Close Place de l’Etoile for a day to recreate a 1940 demonstration. Sanctuary Place Denfert-Rochereau to film the entry of the Leclerc division into the capital. Filming a student demonstration in front of the Pantheon, circulating floats on rue Soufflot, filming in front of and in the Town Hall… This summer 2023, the Cinema mission of the city of Paris will remember it. Not only, “we had the filming of the biopic Charles de Gaulle by Antonin Baudry with Simon Abkarian but also a film and a series on the Count of Monte Cristo,” says Michel Gomez, delegate of the Cinema Mission to the City of Paris. Despite the absence of Americans for six months because of the strike, we were overwhelmed. It’s indicative of the dynamism of the seventh art in Paris.” His teams will not be able to breathe for long. “As of January 1 with the end of the screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood, major American shoots will be back,” he announces.
Hollywood must hurry to get back into battle order, because in 2024, the Paris Olympics will not be without consequences on filming. It was understood that shooting films and series in the capital from next spring, during the Olympic Games then the Para Olympic Games and until the end of autumn was going to be complicated. It ended up being simpler than expected. This Tuesday, September 26, the three entities which supervise the filming: the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC), the cinema mission of the city of Paris and Film Paris region announced the schedule and the rules to which must be followed. fold the productions and solutions that will be offered to them. Period and action films with stunts that require mobilizing more resources and teams are the most impacted. The rules differ depending on whether the filming is in an Olympic zone such as Place de la Concorde and the Trocadéro or outside the Olympic Games.
Also read: Michel Gomez: “Let’s stop wanting to shoot everything in Paris”
The calendar is divided into four periods. Before March 15 and after November 1, filming of all films will be possible in areas outside the Olympic Games. In the Olympic zones, they will also be but with “particular vigilance on a few sensitive work sites”. From March 16 to June 15, the set-up period for competition and celebration sites, period and action films will be prohibited in the Olympic zones. Elsewhere, agreement will be given after review of the work plan. In the “red” period from June 16 to September 15, no action or period film filming whatever the location. The other filmings can be validated but slowly.
Finally comes the site dismantling period from September 16 to October 30. Again no action and period film in the Olympic zones. Other filming will be possible after expertise. In non-Olympic areas, any type of filming may be authorized but after expertise.
In Île-de-France, certain municipalities which host Olympic sites in Seine-Saint-Denis (Olympic village in Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen in particular) will also be less accessible to filming from July to mid-September. The municipalities of other departments in the region, such as Versailles, which host certain competitions at the Château, will continue to issue authorizations taking into account the requested perimeter and dates.
Concerning natural settings, the Film Paris Région database offers 1,683 settings outside the Olympic zones. In addition, whether it is Haussmannian Paris, historic Paris, “postcard” Paris or even business districts, many cities in Île-de-France (Vincennes, Saint-Mandé, Courbevoie, Marly -le-Roi, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, etc.) and in France (Rennes, Lyon, Reims, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Strasbourg, etc.) offer so-called “Parisian” atmospheres. The Film France locations database, regularly updated, lists these settings under
It is obvious that film crews used to filming in Île-de-France will take a closer look at the natural scenery sites and studios that already exist elsewhere in France. According to the CNC, in 2024, France will be able to offer more than 20 studios offering 50,000 m2 of stages (including 12 studios with at least one 800m2 stage), backlot solutions (permanent exterior sets), including streets Parisians, and ready-to-shoot sets such as the interiors of Haussmann apartments to accommodate filming throughout the territory.
An important detail: from mid-September, unlike the construction sites which will resume with full force in the streets of the capital, the filming which could not take place will not be rescheduled. “Filmings will not double in number,” warned Michel Gomez, delegate of the cinema mission to the City of Paris.