National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image

The Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) is a public administrative institution with legal personality and financial autonomy that was created in 1946. It comes under the supervision of the French Ministry of Culture and is headed by a president.

The CNC is responsible for conceiving and implementing France’s national policy in the fields of cinema and audiovisual as well as other arts and industries related to multimedia and animated images: video games, technical industries, interactive universes, video, and digital creation.

The main missions of the CNC are:

To participate in drawing up regulations in its field of action and to control their application by the different film, television, video, and multimedia players.
To support the diversity and independence of cinema and audiovisual productions, the freedom of creation, the preservation and promotion of film heritage, the emergence of new talents, the promotion of cultural dissemination to all audiences.
To supervise financial instruments for the sector based on tax incentives and various support schemes.
To participate in the monitoring of professional negotiations relating to the production and broadcasting obligations of broadcasters (television, platforms), literary and artistic property, remuneration and contractual practices applicable to authors.
In conjunction with the Ministry of Culture, the CNC is also responsible for defining and implementing multilateral policy in the cinema and audiovisual sectors, both at European level (European Union, Council of Europe) and internationally (WTO, OECD, UNESCO, etc.). The CNC is also responsible for promoting and developing coproductions with other countries as well as the export and promotion of French films and television abroad.

The CNC core activity is to support cinematographic and audiovisual creations especially by providing financial support for the creation, production and distribution of French and European works in their varied forms, such as feature films, short films, series, and genres such as fiction, documentary, and animation. To this end, the CNC is involved at all levels of the cinema and audiovisual industries such as writing, development, production, distribution, exhibition, innovation, technical industries, broadcasting, promotion and export.

This support is provided through around forty schemes administered by the CNC thanks to its cinema and audiovisual fund which relies on the proceeds of three taxes directly allocated to it and levied on linear and non linear audiovisual media service providers, internet services providing access to television services and on cinema box office receipts. The financial aids given by the CNC can take various forms.

Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)

person

Number of inhabitants

66,548,530 (2024)
euro

Budget in 2023

715,8 M€
local_movies

Number of projects supported in 2023

298

Film Education - EFAD Members' Initiatives

For more than 30 years, the CNC and the French Ministry of Culture have been pursuing an ambitious and innovative policy of education in cinema and images for young people, from kindergarten onwards and throughout their schooling, through a series of initiatives. Every year, the program “Ma classe au cinéma” enables 2 million pupils and apprentices to discover cinema in theatres as part of a class project. The program “L’Atelier cinéma” introduces pupils from 8 to 12 to the various stages of film creation, leading them to produce a short film. The programs “Les Enfants des lumière(s)”, “Passeurs d’images” and “Des cinés, la vie !” help young people with no easy access to culture – for example from sensitive urban areas or placed in the care of the French Youth Judicial Protection Service (PJJ) – to know more about cinema. The program “Toute la lumière sur les SEGPA” offers middle-school students with learning difficulties the chance to engage in artistic and cultural education for an entire school year around the creation of a short-lenght movie. The program “cinéma et citoyenneté” is aimed at developing film clubs in high and middle schools. The program “Ecris ta série” is aimed at raising awareness from an early age on screenwriting with the organisation of workshops througout France. The “Prix Jean Renoir des lycéens” et “Prix César des lycéens” unite young people around French cinema by enabling high-school students to award films among a preselection of works. Finally, the program “Les Ambassadeurs” encourages young people to get involved in organizing events around cinephilia notably in cinemas and festivals.

Useful links

Education à l'image

Sustainability - EFAD Members’ Initiatives

The CNC launched the “Plan Action !” on June 2021, in order to set up a public policy for an energy and ecological transition in the cinema, audiovisual and moving image sectors. This plan aims at encouraging, defining, as well as imposing new obligations on the professionals of these sectors, within a span of 3 years (2022-2024). More specifically, in 2022, the CNC established an Observatory for ecological transition, which studies the green practices and energy impact of the sectors concerned (the first study on the energy impact of cinemas was published in June 2022). Since October 2022, a training programme on ecological challenges and responsible production is offered to university students of film schools. Since March 31, 2023, producers of cinematographic works (feature films and shorts) and audiovisual works (series and one-offs) in the fiction and documentary genres have to provide a carbon footprint for their works when applying for support and when receiving final grant. This obligation extends to animation works and video games as of March 1st, 2025. The aim is to accompany professionals towards a more responsible transformation of the film and audiovisual sectors, and to make them aware of the environmental impact of their activities, to help them reduce it.

As part of the “Plan Action !” and in order to support professionals in the film, audiovisual and advertising sectors in their responsible production approach, which has already begun, and to structure it on a national basis, the CNC and the French Ministry of Culture assisted by the French standards association AFNOR published in 2024 a reference guide. The guidelines provide production companies with concrete actions for producing a film, audiovisual or advertising project, on location, that takes into account the scope of CSR, i.e. environmental issues (carbon, pollution, energy, waste, biodiversity, etc.), social issues (inclusion, parity, training, etc.) and economic issues (responsible purchasing, circular economy, reuse, etc.).