Nerdwriter: How French Cinema Works (YouTube Video)

The video “How French Cinema Works” provides a fascinating look at the unique system that supports and shapes the film industry in France. At the center of it all is the CNC (the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image), a government agency with no equivalent in the United States.

The CNC helps fund movies, TV, and other digital creation in France at every stage, from pre-production to exhibition. It gets its money through three key taxes:

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1. A 10.7% tax on movie ticket sales, whether the film is French or not
2. A tax on TV providers, established in the 1980s as cinema attendance declined
3. Taxes on physical media (DVDs/Blu-rays), video on demand, and French streaming platforms

In 2022, these taxes brought in a whopping €714 million in revenue for the CNC, 4 times larger than the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts in the U.S., for a country 5 times smaller in population.

So where does all this money go? Right back into supporting French audiovisual creation. In 2022:

• 43% went to cinema
• 39% to TV and streaming
• 18% to other initiatives like video games, VFX studios, film preservation and more

French filmmakers can access these funds in two ways: automatic aid and selective aid. Automatic aid acts like a credit account – the success of your last film earns you credits to cash in on your next project, rewarding box office performance. Selective aid, often given to first-time directors as an advance on receipts, is effectively a grant to support bold, independent cinema that might struggle to find commercial success.

But the CNC does much more than fund production. It supports the entire cinema ecosystem, giving millions each year to maintain and renovate theaters across the country, especially those that show diverse films. It also invests in film education to inspire a love of all kinds of movies in the next generation.

While not a perfect system, with the bureaucratic issues you’d expect, the CNC represents a radically different approach than the U.S. system, which relies almost entirely on the private sector and commercial metrics of success. Established in part to combat Hollywood’s dominance after the world wars, the CNC’s commitment to diverse, challenging cinema is unparalleled.

It’s an approach that would be hard to imagine in the U.S., but as the video points out, it’s important to understand how other systems work. For all its flaws, the French system is envied worldwide for its holistic support of cinema culture. Its investment across the entire ecosystem has helped create a dedicated public of moviegoers eager for a wide range of theatrical experiences. A fitting legacy, perhaps, for the country where cinema was born.

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dd33803, 07/05/2023

This is a great app. I wish more people would support it

This app provides info about movies, reviews, ratings from people who have seen it before and after viewing. It has links to info about the movies. It let’s you know when there will be a lull in the action and how long it will last. If you want to know what happens during that time, you can check the brief synopsis (you have to click a link, so no accidental spoilers). It has a timer you can set (silent) to alert you to a break. It also tells you whether there is anything extra during or after the credits. It’s really a wonderful app. I’ve subscribed for a couple of years to support the developers, but I noticed some of the links to provide feedback didn’t seem to work today. They also made it free, with voluntary donations to see the pee-times. If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to do so, and subscribe if you like it. I really hope the app is supported so it can continue to be maintained!

Developers note: RunPee doesn’t make much money but it supports itself nicely. Donations are appreciated, but not required. We’ll add as many movies to the database as we can until there are no more movie theaters.

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Dan Gardner

Creator and developer of the RunPee app. When something doesn’t work right in the app it’s pretty much his fault. 🙂

Aspiring author. Would like to finish his “Zombie Revelations” trilogy if he could break away for working on RunPee and the cottage he’s building for RunPee Mom.