French and American producers behind Hasan Hadi’s shortlisted Iraqi Oscar entry “The President’s Cake,” Hafsia Herzi’s Cannes prizewinning “The Little Sister” and Adam Meeks’ Sundance pic “Union County” talked about the difference between France’s public funding system and the U.S.’s private investment model at a panel at Film at the Lincoln Center on Saturday.
Bringing together Julie Billy (“The Little Sister”), Leah Chen Baker (“The President’s Cake”) and Stephanie Roush (“Union County”), the discussion was hosted as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival co-organized by Unifrance, the French film and TV promotion org.
Billy, whose film “The Little Sister” – directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Hafsia Herzi — won best actress for Nadia Melliti at Cannes and at the Cesar Awards, said France’s government-backed film financing system remains key to launching emerging filmmakers and can inject up to about €500,000 per project. Yet, it remains a highly selective and competitive mechanism, partly due to the fact that France produces roughly 400 films per year.
“The Little Sister,” for instance, proved difficult to finance in France. She says the film’s topic, which revolves around a young Muslim woman who comes out as a lesbian and struggles to reconcile her faith and desires, failed to get funding from the National Film Board (CNC) during development.
Adapted from the novel by Fatima Daas, “The Little Sister’ was maybe too ‘woke’ for French funders,” she said. Billy, who runs the Paris-based production company June Films with Naomi Denamur, had turned to European partners to close the financing.
“Because I couldn’t find the CNC money and I had to look elsewhere, we actually financed half of the film out of Germany,” she said, adding that Arte France and ZDF/Arte in Germany boarded early, helping bring the project to a roughly €3.9 million budget. The project also enlisted two many French allies, the international sales company MK2 Films and French distribution banner Ad Vitam which released the film. U.S. distribution company Strand Releasing boarded the film following its Cannes premiere.
Still, Billy stressed the importance of the French film financing mechanism, which is essentially funded by a levy on movie tickets, for helping sustain France’s position as one of the world’s most prolific filmmaking nations.
“We fight a lot to preserve that system to finance French cinema — it was created after World War II and is now frequently attacked by conservative and far right parties because the first thing they attack is culture,” she said.
Roush, who presented “Union County” at Sundance, said financing only came together after well-known actors – Will Poulter and Noah Centineo — joined the project.
“Our lead financier had actually soft passed on the project ahead of that. They said, ‘We love the script, but without talent attached we can’t really do anything,’” she recalled. “The U.S. market is incredibly talent-driven,” she said. “It’s very hard to get financiers to pay attention without some cast attached,” Roush continued.
She said the key to evaluate a project for the U.S. market is to determine which distributor it can click with when you read a script. “Who is the audience for this movie and who is going to buy it? That is an influencing factor in whether you do the movie or not,” she pointed out.
Roush said there’s a “small but mighty group of U.S.-based film financiers,” but ultimately, “it’s a tough world to navigate in the U.S., especially for drama. Distributors and financiers feel like genre is more de-risked,” she argued.
Leah Chen Baker faced yet another financing model while producing “The President’s Cake,” an Iraqi-set drama directed by Hadi and shot entirely on location with non-professional actors.
Early in development, Baker realized the project would require a different approach. “It took me a little bit of time to realize that we had a lot of moving parts to our financial structure,” she said.
“We weren’t going to be able to go a traditional route of looking for maybe a co-financing structure,” Baker said. “So I realized I needed to embrace that risk was our brand.”
Her pitch leaned directly into the film’s unconventional elements. “I told people, ‘It will be non-actors. It will be shot in Iraq. That’s non-negotiable. We will have no completion bond. We need 100% control,” Baker said with a laugher.
She was able to raise some financing through grants and institutional backing to lower the equity in the project, and got support from Iraqi government and local partners.
“We really needed to give everyone the confidence that this project could be realized,” Baker said.
Key support came from the Sundance Institute and the Doha Film Institute. Baker credited Sundance’s labs and programs, including the Producers Lab, Directors Lab, Screenwriters Lab and Catalyst initiative, with helping attract investors. Hadi also took part in the Marcie Bloom Fellowship and participated in Qatar’s Kumra program.
Next up, Baker will be reteaming with filmmaker Jamie Dack for her second feature following “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” and is working with Hadi on his next project titled “The Leftover Ladies.”
Roush is developing a new feature with filmmaker Theda Hammel, who directed “Stress Positions,” as well as another project with Meeks.
Billy, meanwhile, is working again with rising Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Trouilh, the rising French directors of “Gagarine” on their next film, “Green Eyes,” which is now in post-production; and is preparing to shoot a film by Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson (“Rams”) while developing a first feature by actor-turned-director Clémence Poésy.
The panel was followed by the New York premiere of “The Little Sister” and a Q&A with Melliti.
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