- To mark the 50th anniversary of the festival, BNP Paribas becomes the official partner of the Directors’ Fortnight, thus stepping up the Group’s overall presence at Cannes.
- This new partnership carries forward BNP Paribas’ long-standing commitment to the cinematic arts and cinema’s new talents. The Group has been Europe’s leading bank for film and filmmaking for over a century.
- As part of this partnership, BNP Paribas will also be supporting the ‘Fortnight in Action’ initiative, whose programme – created by Directors’ Fortnight – is intended to promote wider access to culture and image-related education.
Created in 1968, the annual Directors’ Fortnight event is designed to both highlight movies made by young directors and pay homage to great cinematic works by recognised directors. Directors’ Fortnight, which takes an independent, non-competitive, and free-entry approach to the film screenings, also promotes the search for new talent from all over the world through the ‘Factory’ programme. This year, four Tunisian directors will be featured alongside four international film-makers.
For this 50th anniversary event, taking place 9-19 May in Cannes, Directors’ Fortnight has for the first time teamed up with an official partner and chosen BNP Paribas, Europe’s leading bank to the film industry, which has supported the Official Selection for the last 16 years.
“Whether we’re talking about promoting young creative talent or preserving our cinema heritage by backing film festivals and original initiatives, the BNP Paribas Group has been providing support to film and filmmaking for a very long time,” pointed out Christophe Leparc, Secretary General of the Directors' Fortnight, adding: “The Bank has worked hand-in-hand with Directors’ Fortnight for a number of years, especially through the initiatives it runs for an audience experiencing difficulties. By becoming our official partner, BNP Paribas has now committed to assist the development of this parallel programme to the Festival and help us to meet the new challenges. We’re absolutely delighted!”
“Through this partnership with Directors’ Fortnight, we intend to step up our long-term commitment to fostering the emergence of new cinema talent and the creation of bold new movie works from both France and abroad.” as declared Bertrand Cizeau, Head of Group Communications and Deputy Head of Company Engagement at BNP Paribas. “By supporting the nation-wide development of the ‘Fortnight in Action’ programme, this partnership also gives us the opportunity to continue assisting initiatives that will enable the cinema to play its social role to the full.”
Fortnight in Action, a nation-wide mechanism for spreading cultural democratisation
To mark this 50th edition, the initiative entitled ‘Fortnight at La Bocca’ is being stepped up on to a national scale under the title ‘Fortnight in Action’. Under this programme, which is aimed at the residents of priority neighbourhoods, such events as selected screenings from the Directors’ Fortnight, meet-ups with film crew, and image-related workshops will be run all over France. The initiative is targeted mainly at youngsters, including school students, in priority neighbourhoods, newcomers, women in disadvantaged circumstances and people undergoing re-training programmes for work or study purposes. BNP Paribas, which has made the social inclusion of young people and the development of the social and cultural environment across all regions of France two of the main pillars of the Group’s Company Engagement policy, was determined to assist the implementation of this programme on a nation-wide scale as part of its involvement in Director’s Fortnight.
BNP Paribas activities in Cannes
The partnership offers BNP Paribas with the opportunity to maintain a strong presence in Cannes throughout the festival:
- 4 May: inauguration of the Cinéma(s) en Liberté exhibition at the Suquet des Artistes, which looks back at the early years of Directors’ Fortnight from 1969 to 1972 and provides a snapshot of the world during those exciting years in which filmmaking was revitalised with the advent of new directors and new trends in movie-making.
- 8 May: BNP Paribas will open the ‘BNP Paribas Terrace’ at the Croisette, a venue designed for meeting and exchanging views with the Bank’s clients and partners from the movie industry.
- 8 May: opening of the ‘Fortnight in Action’ (2pm in the Théâtre de la Licorne), on the eve of the official opening of the 2018 Directors’ Fortnight, where all programme participants are invited to attend.
- 10 May 2018, BNP Paribas will hold on the Terrace a pitching session with eight young film directors taking part in the Tunisian Factory, this year’s Factory edition.
- 14 May: An evening celebrating the 50th anniversary of Directors’ Fortnight, of which BNP Paribas is the official partner.
Press contacts
Directors’ Fortnight:
Jean-Charles Canu: jccanu [at] quinzaine-realisteurs (dot) com
Catherine Giraud: cgiraud [at] quinzaine-realisteurs (dot) com
BNP Paribas
Renato Martinelli: +33(0)1 58 16 84 99 ; renato.martinelli [at] bnpparibas (dot) com
Zeina Toutounji: +33 (0)6 22 30 12 96 ; zeina.toutounji [at] gmail (dot) com
BNP Paribas is a leading bank in Europe with an international reach. It has a presence in 73 countries, with more than 196,000 employees, including around 149,000 in Europe. The Group has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets and International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors. The Group helps all its clients (individuals, community associations, entrepreneurs, SMEs, corporate and institutional clients) to realise their projects through solutions spanning financing, investment, savings and protection insurance. In Europe, the Group has four domestic markets (Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg) and BNP Paribas Personal Finance is the European leader in consumer lending. BNP Paribas is rolling out its integrated retail-banking model in Mediterranean countries, in Turkey, in Eastern Europe and a large network in the western part of the United States. In its Corporate & Institutional Banking and International Financial Services activities, BNP Paribas also enjoys top positions in Europe, a strong presence in the Americas as well as a solid and fast-growing business in Asia-Pacific.
2017 marked a century of shared history between BNP Paribas and the movie industry. These 100 years have enabled BNP Paribas to build a close relationship and cultivate a set of joint values with cinema art, becoming over time the number one bank in Europe for cinema, with involvement at all stages of the film industry value chain. The cinema has therefore quite naturally become one of the main areas for developing Customer Affinity with the BNP Paribas Brand.
BNP Paribas a major player in the financing of audio-visual productions
BNP Paribas provides financing and support for filmmaking through a dedicated Image & Media unit staffed by experts who work exclusively on cinematographic and audio-visual projects. Every year, BNP Paribas is involved, directly or indirectly, in financing half of all films produced in France.
BNP Paribas the exclusive partner to national cinema promotion initiatives
Since 2007, BNP Paribas has been engaged in an exclusive partnership with the French National Cinema Federation on two major annual initiatives – Printemps du Cinéma (Spring at the Cinema) and La Fête du Cinéma (Festival of Cinema) – to promote movie-going. The Group is delighted to be able to enable as many people as possible every year to go out and enjoy the cinema.
BNP Paribas helps to preserve cinema heritage
BNP Paribas has helped to restore a number of classic film reels, including Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort by Jacques Demy. The Group also supports iconic movie-theatres such as Le Trianon at Romainville/Noisy-Le-Sec, which has been receiving assistance since 2010.
BNP Paribas and Film Festivals
The Group provides support to over 40 film festivals in Europe. These include: in France, the Lumière Festival in Lyon, Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, and the Télérama Festival; in Belgium, the BNP Paribas Fortis Film Days, which are held every year across some 450 movie-houses; and in Italy, where BNL is the main partner to the Rome International Film Festival.
‘Séance Radio’ and ‘Séance Ciné’
In 2012 BNP Paribas launched Séance Radio, a web-radio channel @seanceradio, which brings movie fans news reports and stories devoted exclusively to the world of film. In 2014, BNP Paribas launched the Séance Ciné app (available at the App Store and on Google Play), which provides an easy way for groups of friends to organise trips to the cinema.
BNP Paribas supports innovation
In a changing world, where new habits and ways of doing things are constantly emerging, BNP Paribas is more determined than ever to support change and development in the cinema world. Accordingly, the Group offers its various publics the opportunity to try out new ways of enjoying movies, including in Virtual Reality mode through collaboration with the MK2 VR space and the VR Arles Festival.
Since it was first held in 1969, Directors’ Fortnight has proved to be an effective showcase alongside the main Cannes Film Festival event, highlighting both young fresh directing talent from all over the world and screening works by recognised filmmakers that are still able to delight and amaze audiences. Directors’ Fortnight, which takes an independent and non-competitive approach to the screenings, is also proud to be the only section of the Festival which is open to the general public.
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