09/11/2006

French Minister for Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres announced yesterday the creation of a support fund for "film and audiovisual creativity dealing with diversity in France and equal rights."

The €10m "Images de la diversité" fund will be managed by the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), who will allocate funding along with the National Agency for Social Cohesion (ANCSEC). Alexandre Michelin, former programme director at France 5, will head the project selection commission, before the composition and the rules of functioning of the commission will be decided by decree at the end of the year.

In order to get the funds up and running as soon as possible, the CNC and ANCSEC have introduced a transitional measure that will examine requests for supplementary support for all projects eligible for selective film, audiovisual or video funding. Candidate projects should encourage "the knowledge of reality and expression of immigrant populations from immigrant countries” or from overseas French territories; promote their memory, their history and their cultural heritage, or even increase awareness of their fight against discrimination.

Meanwhile, the symbolic film of French diversity, Days of Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Bréhat
interview: Rachid Bouchareb
film profile] by Rachid Bouchareb (see Focus), continues its box office success with over 2.7m admissions (€15.7m in box office takings), which puts it in ninth position overall in 2006.

The feature – which will represent Algeria in the running for the Oscar 2007 nominations for Best Foreign Language Film – clocked up a further 150,000 admissions in its sixth week and is in seventh place at the weekly box office ratings.

The film is on release on 529 screens through Mars Distribution .

(Translated from French)