Cinema part of French lifeblood

I know - it's like I'm almost deliberately trying to be pretentious, isn't it? But that really was the scenario. It was last October, and I was in Paris for work - a week-long press visit put on by Unifrance, the French agency that promotes French cinema to the world. It was all very glamorous. The hotel, near the Louvre, was elegant and opulent in a faded glory kind of way. Later that day we would spot U2 lead singer Bono sitting in the same bar. It was that kind of place.

But my mind was on other things, specifically the 35 interviews we did in five days in the suites and bar of that hotel. By day three, which is when I had my epiphany, the staff recognised me and the place felt like my own living room.

It was a strange, whirlwind slog of cinematic discovery, and not only because of the 30-odd films I'd watched from beginning to end in the lead-up.

Rather, it was because of the variety of people behind the films that end up on the screen. The cinema is an integral part of everyday life in France.

To put it in perspective, the average Australian film enthusiast might see about a dozen French films in a year, but that's only a small sample of the more than 200 films that get released in France each year. In Australia, we're lucky to get about 15 or 20 local feature films released, and the level to which these films are supported - by government, by audiences, by critics - is a constant source of debate. But in France, a new cinematic release is pretty much a daily or weekly reality.

And, because of how much money and support there is for the industry, you don't need years of experience or proven expertise or artistic kudos to get a film made in France. How else to explain the number of first-time directors who manage to pull in the big names - and, therefore, the big bucks - for their whacky ideas? Or, for that matter, the variety of careers that led up to making movies?

During the week, we got to meet plenty of big names for cinema buffs. Robert Guediguian, for example, who has spent his career making gritty dramas set in Marseille. His wife, the actress Ariane Ascaride, has been in 17 of the last 18 of these films, including the one featured in this year's French Film Festival in Australia, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro). The two of them were exactly the kind of artists I had expected to meet during the trip, both with an established fan base, genre and message.

The same went for Alain Cavalier, another giant of the scene, who started out during the original Nouvelle Vague, along with his mate Vincent Lindon who stars in his latest movie, the post-modern and very French Pater.

Lindon is one of the biggest names in French cinema. How then did Fred Cavaye, a relative unknown, manage to get Lindon to star in his very first movie? Anything For Her (Pour Elle), a classic action thriller that came to Australia two years ago, also starred noted beauty and now Hollywood A-lister Diane Kruger, and was promptly remade in Hollywood with Russell Crowe in the lead.

Cavaye, a 44-year-old film nut who grew up watching American movies on television and cheerfully admits to having never formally studied cinema or filmmaking, sees the irony in this, but it didn't stop him from making another action thriller, Point Blank (A Bout Portant), set on the streets of Paris and starring one of France's hottest actors, Gilles Lellouche.

''The film has no pretensions other than giving spectators a moment of pleasure in watching it,'' he told me (in French - he also sees no irony in the fact that he has never travelled to America and speaks hardly any English). ''It has no claims to being a masterpiece or work of art - but that doesn't make it less important, just made with a different motive.''

But nor did he take his good fortune at being born French for granted. ''Here in France, we have the opportunity to make non-commercial films. That is, that cinema can exist even if it doesn't bring in money, and that's very, very good, it's a crazy opportunity.''

Julie Gavras is another director who credits the country's funding structure and deep-seated support for the film industry for her work. Like Cavaye, she has also made just two films, the second of which, Late Bloomers, stars Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt. These, she said, were two actors she admired and had always wanted to work with. Never mind that the premise of her film was shaky - Rossellini as a woman fearing old age upon turning 60 - or that her two idols didn't really have much chemistry. The film was made, and opened in Australia last month.

She said it was a given that the French film industry gave extraordinary leeway to young, inexperienced or first-time writers and directors. ''On every ticket sold, even if it's not a French film, the French state gets some money back to fund French films … and therefore we do have a lot of films, we have something like 250 films a year,'' she says.

''The problem is, is it too much or do you need that number to get at least 10 or 20 good films? I don't know.''

She has a point. If you're thinking of checking out the festival this week, I can tell you with pretty good authority that a handful of the 45 films on offer are exceptional, a smattering are downright duds, and the rest are pleasant but ultimately forgettable. It is, in other words, a good representation of the industry's output in any given year.

Later in the week, I met director Philippe Guillard, to talk about his sentimental, but charming, film about a father and son and their battle over the importance of playing rugby. Turns out Guillard is a former professional rugby star - a megastar in France - who has since become a television personality and commentator and has also written two novels. Jo's Boy (Le Fils a Jo) was his first film as director, and stars Gerard Lanvin, who happens to be a mate of his.

''Cinema brought in more money,'' he said, shrugging, when I asked him about his shifting career. ''Maybe one day I'll go back into literature. But I got bored because I was alone and wasn't sharing … You can write a film alone, but then you need a team to put it together, which appeals to me. You finish a novel, and you're still alone. Literary types are depressing, anyway.''

So much for the tortured French artist type. At this stage in my trip, the only cliche that was proving itself to be factual was that young French screen ingenues, of whom we met several, really are as louche in real life as they appear on screen - sucking on cigarettes, all tousled hair and elaborate shrugs. And also, that Clotilde Courau, the actress famous for having married into the Italian royal family, would much prefer to be known for her showbiz skills than her incredibly long royal title.

So far, so fascinating. But then, halfway through the week came the epiphany.

I had watched Mia Hansen-Love's Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse) at home in Canberra a couple of days before boarding the plane to Paris, and my first thought was, gosh, how self-indulgent was that? A film about young love, and a girl who refuses to let go, and a boy who maybe isn't good enough for her, and all the foolishness of youth. What's the point? How and why did it get made? Who is this Mia person anyway?

But hearing her talk - openly, passionately, earnestly - about why one's experiences of youth should always be worth intellectualising, I finally got it. It wasn't just her film that I suddenly understood, but the point of cinema in France, the role it plays in defining a culture. Of course, telling stories through art is always an important part of a country's identity. It's just that in France there's no race, no competition, no constant buzz of commentary about whether this film or that book has given enough - or too much - voice to a given issue.

In France, the cinema just is, and always has been. Or at least since the 1940s, when the Centre National du Cinema was established, along with the tax - now about 11 per cent - on every movie ticket sold in France. Television networks are also heavily taxed on their respective incomes, and have as part of their mission statements the obligation to support the production of French cinema.

The result is a constantly churning machine of films, made by all kinds of people, with little concern, it seems, for whether the films are likely to be commercially successful.

Director of ScreenACT Monica Penders points out that the Australian film industry is actually quite well set up in terms of government funding, with a 40 per cent tax rebate available to producers of films that cost more than $500,000 to make. But to get that kind of funding in the first place, you need ''market attachment''.

''That means you either have to have an international sales agent attached who's going out and getting pre-sales, or you need to have a distributor attached in some way,'' she says.

This means a film has to have the potential to be commercially successful, which, in turn, means that prospective Australian filmmakers will always have to ''play the game'' on some level.

''Art house cinema can be financed that way, but the bottom line is investors are looking for a return, and art house doesn't very often make a return.''

Film critic and filmmaker Simon Weaving says Australia and its industry will always have to struggle with the fact that we are a nation of English speakers. Filmmakers and writers are, therefore, competing with the awesome force of Hollywood and the rest of the English-speaking world.

''There's always this rather academic debate about national cinema here, about whether we should be telling Australian stories,'' he says.

''I happen to think that we should never go down the route of copying Hollywood - we should be making our own stories. But it's a global market.''

France, of course, is an entirely different proposition.

''The French seem to, in that Gallic way, shrug their shoulders and say, 'We're making our own films'. They'll always have a more captive audience because of language barriers. Whereas we're competing directly with Hollywood films in a way the French never have to.''

The French Film Festival is one of the most popular cinematic events in Australia; we love French films because of the glamour we associate with Paris and the European lifestyle. But, as I learnt during my week at the Hotel du Louvre, there's something almost workaday about the movies. Films are churned out as a vital part of the country's cultural identity. Making a movie is as natural to a French person as drinking coffee from a bowl or buying a baguette.

■ The French Film Festival runs from today to April 1, with screenings at Greater Union Manuka and Arc Cinema at the National Film and Sound Archive.

Visit affrenchfilmfestival.org.