Dominique Boutonnat was re-elected this Wednesday, at the end of the Council of Ministers, at the head of the National Center for Cinema (CNC), despite a balance questioned by certain filmmakers and his accusation of sexual assault allegations that he refutes.
On April 25, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office had requested the referral to criminal justice of Dominique Boutonnat for sexual assault on his godson, with whom he has no family ties.
In October 2020, a complaint was filed by this young man in his twenties, for events dating back to August 2020 during a vacation in Greece. An indictment followed in February 2021. According to his lawyer, Dominique Boutonnat, 52, known as a film producer, “strongly disputes all the facts.”
During an interview in Parisian in June, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, had campaigned for his renewal: “He is prosecuted, not convicted. The presumption of innocence prevails.”
Complaint for attempted rape
No jurisprudence requires the withdrawal or resignation of an official under investigation. But these accusations weigh on Dominique Boutonnat, in a context already tense after the non-renewal, in the post-legislative remodeling, of Solidarity Minister Damien Abad, the subject of an investigation after a complaint of attempted rape.
In addition, several directors, including Jacques Audiard and Pierre Salvadori, united in the SRF (Society of Film Directors), have recently criticized the “openly liberal and too often short-sighted” policy of the CNC president.
The appointment, three years ago, of this donor to the electoral campaign of Emmanuel Macron had already gone wrong in an environment concerned about seeing the imposition of a logic based on profitability, endangering auteur cinema.
“Pioneer in the fight against sexual violence”
The Minister of Culture stepped forward to defend her career: “He is the head of a CNC that has faced the crisis and has also been a pioneer in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence.”
Following the #MeToo wave, the CNC launched in October 2020 a training to prevent sexual violence, aimed at film, audiovisual and video game entrepreneurs (producers, international sellers, distributors and exhibitors).
From January 1, 2021, the allocation and payment of all CNC aid is subject to compliance by the beneficiaries with the obligations to prevent sexual harassment, such as following this training or the designation of a reference of mandatory harassment for structures with more than 250 employees.
Dominique Boutonnat, who began his career in insurance, had to fight hard for a sector hit hard by the restrictions imposed during the pandemic (closing rooms, gauges, etc.).
platform competition
In addition to the government aid granted to all French companies (for partial unemployment, for example), cinema exhibitors have benefited from a capital gain of 221 million euros since the start of the health crisis, producers of 38 million and distributors of 53 million.
Many challenges await Dominique Boutonnat. Firstly, to recover cinema attendance in a context of falling purchasing power, while the number of spectators has not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels.
According to the latest figures from the CNC, French cinemas, one of the densest networks in the world, sold 72.95 million tickets in the first six months of the year, a drop in attendance of 30.6% compared to the first half of 2019. a record year.
A ray of hope: in June, thanks to the Film Festival and its tickets at four euros for everyone, dark rooms achieved 10.86 million viewers, a decrease of 13% compared to the same month in 2019.
The seventh art must also find its place in the face of increasingly fierce competition from US platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.
Source: BFM TV
