Invest in France Agency international Office

Jeremy Leven, American screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist

The “expertise and talents” permit is one of the first residence permits to be valid for more than one year, enabling holders to carry out a professional activity in France (salaried or commercial business activity).
It can be issued to any foreign nationals who, by means of their talent and expertise, are likely to contribute in a significant and lasting manner, to the economic development or to the intellectual, scientific, cultural, humanitarian or sporting achievements in particular, of France and the holder’s home country.
The “expertise and talents” permit is issued for a three year period (which can be extended) and is a valid work permit and/or authorization to register a new business at the company register.
Members of the “expertise and talents” permit holder’s family (spouse and children) are issued with a “private and family life” residence permit, which gives them automatic access to the job market (without having to apply for a work permit). The “expertise and talents” permit holder and his family can enter France at the same time.

You are the recipient of the first “skills & talent” card (carte compétences et talents). Can you talk about it and the administrative process to get this card? 

Obtaining the card came about through a meeting with someone from Film France, who, in turn, introduced me to the Invest in France Agency. The process went amazingly quickly for anything bureaucratic, thanks primarily to the Invest in France Agency.

Compared to the first carte de séjour my wife and I obtained in 1996, it was amazingly fast and easy.  The Invest in France Agency was always there for me, extremely responsive, made the necessary appointments and I was treated like royalty. It was a wonderful experience.

Can you describe your activities in France?

Most of them have to do with the film business, although over the last four years I have co-written two books in English about French(...) They have been published by a French Publisher, Les Editions Diateino.
 
I have been coming to France since May 1968 (yes, I confess, I was there, pave in hand, on Boule Miche), but I came to France on a more permanent basis in 1995 to work with Roman Polanski on a film project, originally for a week, which became a year (...).

Do you have any projects in France and can you talk about them?

Ironically, my next two projects also required me to be in France.  I wrote (and am directing) a film, originally for Warner Brothers/Castle Rock, about the true story of the theft of La Joconde from the Musée du Louvre in 1911, entitled Lovers, Liars and Thieves, and being shot with an entirely French crew and cast.  This required extensive research at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The process went amazingly quickly for anything bureaucratic, thanks primarily to the Invest in France Agency.

The film has not yet been shot, but I am planning to do so this next year in Paris, and hence the carte de séjour compétences et talents.  In any event, this research took place in 1996-1997, and we rented a home in St. Germain-en-Laye, moved there with my family, and my son went to the Lycée International there.

After finishing this scenario, we returned to the apartment we had rented on rue St. Dominique in the 7th to work on a film with Robert Redford entitled The Legend of Bagger Vance (Matt Damon, Will Smith), and produced by Jake Eberts, who happened to live a street away in the 7th, actually the street on which, in 2000, we were finally to buy our home in Paris, on Avenue Emile Deschanel, which we adore.

Today, I continue to work away on Lovers, Liars and Thieves, on another book to be published in France (I had two novels published in France in the early 1980s by Robert Laffont), and on a play of Francois Premier in which some interest has been expressed by a friend who is on the board of the Comedie du Theatre Champs Elysees, although nothing formal has been done in this regard, as I still am working on it.  It is my hope to have the play, in French, done by the end of this year.

How is France different from other countries?

Of course, one can write a novel, a screenplay, and theatrical play about how France is different from other countries.  I can compare it only to America, which I also love.  I have found the French to be much more social than the Americans, and I have many more French friends with whom I talk, dine, and just maintain contact than I do in America, dating all the way back to our days in St. Germain-en-Laye, where, in the one year we lived there, we had more contact and spent more time with our neighbors than we have in the nearly 30 years total we have lived in our present home in Connecticut.
 
Further, I have the impression that the French value the artistic and intellectual life, as a whole and as a nation, far more than in America.  There never has been an "Apostrophe" or a "Dictee" on American television, nor, I can say with some safety, will there ever be.

And then, of course, there is Paris, with the quiet streets, a walking city (which New York is not oftentimes), with a calm that is, to me as an artist, inspirational.
Finally, I love the country, itself, from Nice to St. Malo, Alsace to Bordeaux, and we spend every August in St. Jean de Luz, which is a wonderful very French family place, and for which I have found no equivalent in America.

This is not to say that America, with its energy and its own culture is not as good in any way as France, but I write what I, and I think the world, loves about France.