{"id":126279,"date":"2025-05-23T21:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T21:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/126279\/"},"modified":"2025-05-23T21:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T21:27:14","slug":"ted-sarandos-met-emmanuel-macron-at-choose-france-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/126279\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Sarandos Met Emmanuel Macron at ‘Choose France’ Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFrench President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> wasn\u2019t kidding when he told Variety<\/a> the country would fight to get \u201cEmily in Paris\u201d back to France after the hit Netflix show\u2019s Roman escapade.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix boss Ted Sarandos<\/a> was one of the few top U.S. players invited by Macron to take part in the eighth edition of Choose France, a summit dedicated to promoting the country\u2019s attractiveness to draw investments. Held on May 19 at Versailles, the event marked the first time Choose France included a focus on cinema and audiovisual.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the summit\u2019s cultural program was initiated well before U.S. President Trump proposed a 100% tariff on foreign films amid rising tensions between French and U.S. guilds, it turned out to be an auspicious timing for a transatlantic meeting. Since little is known about Trump\u2019s plan so far, attendees continued to focus on increasing France\u2019s piece of the production pie.<\/p>\n

\n\tMacron sat at a table alongside Sarandos, Mediawan CEO and chairman Pierre-Antoine Capton, A24 co-founder Daniel Katz, Apple\u2019s head of worldwide video Jamie Erlicht, Russell Grandinetti, SVP for Amazon\u2019s international stores, France culture minister Rachida Dati, CNC president Gaetan Bruel and Valerie Pecresse, the president of the \u00cele-de-France Regional Council. Also present were French producers such as Alexia Laroche-Joubert, Banijay France CEO, Federation Studios\u2019 Pascal Breton and executive producers Raphael Benoliel and John Bernard.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPr\u00e9sidence de la R\u00e9publique<\/p>\n

\n\tThe biggest issue brought up by Sarandos during the discussion was the need for France to strengthen its tax incentive for international productions. Currently France has a 30% tax rebate on below-the-line expenses incurred in France (and up to 40% if visual effects are done locally), but Sarandos and other executives, such as Benoliel and Bernard, are calling for the country to extend the eligible expenses to above-the-line costs, such as the actors\u2019 salaries. While the issue was addressed before in vain, Macron hinted that it could be considered this time around.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was the first time since the creation of the international tax rebate (in 2009) that we could discuss these above-the-line expenses and felt that our arguments were heard,\u201d said Benoliel. \u201cThere\u2019s been a slowdown of production everywhere and if we want to stay competitive with countries like Italy and the U.K., we need to put this in place because it will benefit our entire economy and ecosystem, including crew members and talent pool and make sure that all the infrastructure we\u2019re building in France will be of use,\u201d Benoliel continued.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the discussion, Macron highlighted what France has put in place to raise its profile as a hot destination for international productions, including an investment of \u20ac1 billion (of which \u20ac300 million are public funding) to beef up filming infrastructures, train top-tier technicians and workforce in animation and VFX, as part of the government\u2019s France 2030 roadmap. Echoing Macron, the French delegation also spoke about iconic landmarks such as the Chateau de Versailles or the Louvre Museum that have welcomed shoots in recent years. Even Coralie Fargeat\u2019s Oscar-winning \u201cThe Sustance,\u201d produced by Working Title and Universal, shot entirely in Southern France though the film is set in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the heart of the discussions on Monday was France 2030,\u201d says Bruel. \u201cUnder this plan, we have doubled our filming capacity with new studios, backlot replicating Paris, new schools, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few days prior to the meeting in Versailles, the CNC and the French army\u2019s Mission Cinema hosted a historic event on May 17 in Cannes and gathered a handful of U.S. executives on board a French Navy frigate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a way of showing them how well integrated France\u2019s film support services are, and how the French system operates in a very fluid way, where we can solve any problems and come up with creative solutions, and get the full support of our highest authorities,\u201d Bruel points out.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy DR<\/p>\n

\n\tLaroche-Joubert says that while Britain has a bigger tax rebate than France and has the benefit of being an English-speaking nation, the U.S. executives present at the Choose France roundtable suggested that U.K. filming facilities and workforce were already saturated. \u201cAnd to be very clear, Britain doesn\u2019t have the Eiffel Tower, Versailles or the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es. And Italy neither!\u201d says Laroche-Joubert, whose company, Banijay France, recently worked with Apple on \u201cCar\u00eame<\/a>,\u201d a 19th century-set French historical drama\u00a0which partly shot at Versailles and Palais Royal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cErlicht told me something fantastic,\u201d says Laroche-Joubert. \u201cHe said, \u2018if I had to shoot this series, \u2018Car\u00eame,\u2019 in the U.S. it would have cost me four to six times more with the production value that you have put in place.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe French lobbying to attract shoots has irked some within the ranks of U.S. film guilds such as the DGA and the MPA that have voiced their concerns to the United States Trade Representative about runaway productions, but the presence of key American players such as Sarandos, Katz, Erlicht and Grandinetti in Paris at Choose France conveyed a sense that the relationship between French and U.S. film and TV industries was still harmonious.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, Sarandos was so hyped about his visit at Choose France that he posted a selfie with Macron on Instagram and wrote that he had \u201can incredible few days in Paris\u201d and added that \u201cFrance has always been at the heart of cinema and storytelling, and Netflix is proud to continue partnering with French talent to share these unique voices in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSarandos\u2019 post was liked and commented on by no other than Lily Collins, aka Emilie Cooper of \u201cEmily in Paris,\u201d with a bunch of high-five emojis. Collins will be indeed be back in Paris to shoot the remainder of \u201cEmily in Paris\u201d season 5 in the French capital in a few days. Benoliel, who is producer on the series, joked to Macron (who made headlines when he told Variety <\/a>about his determination to have the show stay in France last October) that he was going to pick up Collins in Rome to make sure she\u2019ll return to Paris.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring Choose France, Sarandos also announced that the streamer will ramp up its investment the southern French city of Marseille, through the film school Kourtrajm\u00e9 Marseille and the launch of a Cinematheque in Marseille.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis eighth edition of Choose France, which hosted more than 400 participants from 46 nationalities, yielded a record of 53 announcements representing a cumulated \u20ac40.8 billion in investment, half of which will go towards AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French President Emmanuel Macron wasn\u2019t kidding when he told Variety the country would fight to get \u201cEmily in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[34,2000,299,36,26503],"class_list":{"0":"post-126279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-emmanuel-macron","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-ted-sarandos"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114559270561013791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}