2015 Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée
Jean Painlevé, one of the pioneers of scientific cinema, gave in 1947 this definition of documentary cinema: “Any film which by rational or emotional means and using footage of real phenomena or via sincere and justified reconstitution aims at consciously increasing human knowledge as well as exposing problems and their solutions from an economic, social or cultural point of view.”
Today, if the majority of documentary takes the form of an audiovisual work, though its identity has evolved all along the history of cinema since the Lumière brothers’ first shots, it must more than ever be, during a period when there is an exponential expansion of audiovisual content on offer, a genre encouraging a less passive way of life and greater discernment, cultivating the taste for knowledge and truth.
Nowhere in the world is there a system of financing as sophisticated and beneficial for documentary as in France, and it is one of our founding missions to support the diversity and originality of creators’ visions. This is the full meaning we have given to the reform of the COSIP in favour of creative documentary that we set up last autumn.
The CNC accompanies all the stages of documentary creation and production and is organising for this new edition of the États généraux du film documentaire at Lussas a workshop dealing with the issues of writing and development in creative documentary based on the film by Régis Sauder, L’Ordre du genre, supported by the Audiovisual Innovation Aid Fund. This workshop will provide the opportunity to become better acquainted with the CNC’s financial aid structures, which constitute precious tools for the preservation of the diversity of documentary styles.
I wish to congratulate Pascale Paulat, Christophe Postic and their team, and thank them, as well as the association Ardèche Images, for their dedication in service of creative documentary, to which we are all highly attached.
Frédérique Bredin
President of the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC)