Tautou followup 'is not French', court insists
The latest collaboration between Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou, who made Amélie one of the biggest recent successes of French cinema, is officially not a French movie any more. It is now technically an American film.
A Very Long Engagement is considered a US production because it was financed by a company whose funds come from America. A French court ruled last week that the film's producers could not receive up to €3.5m (£2.4m) in state funds because the film was not a French production.
The film, the story of a young woman who believes her fiancé has survived the trenches of the first world war despite being declared dead, was due to receive the money once it had sold 5m tickets. It was on course to achieve this: it already sold 3m tickets in a month.
The court's decision is the latest event in a long-standing controversy about French cinema funding. Last month, in a similar case, a comedy was labelled non-French because it was financed with foreign funds.
The Association of Independent Producers and the Union of Independent Producers went to court over A Very Long Engagement, because they are afraid state funds could go to Hollywood-financed blockbuster productions.
"The court said that 2003 Productions [the company that financed the film] was solely created to avoid the law," said the Union of Independent Producers last week.
But Francis Boespflug, the producer of A Very Long Engagement, was insistent about the "Frenchness" of a film whose cast and crew were Gallic.
"This crazy decision endangers the film's financing, 2003 Productions, and long-term investments in French cinema production," he said.