Blood, Sweat and Producing, Part II:  France—Co-Financing, Cultural Barriers, and Boyfriends

A bad economy or what the French call "mauvaise ambiance" (literally bad ambiance) has also made co-financing especially difficult over the last few years in France. Scheinman, who recently returned to work in New York stated, "it was harder and harder to get financing, especially if you were doing documentaries, people were starting to merge, they were trying to find bigger partners to back them. Six companies went under that year, that was in '93 - '94. All these small companies that were doing quite well were starting to get into a lot of trouble financially." Many of the panelists also noted that France was hot in the late 80's and early 90's, but now much of that fever has moved into a British production swell.

"Up until recently, CIBY 2000," says moderator Pereth, "which we've seen its demise, was financing totally quite a few American auteurs, like John Sayles, David Lynch, supporting some really interesting films. There are others...particularly those who are connected very much to international sales, and who are very keen to increase their English language libraries, so if you are an American independent, and you have some notoriety, that is certainly one way of working with France."

But what if you're not David Lynch, as is the case with most directors or producers looking to navigate the oceans of international film and television co-productions. How does one find a foreign partner they can trust? "Ask around," suggests Hart, "Not every producer is made to get into an international co-production. Some of them do what they do very well, but should stay in their backyards, play with their own toys. ...And that's not the kind of person I want on my project." On the American side, she looks for, "Francophiles, they love Europe" and for the French company, she makes sure "they're not too French, they love America," concluding "Find those people who are going to have mutual respect of each other's cultures."

Scheinman, who got 5 countries and 7 different broadcasters to finance Altman's "Vincent and Theo," also offered some advice to documentary producers seeking a partner in France, "There's two ways you can do it. If it has some kind of French content, you can pre-sell to a broadcaster, which means it has interest in France. Or you can try to hook up with another production company and work with them as a co-producer, meaning you have access through their company to government money and television networks, but the project again, has to be something that both the French and the Americans are interested in."

But for the broadcast arena, Simon Hart warned, "When you're talking co-production, it's co-creation, co-financing, co-ownership, you're going to 'co' it all the way down the line," she reiterated, "and get that in your head, because some people mistakenly will come to the broadcasters/French partners in the television world and think that co-production means just co-financing. No, you're going to be doing that dance." Hart continued, "People do not do co-productions because they're just dying to work with each other, they do it because there's an economic need. If you can walk into a partner, and you basically have a piece of the financing in place out of America, then it will be a valid project. A lot of producers think, 'no,' I'll get my foreign partners, and then I can back into the United States."

Pimsleur soon popped this fantasy, "I don't think I've ever seen an American succeed in arriving in France, getting a meeting with a French broadcaster, and then convincing them to actually do it. It's very hard to get people on the phone, it's very hard to get a meeting," she claims, "Don't underestimate it." As an alternative to seeking broadcasters directly, Pimsleur offered, "As hard as it may be to find a co-production partner, I think that is the way to go. My very concrete recommendation is to go to markets and festivals, meet people, exchange cards, see whose done work like this...That's your best bet."

And once one does form that miraculous much-needed partnership, "People are very caught up in the government grant system," says Pimsleur about the French, "It takes months and months and months, and you have to be in the system and to get your project voted by one of these committees that decides who gets the money [and] you have to know people in the committees who will defend your project," she confessed. "No one is going to tell you that, but that's the way it works. It's very hard to get off the ground as an independent in France...If you want to go that route, plan on spending several years, because you have to get to know everybody before anything works."

What "sums up the whole difference between America and France is that the word ambitious ('ambitieux' in French) is only negative. There's no positive connotations of that word," said Pimsleur. "They have another expression, it's called 'avoir les dents longs' which means you 'have long teeth' that drag along the carpet because you're so trying to get your teeth into everything." For Pimsleur, these cultural differences were reason enough, "So that's why I left France."