Despite two months of complete shutdown during the first confinement, the activity of filming or series in Occitania remained particularly intense in 2020.
Shooting days on the rise despite two months of confinement, 31 films entirely or partly produced in the region in 2020, a score never reached before, technicians, professionals or actors from here who have worked like never before this summer… It’s not much say that the indicators relating to filming activity in Occitania all show a resplendent 2020 health check, which was not won in advance at the end of a year of health and economic crises.
Filming activity in the region.
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And the 2021 outlook seems to confirm this trend. Seven or eight feature film projects are already in the pipeline: Audrey Fleurot, Emmanuelle Devos, Éric Caravaca, Guy Marchand or Franck Dubosc will soon be filmed under the sun of La Grande-Motte, Sète, Montpellier or the Pyrenees. -Orientales, and France Télévisions is expanding its studios in Vendargues to accommodate the shooting of new fictions.
Not to mention a harvest of rewards hoped for at the next Caesar, prizes in major categories that can be calmly considered. And the horizon of the Oscars, for a title shot between Gard and Hérault, is not a pipe dream.
Occitanie far ahead
In other words, supporting national statistics, outside Ile-de-France, Occitanie no longer has a rival as a host country for filming in France.
There remains this (big) black point: if TV and platforms always order more programs than it is now possible to watch quickly on a number of media, each month, more and more feature films pile up on the shelves broadcasters, theaters must be closed. Because all these images filmed everywhere and all the time in the regions now wait and deserve only one thing: to be projected on a big screen.
The blockbuster: Matt Damon in the Aude!
Ridley Scott’s film shot at Fontfroide Abbey
With The last duel, we are undoubtedly holding the shooting of the most prestigious film hosted in Occitania in 2020. Let’s judge: a Hollywood blockbuster initiated by Twentieth Century Fox and taken over by Disney, with a luxurious cast (Matt Damon, Adam Driver , Ben Affleck, Jodie Comer, star of the Killing Eve series) and directed by Ridley Scott, the director, among others, of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator or Alone on Mars. A medieval drama adapted from a book telling the story of one of the last legal duels seen in France, following a conflict and a debt of honor to be cleared between a knight and his squire.
For this spectacular film, the production researched several historical sites. Before finding them, in Ireland, in France, in Reims, but also, therefore, in Aude, at the Abbey of Fontfroide, in the town of Narbonne. Where the team, including Ridley Scott, Matt Damon and Adam Driver, traveled to film the required scenes for a week, in March 2020, filming ending just before the ax of the first confinement fell.
“A great adventure, a great collaboration,” said Marin Rosenstiehl, responsible for hosting regional shoots at Occitanie Films. They privatized the abbey, which will not, moreover, be represented as an abbey at the screen, for a week. The main nave interested them particularly. We’re lucky, it’s a setting that could have been reconstituted in a studio in Los Angeles. Because a big movie like that doesn’t often happen! “
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“A quick turnaround!”
Marin Rosenstiehl is responsible for the Occitanie Films Film Commission.
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Responsible for hosting the shoots in Occitanie, how did you experience this extraordinary year 2020?
Between March 17 and May 11, we were all amazed. Before, against all expectations, a recovery on the hats of wheels. Everything restarted immediately after a lot of discussions about the resumption of filming, on the conditions of return to the sets, health protocols, insurance issues, etc. The daily series Tomorrow belongs to us was the first to restart, it was even the first filming to resume in France.
Has no film or series shooting interrupted by the first confinement been definitively canceled?
No, we were so lucky. Because stopping a film for good is really catastrophic. We had three film shoots in our territory when the first confinement occurred, all three resumed and were completed. Ditto for the daily or series like Tandem or Candice Renoir.
In a completely new context?
Yes. The Occupational Health and Safety Committee had defined nationally the health protocols to be observed on filming. On which a new profession has appeared: Covid referent. It’s very strict. This allowed us, during the second confinement, to pass between the drops and to be able to continue working, in compliance with these health protocols and barrier gestures.
Has this upturn in activity been maintained over time?
Completely! The other big surprise was to see a very high concentration of filming during the summer, unlike what we had seen in previous years.
Because in Occitania, a very touristy region, we traditionally shoot less in the summer: everything is more expensive (rentals for teams for example) and more complicated, there are a lot of people, it is more crowded everywhere, etc. This year, we had a very busy summer because the activity of the spring shutdown months was transferred to the summer ones. This is a national observation, moreover, but even more remarkable in our country compared to our habits.
Which must have turned out to be rather welcome in this period of economic crisis …
Absolutely, because everyone in this sector of activity has worked: technicians, actors, etc. We even saw an unprecedented scenario: at the end of the summer and the beginning of the fall, there was a shortage of technicians. Too many shoots, too much work, we couldn’t find anyone. And again, it was a national phenomenon!
And for intermittents, in addition to the white year
, it was welcome. Because unlike the field of live entertainment, filming activity has therefore been maintained more than ever.
So for the cinema, the concern comes from the closing of theaters?
Here. The tragedy is the cessation of theatrical exploitation. With two major consequences. First of all, a whole virtuous system comes to a halt, there is no longer any increase in revenue. The French system allows in particular, to go quickly, that part of the admissions of the American blockbusters help to finance more fragile author’s films. So that theaters do not reopen harms the economy of the feature film, it is clear. The second factor is a risk of traffic jams when theaters reopen, with a large concentration of exits. So many films will be released that their screen time will be drastically reduced.
Has the stopping of festivals also complicated the situation?
-The extension of compensation rights for intermittents, until August 31, 2021, announced by the Head of State in May.
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