France's national film board, the CNC, has concluded that 2007 was a globally healthy year for French cinema. In total 228 films were produced with the CNC's stamp of approval. The figure does not match 2005's historic 240 but is higher than the average 213 over the past six years. Of those films, 185 were initiated by the French.

Investment in French films reached $1.89bn (Euros 1.2bn) - the first time it has ever passed the Euros 1 billion mark. The median investment was $8.55m (Euros 5.43m) versus $8.3m (Euros 5.27m) last year.

Investments from the TV networks rose 16% in the case of Canal Plus to $252m (Euros 160m) while terrestrial channels ponied up $197m (Euros 125m) for a 22.6% increase.

Of the 185 French initiative films, 120 took advantage of the tax credit scheme, up from 119 last year. Shooting weeks ramped up to 971 from 900 previously.

The CNC's automatic aid dropped 8% while the advance on receipts was responsible for 15.2% of total investments, up from 13.4% last year.

The CNC noted that although it may be too early to see a trend emerging, the polarization of film budgets has decreased. Mid-range pictures (from Euros 4m to Euros 7m) made up 16.1% of all investments, up from 11.6%. Twelve films budgeted over $23.6m (Euros 15m) were produced representing a jump from thenine produced in 2006.

First films also surged to 72 from 16 last year.

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