale transaction is executed
- Or, it is not the case, and the operation is submitted to the commission of protection of the access to the works. The commission proceeds then to a contradictory instruction and hears seller as well as buyer. It can impose obligations that it considers appropriate to seek the continued exploitation of all or part of the works transferred, under the conditions provided by the professional agreement of 2016.

And Laurent Cormier specifies that decrees are currently being written and debated in order to fix the nature of the tangible and intangible property rights concerned, the composition of the file to be transmitted, the composition and the functioning of the commission for the protection of access to works. Discussions around the decrees to which the cataloguists are invited, contrary to the first writing of this law which was made "in pain" according to Sabrina Joutard. If the president of the Cataloguists Union insists on the fact that she has nothing against this law, she did not appreciate the method: she said that they had not been consulted and that they had learned at a time when other important issues were under discussion, including around the media chronology: "We discovered that politically the catalogs had become a strategic asset at the level of Europe at a time when we have never had so little help," she said with a touch of irony.

This was followed by a discussion about the support given to heritage films. According to Sabrina Joutard, the aids constitute 0.4% of the global budget of the CNC and would need to be increased because if some cataloguists are forced to sell, it is notably because of a lack of means, both to maintain and to distribute this heritage: "We must treat the causes and not the consequences" she argued. In return, Laurent Cormier specified that these 0,4% corresponded only to a part of the aids for the heritage which, according to him, amounted to 3% of the total budget. He also spoke about the 4th Programme d'Investissement d'Avenir (PIA4) of the government, more oriented towards subsidies, which it would be interesting to solicit as much for digitization as for heritage conservation issues.

The round table then turned to video publishing. Natacha Missoffe first recalled the origin and the goal of the Appel des 85 of which she is the president. She also mentioned the €800,000 stimulus package that the sector has received, but also insisted that the crisis was far from over for video publishing and that additional support would be welcome. She also pointed out the small percentage of the CNC budget that goes to publishing: "We no longer wish to be considered the poor relation of the chain. We don't want to be considered the poor relation of the channel anymore. It is necessary to preserve the modes of access to the works" she said, while explaining that the DVD/Blu-ray offer was the largest in terms of number and availability. Her fear? That the budget, renewed in 2022, would not be renewed thereafter.

A fear that Vincent Florant quickly brushed aside. The director of digital at the CNC even said that the aid to video publishing would even be endowed with 150,000 € additional by the end of the year. He also mentioned the creation of a €2 million fund for the entire industry to finance innovative proposals that would aim to bring more film culture to the under 25s. In addition, Vincent Florant recalled that the general review of aid had been delayed due to the health crisis, the CNC preferring to focus on emergency measures due to the situation. Finally, he emphasized the Center's growing interest in VoD, SVoD and even AVoD, which are becoming new ways of capturing different, often younger, audiences.