Just a few days before the start of the Annecy Film Festival (11-16 June 2018), the rendezvous for animation professionals from all over the world, the CNC has published its traditional annual study on the sector. The field of animation boasts some truly excellent French training facilities (with three schools ranked among the global top ten: Gobelins – L’École de l’image in Paris, Supinfocom Rubika in Valenciennes and Mopa in Arles) that feed a sector that is extremely dynamic in terms of job creation (6,200 jobs in total, and 700 more than in 2016) and export clout (a record of €133 million of sales in 2016, making it the number-one French audiovisual genre in this field, and a total of €15.17 million in takings abroad for French film productions in 2017). This paints a rather cheering picture, which is nevertheless tainted somewhat by this week’s announcement that France 4’s (the second most important TV broadcaster in terms of animated audiovisual programmes, airing 3,800 hours in 2017) move towards digital, as part of the forthcoming public television reform, has been turned completely on its head.

Specifically in terms of cinema, five animated features were approved as French in 2017: Minuscule – Mandibles From Far Away [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Hélène Giraud and Thomas Szabo, Pachamama [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Juan Antin, The Swallows of Kabul [+lee también:
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entrevista: Zabou Breitman, Eléa Gobbe…
ficha de la película] by Zabou Breitman and Elea Gobbé-Mévellec, The Crossing [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Florence Miailhe, and The Girl Without Hands [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Sébastien Laudenbach. And for 2018, there are already a handful of movies that have been approved, such as Le Sommet des dieux by Eric Valli and Jean-Christophe Roger, Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy, Marona's Fantastic Tale [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Anca Damian, Vic the Viking and the Magic Sword [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Éric Cazes, I Lost My Body [+lee también:
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entrevista: Jérémy Clapin
ficha de la película] by Jérémy Clapin, and Sam Sam [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Tanguy de Kermel. Interestingly, in 2017, the average budget of approved films stood at €5.9 million, and the share of foreign investments in French productions is traditionally higher in the field of animation than it is in other cinematic genres (fiction and documentary).

In terms of distribution, 36 hitherto unseen animated features came out in French theatres last year, 14 of which were American, five French and nine of other European nationalities. On average, an animated film is distributed across 344 screens in France (383 for French features, 584 for US productions and 128 for non-French European titles). In total, animated films racked up 31 million admissions in France last year (2.9 million of which were for national films, or 9.3% of the market, as against 82% for US movies and 4.5% for features from the rest of Europe, thanks in particular to the Belgian movie The Son of Bigfoot [+lee también:
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entrevista: Ben Stassen
ficha de la película]). 

The CNC study is accessible in its entirety here (in French).