For Daniel Toscan du Plantier, the most effective way to protect a country's film industry from Hollywood invasion is "shoot and lobby," a philosophy based on 27 years experience in the European, especially French, film industry.
As the president of Unifrance, an organization promoting French films worldwide, Toscan du Plantier is also former director of the Caesar Film Awards and has produced more than 200 films including Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman), Under Satan's Sun (Maurice Pialaf) and The Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway). His advice on Taiwan's film industry during a recent three-day visit has been warmly welcomed.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Numbered among those listening was Chen Yu-hsiu (
"You have a very good basis, great directors with worldwide reputations. The success ratio of the films made here is very high," he added.
Promoting and preserving French films as cultural property is not an easy task, said Plantier. "It has required constant lobbying and fighting for the past 50 years."
Most importantly, for Plantier, is setting up the rules of the game at the beginning. According to Plantier, 50 years ago (around the same time when Unifrance was established) the French cultural ministry set up a policy and government funding mechanism to support the film industry. This is now known as the cultural exception policy. It requires 11 percent of annual revenue of cinemas, 5.5 percent from TV companies and 2 percent from the video industry levied for a national fund managed by the government-level Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC). The fund, which averages US$450 million annually, is then distributed to French filmmakers, producers and TV productions.
"This is basically a money redistribution system. The more money Titanic makes in France, the more money we'll have to make French films," said Plantier. And what's best, he said, in this cycle of funding, "is that not a penny comes from the tax-payers' pockets."
This legislation is the result of a political struggle, said Plantier. "It's a long-term fight in the government and the parliament. The cultural people always have to fight with the business and economics people," he said.
Another key point to boost a region's film industry, according to Plantier, is publicity. In film festivals around the world, both major ones such as Cannes and Berlin and minor ones such as Hong Kong or Taipei, there is always strong involvement of Unifrance, ranging from financial sponsoring or business participation. "We have been actively participating and cooperating with film festivals in Taiwan, such as the French focus in Taipei Film Festival, and the strong line-ups at the Golden Horse International Film Festival every year. The market share of French films in Taiwan is around 1 to 2 percent. There is still a lot of room to explore," said Plantier. The worldwide success of Amelie, apart from the quality of film, can also be attributed to international promotion by Unifrance. The organization has also given marketing support to Taiwan's Mata Entertainment, the Taiwan distributor of Amelie.
"The first step to promote Taiwan films is to do good distribution work in your local market," said Plantier. He said it is sad that filmmakers like Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) and Edward Yang (楊德昌), have been internationally acclaimed but are still little known to the public, especially young movie-goers.
"You should treat them as national heroes, making their films known to everyone on the island. Because films can be the real identity for Taiwan," he said.
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