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95c | ISSUE 10 | MAY 2012
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NEWS, WHAT’S ON INFO FOR AUDE, GARD, HERAULT, LOZERE, PYRENEES-ORIENTALES
One woman’s mission to improve male driving WE NEED WOMEN TO HELP, SAYS CAMPAIGNER
Studio plan as region bids for more films
Satellite crackdown on local tax cheats HALF a million euros in tax evasion fines were pocketed last year by Carcassonne town hall, who gave six specialists the mission of pinpointing undeclared swimming pools, vacant buildings and land suitable for development. The team used Google Earth and other satellite imaging services to zoom in and verify residents’ taxe d’habitation (council tax) declarations. The operation was managed by Mohamed Didaoui, according to whom, in 2011, 487 untaxed swimming pools were indentified, bringing in a total €100,000 in fines. Mr Didaoui said he expected the rate of detection to go up, as his team were waiting for new satellite images to become available – their investigations so far have been made using images from 2008. Swimming pools are an obvious target, but habitable buildings that have been vacant for five years or more are now subject to a special tax that last year netted some €98,000 euros. A law passed in 2011 enforcing taxation on land suitable for development but as yet without habitable construction has brought a further €130,000 euros into the local coffers.
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BOOK FAIR DIRECTOR SHOWCASES UK AUTHORS p24
FILMMAKERS are increasingly turning to the LanguedocRoussillon when it comes to locations for their films – and plans to build a studio are expected to give the sector another boost in years to come. Five feature films, eight TV films, seven shorts and four documentaries were filmed last year in 400 days of filming. This year, three series and two films are coming out with the region and Montpellier as their backdrops. These are TV series Antigone 34, which started recently on France 2 and Inquisitio (for the same channel) as well as the films Paradis Perdu (filmed in Céret, Pyrénées-Orientales) and Pauline Détective. This comes as policies started by former regional president Georges Frêche, who
died while still in office in 2010, are bearing fruit. As for 2012, filming is planned on a France 2 series Lignes de Vie (Lifelines), in Montpellier, and on a major historical series Heretics in the Aude to be screened on Arte next year. Among other projects expected to be filmed are English-language films, but details are yet to be confirmed. Heretics was made in locations including Narbonne, Carcassonne and Fontfroide Abbey and focuses on the Cathars, the medieval sect which flourished in the Languedoc and was subject to violent repression by the Catholic Church. M According to the councillor in charge of culture at Montpellier, Philippe Saurel, there is
a freshness about the region’s scenery that appeals to filmmakers. The town has encouraged the trend, for example with offers of free use of car parks or locations, such as the old Hôtel de Ville for scenes in Lignes de Vie. A director of LanguedocRoussillon Cinéma, an agency working with the state and local authorities to develop filming in the area, Marin Rosenstiehl, said: “Cinema and television films have been developing extremely well in the Languedoc-Roussillon for a couple of years. It’s been Continued on page 2
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