LUXEMBOURG — “Can you cover for me? I trust you,” whispers Marie-France, a scheming receptionist played by Nathalie Baye, to a co-worker in a small, brightly lit office.
As she walks out of the frame, a leather handbag slung over her shoulder, someone shouts “Coupez!” and the set of “La Volante,” a psychological thriller directed by Christophe Ali and Nicolas Bonilauri, becomes busy with crew members preparing for the next take. A large lighting balloon hovering in the lobby is lowered a little, and Ms. Baye’s hair-ends are adjusted.
“La Volante” has all the qualities of a French thriller: a twisted story line, intricate character studies and a cast led by Ms. Baye, a star of French cinema since the 1970s. But this scene, like most of the film, was not shot in France.
The office where Marie-France is plotting revenge is in a converted town hall in Mondorf-les-Bains in Luxembourg, a short walk from the French border.
Because large parts of the movie were shot here, and a Luxembourg-based producer is involved, “La Volante” managed to obtain a public grant of over 1 million euros, or about $1.2 million, from Film Fund Luxembourg, enough to cover more than a third of the movie’s costs.
The project is one of the many French movies relying on foreign financing, a trend that poses one of several threats to the industry in the birthplace of cinema. France’s National Center for Cinema, which distributes millions of euros in subsidies to movie productions with a budget drawn from different taxes, has been hurt by successive levies to help pay for the public debt.
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The flight to neighboring countries is, however, mostly driven by financial incentives rather than artistic preferences, which makes France’s tax credit incompatible with many other financing programs.
In addition, Mr. Dercourt said, a recently adopted labor agreement regulating working hours is driving up production costs. The rule sets minimum wages for crew members, including rates for overtime, and night and Sunday hours.
“For producers, even for entirely French films, this imposes incredible constraints,” he said. “It makes the work of a producer even more difficult.”
A rising demand for Luxembourg’s aid has prompted six local production companies to open the country’s second major studio complex, Filmland, which is courting international co-productions with prices adapted to various budgets.
“We used to make the movies we could,” said Mr. Steil, president of the production company Iris, “but now we can make the ones we want.”
