The Eiffel Tower, the alleys of the Latin Quarter, the bridges of the Seine but also the Towers of La Défense or the Palace of Versailles… Ile-de-France is a very popular setting for filmmakers. In 2019, according to the organization Film Paris Région, 40% of French films and 36% of foreign films were produced in the Paris region. Taking advantage of the filming show, which takes place on Thursday and Friday at the Parc Floral in Paris, the city takes stock of the filming it hosts.
Filming up 84%
In five years, filming has jumped 84% in Paris… But in reality, what exploded was not the number of productions - which this year amounted to 1,066, counting feature films, TV movies, TV series, commercials, clips ... - but the number of days of shooting: the latter went from 2,970 in 2015 to 5,465 in 2019.
More and more series
If this figure has increased, it is, according to the Mission Cinéma de Paris, thanks to the tax credit of 2015, which reduces the costs of shooting in France but also because more and more series, produced by TV channels or platforms, take up residence in Ile-de-France. And shooting seasons of several episodes logically requires much more time than putting in a 90-minute feature film. So, to make the eight episodes of the first season of "The Eddy" for Netflix, Damien Chazelle and his team transformed Paris into a film set for ... twenty weeks.
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For the past twelve months, Paris has served as a backdrop for "Notre-Dame", by Valérie Donzelli, "It Must Be Heaven", by Elia Suleiman, "J'accuse", by Roman Polanski, or "Hors Normes", by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, but also in series such as "the Bazaar of Charity" (TF 1), "Dix pour cent" (France 2), "Engrenages", or "le Bureau des légendes" (Canal + ).
Neighborhoods under tension
Are there now too many shootings in Paris? "We have reached a plateau," recognizes Michel Gomez, delegate of the Cinema Mission of the city of Paris. He says he "always finds solutions" for filmmakers who dream of filming the City of Light, but recognizes that certain districts are "under stress". Among the spots most requested by filmmakers, there is the Bir-Hakeim bridge and its spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower (which cinema loves, but also advertising), the Palais-Royal district, the island Saint-Louis and that of the City, the Place du Tertre, the Latin Quarter ... and the 7th arrondissement, because it is full of luxurious Haussmann apartments. Michel Gomez therefore takes care not to "overload" these places. "We have to reconcile the shootings and the lives of Parisians," he says.
An "organized fallow"
The main issue of this balance is parking: when residents are subjected to the presence of dozens of trucks on their streets for several days, the Cinema Mission strives to "breathe" their neighborhood for some time after. "It's an organized fallow," explains Michel Gomez. Who cites the example of the shooting of the "Bazaar of charity": "Some sequences were shot in the 16th, in the evening, with actors who were shouting because they embodied characters escaping from a fire ... After, we only accepted small shoots in the area. "
The suburb also seduces
If Paris attracts the spotlight, the suburbs are not to be outdone: Netflix is currently filming in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) episodes of "Arsène Lupine" with Omar Sy, Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir set up their cameras at Saint-Denis for "School Life", and Céline Sciamma has located her "Portrait of the Young Girl on Fire" in a castle in Seine-et-Marne. Roissy Airport will host parts of the next “Ten percent” season. "The most coveted places in the suburbs remain the Palace of Versailles, the Fontainebleau forest and the Stade de France," said Jérémy Redler, president of Film Paris Région.