The announcement comes as no surprise, and had even been taken for granted for months. Three years after a hectic appointment at the head of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image (CNC), and while part of the profession has expressed its disagreement with its renewal, Dominique Boutonnat is back for a new term. .
“It would be incomprehensible for Dominique Boutonnat’s mandate to be renewed”, alarmed the directors of the Society of Film Directors (SRF) in a recent press release, declaring that since his appointment he has attended a “growing blurring of the boundaries between cinema and audiovisual, the redistribution of aid in favor of films already supported by the market, the multiplication, within the commissions, of performance and profitability criteria”.
In July 2019, even before he took office, 70 filmmakers and 14 professional associations had protested against the arrival in business of the producer with the profile of a technocrat. A campaign contributor to Emmanuel Macron and author of a report on film financing the previous year, he defended the need to develop an internationally competitive image industry, consolidated by contributions from the private sector, and hatching of “national champions”. Many professionals had detected the signs of an uninhibited liberalisation, disregarding what underlies the model of cultural exception: the defense of independent structures, of the plurality of works and singular expressions which could not exist if the market logics were the only ones to prevail.
Dating crisis
Three years later, while a dating crisis is particularly endangering auteur cinema, several of yesterday’s rebels believe that Boutonnat’s record at the head of the CNC does not contradict these first impressions. And seek their mode of response vis-à-vis a project that went unnoticed, in the major investment plan “France 2030” carried by the Elysée in conjunction with the CNC, “the great factory of the image”. Either a roadmap for the development of “talent of tomorrow” and the modernization of production infrastructures (concentrating a budgetary effort of 400 million euros), where one searches in vain for the word “films” or “authors”, supplanted by the terms “content”, “assets” and ” assets”.
Far from only attracting grievances, Dominique Boutonnat has given guarantees of competence and responsiveness in a context of historic crisis. None of his critics goes so far as to challenge his fine management of the health disaster: emergency creation of sectoral aid amounting to 310 million euros, without equivalent in Europe, expertise in insurance systems allowing a flash resumption of filming. The president of the CNC is also credited with breakthroughs and decisive projects in the regulation of the sector, which have made it possible to secure its future in the short term. The reform of the chronology of the media, and the historical contribution of streaming platforms in the financing of creation are thus welcomed.
my in review
Less well received were the declarations of the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, at the Parisian on June 22, which qualified the producer as “pioneer in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence”. Under his presidency, the CNC has indeed made the follow-up of post #MeToo training a mandatory condition for cinema employers to be eligible for aid paid by the Center. In the private sector, the same Boutonnat has been indicted for sexual assault and attempted rape since February 2021, following a complaint from his then 22-year-old godson. And none of the requests for withdrawal from his duties have been followed up. Presumed innocent, Boutonnat disputes the accusations. The case is undeniably messy, and filmmakers say they have already boycotted official dinners in his presence. “We trust Rima Abdul-Malak, Minister of Culture, to propose another candidacy for the President of the Republic”, still challenged the 50/50 Collective as it approached the end of its mandate.
On May 17, 185 names (including Arnaud Desplechin, Camille Cottin, Marina Foïs, producers Saïd Ben Saïd, Judith Lou Lévy, etc.) initialed in the world a column entitled “The political choices of our institutions seriously weaken the cinema”, denouncing in more or less allusive terms the new strategic orientations of the CNC, and “the risk of letting industrial rule deal a fatal blow to the exception of art”. The professionals are preparing to hold the Estates General in the fall to take stock.