France Doubles Oscar Campaign Aid as Exports Fall 21.6%

France's international sales of audiovisual programs fell 21.6% to €164.3 million ($190.8 million) in the past year — the lowest level in a decade — even as the country's National Film Board (CNC) unveiled a doubling of Oscar campaign funding and appointed its first dedicated "Academy Awards" liaison on Monday.

The figures, compiled by the CNC and presented last month at Unifrance's event in Le Havre, framed a daylong conference in Paris at which producers, sales agents and broadcasters warned that France's international position can no longer be taken for granted.

Why is France restructuring its Oscar campaign?

The CNC announced it will double financial aid granted to awards campaigns and named Sébastien Cauchon, founder of the Paris consultancy Cinema Collectors, as its new "Academy Awards" liaison. Cauchon will spearhead the campaign for Andrey Zvyagintsev's Cannes Grand Prize winner "Minotaur" (Mubi), which represents France in the international feature category this year.

Cauchon comes to the role after working on the Oscar-winning campaigns for Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh's "Two People Exchanging Saliva," Mubi and Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance," and a series of films with Florian Zeller including "The Father," which won two Oscars.

Speaking at Monday's conference, Cauchon acknowledged that France has lagged in adopting the specialized awards strategy common in Hollywood.

"An awards strategist is a profession that isn't very widespread in France, or even in Europe," Cauchon said, describing the job as combining publicity, marketing and influence to keep films and talent in front of Academy voters throughout the race.

What would it take for France to win another international feature Oscar?

France has not claimed the prize since Régis Wargnier's "Indochine" won in 1993, despite earning a record 43 nominations — more than any other country. Cauchon argued the country has under-valued its reach in directing, acting, screenplay and craft categories.

"In France, we sometimes focus a lot on the best international film category," Cauchon said. "But we have such a diversity of productions and talent that we're represented much more broadly across all the categories."

Several recent awards-season breakouts — Fargeat's "The Substance," Zeller's "The Father," Gints Zilbalodis's "Flow" and Justine Triet's "Anatomy of a Fall" — did not represent France in the race. Other 2025 shortlist contenders that could surface in nominations include:

• Marine Atlan's "La Gradiva" (1 2 Special)
• Louis Clichy's animated "Iron Boy" (SPC), a Un Certain Regard prize winner
• Antonin Baudry's "De Gaulle" (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
• Léa Seydoux, appearing in Arthur Harari's "The Unknown" (Neon) and Marie Kreutzer's "Gentle Monster" (Netflix)

Can France close the streaming gap?

CNC president Gaëtan Bruel acknowledged France remained in 2025 the third most represented country, after the U.S. and U.K., on linear TV worldwide. He conceded the country has yet to match that footprint on streaming platforms.

"We've spent years, rightly, celebrating the fact that we fill the top 100 fiction rankings on television, without seeing that we were losing the streaming battle," Bruel said.

He pointed to Spain and South Korea as contrasts.

"To put it clearly, Spanish Netflix subscribers watch Spanish series first, ahead of American ones. French subscribers watch American series first, and then more Spanish and Korean series than French ones," Bruel said.

He attributed the imbalance to France's unusually robust domestic system of financing, production and distribution, which has reduced pressure on producers to design projects for international audiences from the outset.

"That's an immense strength and there is obviously no question of abandoning it," Bruel said. "But I think that strength explains why we have had less need than others to think internationally from the very beginning of projects. That is what now has to evolve, because the world has changed."

What is at stake for international sales agents?

UniFrance president Gilles Pélisson, who works alongside managing director Daniel Elstner, called for revamped export support covering film, television, shorts and assistance for foreign distributors.

"The tech giants, which are now publishers — more or less, depending on the company — are taking power," Pélisson said. "And all of this is happening in the context of the evolution of AI, which is impacting absolutely every sector."

On data transparency, he added: "Data today is the underlying key to the value of works. And that's why, strangely enough, the platforms have so much difficulty sharing data."

Pierre Mazars, co-founder of Charades and co-president of ADEF, the French exporters' association, said international sellers face structural pressure to favor non-French titles, including their own.

"The reality, and we have to say it, is that for exporters it is often more attractive within the ecosystem to sell a foreign film than a French film. The system isn't sufficiently incentivizing for us to sell French films," Mazars said.

He cited MK2 Films' partnership with Helsinki- and London-based fund manager IPR.VC as one possible model for attracting private equity into French production.

Clara Flageollet Schmit, sales manager at SND and ADEF's other co-president, said sales agents now function less as intermediaries and more as financiers.

"We're no longer simply intermediaries. Today we're real financiers of cinema, and particularly French cinema. We're getting involved earlier and earlier in projects, sometimes from the development stage," she said.

Preliminary UniFrance figures point to roughly 42.5 million admissions and €272 million in international box office for French films in 2025. Flageollet Schmit said the sector still sits about 26% below pre-pandemic levels while the cost of doing business has climbed.

The CNC's new approach will pool resources earlier and coordinate with U.S. distributors — a recalibration that, if it pays off in March, could end France's 32-year drought in the international feature race and reset how French cinema competes for global screens.