How French Cinema Works

suicide or suicide attempt at least once in every movie

We can directly see the difference between France and USA because you talk about the money the movie maked and in France we talk about the number of entry the movies make... It's not about the money but about the number of peoples who watched it
About the CNC, the french system is good, even if it have his flaws, mainly some peoples making film for 40 years and they are never showed or liked. Like some have donzens of movies with less than 10 000 entry...

Korea is or is about to support his cinema in the same way by copiyng CNC. Smart.

Hey another frenchie here! that is a pretty interesting view on our CNC system. Indeed it's a controversial topic around here, more often critizised than not.
Well, if you'd like a movie recommendation that was made possible because of the CNC founding, here's one that i think will be worth your time and interest.
It is called Mars Express, it is a sci-fi animated movie in the good ol' handmade fashion. Meant for a mature audience though, don't watch it with your kid :D

I have to say, I am french, I had no idea- I'm really happy to hear all that cos my brother wants to be a director, I really hope the system helps him... Great video!

This is how it works everywhere in the civilized world but in the states… otherwise cultural colonization would be total and complete in a decade.
I can see the benefits, but I also see the all too many flaws of this system. Having some gov officials judging on the cultural value of art is never a good idea. There’s plenty of tax money poured into productions nobody would ever want to see.
And the last thing we need in Europe, France particularly, is taxes, we have taxes for breathing and then some…

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worked...
now it is owned by big media groups and corporate
hence why French cinema being dying for years now

sry, we don't have cinema, we have propaganda. And it's not buiild by french ppl. The "cinema" is used to humiliate french ppl.

As a Frenchman, big meh. The original goal "to support an independent cinema that is bold in terms of market standards" was noble, but it has completely deviated. For quite some time now, there's been an implicit political filter for the allocation of subsidies, resulting in a predominance of artsy, left-wing or far-left productions featuring the same group of actors year after year, the same ideologies, and coming the same caste of people (le milieu socialiste bourgeois). It's getting old, and it shows in the declining ticket sales: fewer and fewer people are seing them. Essentially, it has evolved into a form of political monopoly in the industry. Saying it's imperfect understates the reality of it.

Thanks for the video !
I'm French, and I didn't even know how the CNC worked !

i remember going to the cinema with one of my teacher. We saw studio ghibli's spirited away, that was my first contact with animation from japan. as a kid i was absolutly blown away by the movie.

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So happy you made that video for the world to see!

If this was done in America, it would be the most politicized agency known to man.

I mean, the principle of the "grant" from the CNC that is not dependent on commercial succes is a good thing on paper. BUT. And that's a big but. That's without accounting for all the corruption, nepotism, etc. that happens at the CNC. There are many cases where the people who decide how to spend CNC money have more-than-clear conflicts of interests with the people who ask for (and receive) the grants. And that counts for cinema as well as the other kinds of grants the CNC is responsible for. A whole portion of french cinema and media is in fact a little oligarchic caste that found a loophole to get free money to produce shit movies that nobody will go see or even hear about, and take a big part of the grants as salary to sustain their privileged, ssytem-cheating a**es.

As someone who lives in France, i have never really noticed how cinema was a part of our education or at least never questioned it as it was "normal", but after watching this video i got to think of all the moments i got to watch movies at the movie theatre and later on discuss it in class. In high school i got to choose an optional class called "littérature et société", where we'd discuss/debate/study a lot of interesting topics(politics, gastronomy, litterature, journalism, art...etc/ nglit felt like Dead poets society) and one of them being CINEMA! With the few people in the class we got to go to a film festival in Aubenas called " Les rencontres des Cinémas d'europes" which was such an amazing experience and got to discover Mustang! I've always loved cinema and i think the cinema culture being very accessible in France definitely made it easier for me to have fun.

As a French person, this video made me feel really proud.

En tant que Français ce système est une honte, l'Etat finance uniquement les films qui vont dans sont sens. Et la majorité des films financé coute au contribuable et ne rapporte rien car personnes ne va voir les films de merde a propagande lgbt, pro immigration et j'en passe. Bref une belle mafia républicaine et ou la corruption pullule.

The cinéma is a french invention. So it's important for our culture to continue and protect our culture.

I'm French. Had no idea how the CNC worked and boy am I glad I now do. Sick video man :)

in my mind the closest thing we have to the cnc in the united states is pbs. it’s definitely valuable, but in my opinion the heavy focus on purely “educational” content is something that holds it back from public appeal

The CNC is a good thing but it also have drawback. To have the fund you need to have you project approved. So now some french film maker didn't try to making good movies, but they make project that will be approved by the CNC. That why in France we have tons of insipid drama movies (vaudevilles) with the sames actors. The french cinema was slowy dying of lack of creativity. It seems the things are going better now beacause of the replacement of the old guard approving the project.

CNC is a good thing, no doubt, but it has the exact same flaws than a system like the American one, let me explain.
When Holywood only makes superheroes movies which all look alike with humorous lines and cgi and similar scenario, the French film industry also fell into the same problem: CNC largely chooses who it will fund and who it will not fund, not for the same reasons of course, in America the goal is to make profits, in France the goal is very different ! And guess what kind of films France now massively produces ?
I give you a clue, what's the political agenda of the Ministère de la Culture which manage this CNC ?
Keep in mind Emmanuel Macron comes from the Socialist Party, François Hollande who is the former president also was a socialist, and their Prime Ministers and governments also are socialists.
You've guessed it. CNC chooses to finance massively films which are openly pro-immigration, pro-LGBT, cosmopolite diversity, and most of them are (bad) comedies.
It's so blatant now that with some films you can't even say they're French productions, since many film directors are Africans, and casts are also largely African.
You don't believe me ? Type this in wikipedia : Liste de films français sortis en 2023
Then read the synopsis of each film. Happy journey with the fantastic Socialist scenario of the French film industry !

It's important to understand that Cinema in France is though as a cultural piece first and an industrie good second.
That means two things:
- Culture prevail over free market (like education, health or military). It's not free, but it gets a lot of laws & exceptions.
- The movie director get the final cut and not the producer.
"Yeaah the artists get to make their movies" meh, it just means producers will hire yes-men and already installed directors or approve time proved recipies.
Most artists aren't good at managing money and most money managers aren't good artists. So the Director vs Producer dilemma is almost unsolvable (unless you succed as a director and become a producer)

As a frenchman who loves all kinds of movies from all over the world, not just the blockbusters, I think you have an idealized view of French cinema production, which in my opinion is very bad.
The cinema in France is NOT diverse and ambitious, at least very much less than for example the US. The only things that gets produced is 1- shitty comedies with broad appeal 2- (mostly) shitty arthouse film that no one watches (instead of interesting independant cinema).
Nepotism is rampant, and is the main factor that decide what gets produced and who gets hired.

The way the US does it has its problems sure, but the results are much more varied and interesting than the french system, with the CNC bureaucrats pushing for shitty arthouse that only flatter their egos and politics et TV channels that only finance shitty comedies, always with the same talentless hacks

probably explains why the French have such a geat culture of cinema! Very interesting!

Very interesting!

Bon résumé !

CNC is croony communism...

Cinema did not originate in France. The movie camera is an American invention. The first public movie theater opened in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. The United States had a thriving Cinema culture decades before the French. Heck the first feature length film is an Australian film. Even the first Art House films were Italian and Russian. Frances contributions to cinema are factually very small. Sorry. Not trying to belittle France, but facts are facts.

We have a similar thing in Spain, and I'm sure other European countries.
It's pretty common in modern nations to have initiatives like this.

The CNC is basically what allows directors with little to no networks or money, to actually produce movies that would’ve never been made otherwise.

Very interesting way to fund the arts. Yeah, I’m so sick of tired of these bad action blockbusters and live action movies, here in the U.S.

In Colombia we have the same. The FDC, and works similar to the video with all the perks and problems that you can imagine.

Without it, it wouldn't be possible to make the 90% of the movies in Colombia. It has dramatically change the film industry panorama.

actual french cinema is: take a minority, any one, they spend 2 hours making the worst insulting and cliché joke about this miniroty. then when people complain, say ' but it was a joke, we can't say anything. defunes could, why not me?"
oh, and add a bunch of useless sprotsmen cameos too

LeNerdwriter. Oui'

CNC is a SCAM....

Socialist enterprise? Wow. There’s a view. :) funding art sounds like patronage to me

Isn't that socialism? /s

Like every cinephile, who indulges in world cinema, I'm always been in awe of French Film industry for the consistency and variety of cinema. Thanks for sharing this fabulous insight and such a easy to understand breakdown. Great Job....🤩👍

The American sensibility is too allergic to that kind of socialist enterprise.

I suspect that if the US had something like the CNC, we'd have more character studies in cinema, and fewer movies about things blowing up.

How did I only just see this essay now? This was great, and actually pretty similar to a constant discussion us theatre folk have regarding whether the US will ever have a government-subsidized National Theatre system the way a lot of Europe has. Great work as usual, Evan!

This video is a horror movie for republicans

Thank you very much for making this video.

Want to hear a joke?

The New Zealand public funding system for film, television and media.

It's based on the French system. It has the same structure. Same goals. Same desire to support the arts - specifically the depiction of the New Zealand way of life with emphasis on our cultural uniqueness. Especially around the culture of the Maori people and their language 'Te Reo'.

What's the punchline to this joke?

New Zealand tries to do this, but it doesn't use taxation to support this system. The taxes spent on cinema tickets, DVD rentals, streamer subscriptions and the taxes paid by huge American studios coming to our country and filming here...all goes directly back into the national economic pot.

New Zealand funds its "public" system through a set budget amount (which has shrunken by 65% over the last 30 years and is currently a whopping $25 million USD for EVERYTHING we make in this country) and by money from selling lottery tickets.

This is the same public system that Peter Jackson and Taika Waititi navigated through, escaped from and regularly shit on at every opportunity they can. They, along with other filmmakers like M3GAN director Gerard Johnstone, MULAN director Nikki Caro and AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER director Roseanne Liang, achieved success despite the limits of our public funded film and TV system.

We model ourselves on the French system but we can't afford to do anything that the French do - no credit-refund system, no funding for art-house cinemas, nothing like that. And this year we have scrapped the talent-development system so no more short films from next year onwards.

New Zealand is ALLERGIC to taxation. It wants to be a little neo-liberal haven for billionaires in the South Seas. The idea of taxing multinational corporations, let alone directly funding that into supporting local filmmakers, is somehow horrifying to them.

If you want to see the French public funding system gone horribly wrong, just look at New Zealand and marvel that we could have produced a Peter Jackson, a Taika or frankly anyone at all.

Terrific video, thank you for putting it together so succinctly.

French cinema is also at the other end of the sprecturm: Producing a lot of movies nobody wants to watch VS never giving money to projects belonging to the fantasy or scifi genre. a middle ground would be nice