Actualités

Since 2011, France’s Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma has steadfastly held its annual awards ceremony the Friday before the Academy Awards. And if launching the Césars two days before the Oscars holds a real, practical benefit — allowing those walking both red carpets time to linger over their last flutes of Champagne before boarding the 12-hour flight — it also resonates on a more figurative level.

Though both ceremonies have evolved alongside one another in recent years and have made similar changes, the César committees have consistently been just ahead of their American counterparts when introducing such shifts.

Take, for example, the overall number of nominees: In 2009, the Césars expanded its best picture field from five nominees to seven, predating the Oscars’ similar move by a year. The César chiefs were so pleased by this change that, in 2012, they opted to expand the categories of actor, actress and director to...

Admissions down by 3% in France this year.

France’s road to FIFA World Cup victory combined with a heatwave in June and July as well as violent ‘yellow vest’ protests in November and December have taken their toll on the French box office throughout 2018.

According to the National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (Cnc), admissions fell by 3% in the 12 months to the end of November to 203 million, against 210 million in the same period in 2017. The tally for the first 11 months of 2018 showed a 3.2% drop in entries to a preliminary figure of 180 million from 186 million for the period in...

Luc Besson’s financially ailing EuropaCorp has signed a distribution deal with Pathé, which will handle the French release of three EuropaCorp movies per year over the next three years.

The first two films to be released by Pathé in France under the deal are Besson’s (“Valerian”) thriller “Anna,” with Helen Mirren, and Guillaume Canet’s “Nous Finirons Ensemble,” the sequel to “Little White Lies,” which was France’s highest-grossing local film in 2010.

EuropaCorp said the two companies would collaborate on the distribution of films produced or co-produced by EuropaCorp.

Pathé is a solid partner. The company currently ranks as France’s most successful independent distribution outfit, boasting this year’s top two local movies, “The Magic Tuche” and “La ch’tite famille.”

Besson said in a statement that the company was “delighted by the agreement,” and looks forward to “sharing [its] know-how and enthousiasm with Pathé.”

EuropaCorp is folding...

As studios vie for a chunk of an increasingly globalized business, the importance of local-language films that reflect homegrown audiences has been among key talking points for exhibitors and studios here at the CineEurope conference in Barcelona this week. Local films simply help all boats to rise. It’s notably on folks minds amid a box office downturn in some European majors, particularly Germany where underperforming local titles have contributed to a sizable drop in the first part of the year.

Tim Richards, chief of Vue International which operates in major European markets, including Germany and Italy (as well as Taiwan), tells me a local hit “turns a good year into a great year.”

Fox’s President of International Theatrical Distribution Andrew Cripps confirms the importance of local which “brings an audience to movies that don’t normally go, then they see trailers and marketing materials” which have the effect...