Co-Production Day will return to the Marché du Film in Cannes this year, taking place on Saturday, May 17, 2025, and Tuesday, May 20, 2025. As one of the Marché’s most highly anticipated industry gatherings, the event attracts producers, financiers, and market representatives eager to explore international partnerships and forge new alliances.
Held annually as part of the Marché du Film’s industry programmes, Co-Production Day offers a curated agenda that supports cross-border collaboration and stimulates creative and financial exchange. The programme is primarily hosted at the Producers Club (upper floor of the Palais des Festivals) and the Palais Stage, and is accessible to all Marché badge holders. While the conference sessions are open to all accredited participants, certain activities – including one-on-one meetings and the exclusive Co-Production Night – are by invitation only.
The 2025 edition will kick off on Saturday, May 17, with a panel titled “Inclusive Co-Production in Action: Practical Strategies for Producers,” scheduled from 10 am to 11 am at the Palais Stage. This session will address the increasing demand for inclusivity in international filmmaking, offering actionable insights for producers navigating cross-cultural collaborations. Industry experts will explore how inclusive values can be embedded into the co-production process through structural strategies that support equity and diversity.
That evening, from 9.30 pm to 2 am, the much-anticipated Co-Production Night will take place at Plage des Palmes. Reserved for invited producers, co-production market representatives, and industry stakeholders, the event offers a relaxed yet strategic environment for networking, deal-making, and informal exchanges. It remains one of the most popular social gatherings in the Marché calendar.
The second major highlight of the programme comes on Tuesday, May 20, with the launch of the inaugural France-Brazil Co-Production Meetings. Co-organised by the Marché du Film and the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC), this new initiative is part of the broader France-Brazil Season 2025, highlighting Brazil’s designation as the Marché’s Country of Honor.
Taking place from 9:30 am to 2 pm at the Producers Club, the meetings aim to strengthen bilateral collaboration and lay the groundwork for future co-productions between the two countries. Ten Brazilian producers will be selected to participate and will present their companies, track records, and project slates to a curated group of French producers. The goal is to initiate one-on-one meetings that can potentially evolve into concrete partnerships.
This builds on a strong history of co-productions between France and Brazil – over 50 feature films since the early 2000s – many supported by the Bilateral Co-Production Agreement and the Aide aux Cinémas du Monde fund, managed by the CNC and the Institut Français. A selection committee will choose participants based on their international experience and the artistic and market potential of their projects. Eligible producers must be based in Brazil, have produced or co-produced at least three feature-length films, and be able to present at least three projects currently in development that are viable for co-production with French partners. The selected participants will be announced in the coming days.
The partners of the Co-Production Night include 37°South Market - Melbourne International Film Festival, ACE Producers, the Berlinale Co-Production Market, CineGouna Platform, connecting cottbus, Thessaloniki Agora Crossroads Co-production Forum, EAVE, Encuentro de Coproduccion de Cine – Mexico, Eurimages, Jakarta Film Week, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, KVIFF Industry Days, Meeting Point Vilnius, MIA Market, the MIDPOINT Institute, Haugesund – New Nordic Films, Production Finance Market – Film London, Sofia Meetings, TCCF (organised by TAICCA), TFL Meeting Event, the Gotham Film & Media Institute, and When East Meets West.
Meanwhile, Visions du Réel, one of Europe’s leading documentary film festivals, shines the spotlight on France this year, celebrating its deep-rooted documentary tradition powered by a robust public funding model, global co-production appeal, and a receptive local audience. The country is a key presence at VdR again this year: among the 156 films selected are 32 French productions and co-productions, including 26 world premieres.
VdR is a major launchpad for auteur-driven documentaries with festival and theatrical ambitions, and France has plenty of those. Eugénie Michel Villette, founder of boutique doc production outfit Les Films du Bilboquet, has four projects featured across Visions du Réel’s festival and industry sections – all international co-productions. “Anamocot” by Marie Voignier and “The Attachment” by Mamadou Khouma Gueye are vying for the festival’s top prize, while “I Eat With Two Hearts” by Natyvel Pontalier and “Alea Jacaranda” by Hassen Ferhandi are presented at the pitching and work-in-progress strands.
Michel Villette tells Variety, “The CNC’s unique support system, combined with Creative Europe MEDIA, regional funds like Pictanovo [which backs film production in the Hauts-de-France region] – and international co-productions, lets us build strong development frameworks with real flexibilities – all while maintaining full editorial freedom.”
Her producing partner, Mathilde Raczymow, adds: “It’s during development that we give filmmakers time to explore. Some projects evolve over years, with deep, singular writing processes. It’s that time and support that make our films stand out. By the time we move to the production phase, we have a clear vision for the film’s narrative structure, the dramaturgy, and the creative direction.”
Looking ahead, some in the French industry see growing demand for a strong and stable French documentary industry – especially in the U.S., where political shifts could jeopardize access to nuanced, critical storytelling. “There will be a need for alternative content,” one key industry player tells Variety.
While cultural budgets face cuts across much of Europe, France’s documentary film sector remains resilient, buoyed by a robust and multi-layered public funding system anchored by the CNC, regional and European funds, and steady broadcaster support, notably from Arte and France Télévisions. At the core of this structure is France’s “exception culturelle,” a policy designed to preserve and promote cultural diversity, particularly in film.
The CNC stands out globally for its self-financing model, reinvesting levies from cinema tickets, broadcasters, and digital platforms directly into the industry. To boost what it calls “creative docs” of the kind championed by VdR, the CNC offers two key schemes. The first, the “Fonds d’aide à l’innovation en documentaire de création” (Innovation fund for creative documentaries), backs early stage projects from French or EU nationals, as well as foreign filmmakers residing in France. Open to both emerging and seasoned filmmakers, it supports writing and development, often before a broadcaster or a producer is on board, with a focus on originality, experimentation, and bold storytelling. In 2024, the fund awarded a total of nearly €3.2 million ($3.5 million) across 30 projects.
The second, the highly selective “Aide aux Cinémas du Monde” (ACM), is a co-production fund run by the CNC and the Institut Français. Open to feature-length fiction and documentary films with French participation, it targets films from all over the world destined for major festivals like Cannes, Venice, or Berlin, as well as theatrical distribution. A total of €6 million ($6.5 million) was distributed in 2024. Recent beneficiaries include Wang Bing’s 2023 film “Youth,” one of the rare docs to enter Cannes’ Official Selection, and “The Brink of Dreams” (“Les Filles du Nil”) by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, which won the Œil d’Or at Cannes 2024 and hit French theaters this spring.
These director-driven docs don’t just thrive on the festival circuit – they also find a loyal audience in French cinemas, a reflection of the nation’s strong cinephile culture and its vibrant arthouse theater network supported by public institutions. This virtuous cycle, where the success of French cinema directly fuels new productions at every stage, makes France an attractive partner for producers worldwide looking to finance ambitious documentary projects.
Visions du Réel runs in Nyon through April 11, 2025. VdR-Industry kicked off on April 6 and runs until April 9, 2025.
