Is cinema the 7th art or an industry? The question is problematic, like choosing between poetry and prose. But, ultimately, why choose? In fact, cinema is both art and economy, as well as a vehicle for visibility and promotion of a region.
Would Los Angeles be the same city without Hollywood and its “film industry”?
And what would Cannes be without the most important film festival in the world, which has made it an international signature with significant artistic renown and enormous economic benefits?
Moreover, cinema traditions are not lacking in Nice, where the Victorine Studios long stood as a counterpart to their Californian counterpart before declining.
Thus, it was a wise move for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Alpes-Maritimes to set up the Côte d’Azur Film Commission* (whose president is – fittingly – the mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard) to support this sector of image and audiovisual industries, which today boasts a turnover of €231 million, 450 identified businesses, and 1,500 referenced jobs.
Not to mention being a tool for visibility and promotion of the French Riviera to a vast international audience who might be attracted by the images of the azure sites featured in films. An indirect but, according to experts, highly effective advertisement (18% of visitors report having made their choice based on this criterion).
This induced alliance between the creativity industry and tourism is confirmed by the eloquent results of 2014: between feature films, TV series and movies, documentaries, short films, news reports, reality TV shows, commercial films, photo advertisement, and more, over 300 projects materialized, amounting to nearly 2,000 filming days.
On the poetry side, it’s a demonstration of impressive creative power.
On the prose side, it’s about territorial marketing, with 32,000 hotel nights for 37 million in direct and 85 million in indirect injections.
Not bad, isn’t it, for this open-air filming theater that offers only the site’s beauty and its light.
But we must look further ahead, and faced with increasingly adept international competition, mere support action is no longer sufficient, and we must necessarily go further.
This has led to the creation of the ICCA (Côte d’Azur Film Industry) endowment fund, which proposes itself as a collection and distribution center, activating private and corporate sponsorship that can benefit from tax reduction mechanisms.
It will be chaired by Jean-Pierre Lelelux, senator and former mayor of Grasse, and is expected to create a leverage and multiplier effect on the number of films made by intervening in the strategic financing phase.
