News

France was one of the first countries to require streamers to invest in the local film and TV production sector. Three years on, its impact is being felt.

A comprehensive study from the Cnc and French audiovisual regulatory authority Arcom published in late November revealed the impact of the introduction of the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Avmsd) in France on the country’s film and TV sector.

The Avmsd requires the US streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual turnover in local film and TV. According to the report, it has given the French industry a nearly $1.05bn (€1bn) financial boost.

France was one of the first countries to require streamers to invest in the local film and TV production sector. Three years on, its impact is being felt.

A comprehensive study from the Cnc and French audiovisual regulatory authority Arcom published in late November revealed the impact of the introduction of the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Avmsd) in France on the country’s film and TV sector. The Avmsd requires the US streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual turnover in local film and TV. According to the report, it has given the French industry a near $1.05bn (€1bn) financial boost.

France has published its most comprehensive study to date detailing the impact of investment obligations introduced in 2021 requiring global streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual local turnover in French film and TV production.

The obligations were introduced in June, 2021 as part of the country’s transposition into law of the European Union’s 2018 Audiovisual and Media Services Directive (Avmsd), updating the bloc’s legislation for the digital age and the rise of global streaming platforms.

The report – compiled by France’s National Cinema Centre (Cmc) and audiovisual authority Arcom – showed that global streamers had invested more than $1.02B (€974.6M) in French film and TV shows from 2021 to end 2023.

Within this, streamers put $73M (€70.1M) into 58 Cnc-approved features over the three-year period and financed 106 audiovisual works for an investment of $952M (€904.4M). Arcom’s figures, which included films not registered with the Cnc, were slightly higher, showing investment and...

French company The Yard VFX, whose credits include The Rings of Power – Season 2, Halo – Season 2, All The Light We Cannot See, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and John Wick: Chapter 4 – is expanding its operations beyond Paris to open a new studio in London.

The VFX firm said the new facility would serve as a strategic extension of The Yard’s operations, fostering closer collaboration with UK-based production companies, filmmakers, and agencies.

Founded in Paris in 2014, the studio has collaborated with a roster of major film studios, production companies, and streaming platforms worldwide over the past decade.

Recent accolades for its work include Best Visual Effects at the 2023 edition of France’s prestigious Cesar awards for Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Notre Dame on Fire, and it was also recently nominated at the 2024 Emmy Awards for its work on Netflix’s All The Light We Cannot See.

“London is a dynamic...

Playtime (“Son of Saul”) is reteaming with celebrated French directors François Ozon (“By the Grace of God”) and sister duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin (“17 Girls”) on their respective upcoming films, “When Fall Is Coming” and “The Quiet Son.”

“When Fall is Coming” marks Ozon’s follow up to “The Crime Is Mine.” The film stars Hélène Vincent (“The Specials”), Josiane Balasko (“Back to Mom’s”), Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin”) and Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”).

The film tells the story of Michelle, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a charming Burgundy village near her longtime friend Marie-Claude. She eagerly anticipates her grandson Lucas spending the school vacation with her, but things don’t go as planned. Feeling lonely, Michelle loses her sense of purpose, until Marie-Claude’s son gets out of prison.

The film is self-produced by Ozon through his vehicle Foz. Diaphana Distribution will release it in France.

Board makes “difficult decision” ahead of October event.

The ongoing Hollywood strikes have struck again, this time forcing the Franco-American Cultural Fund (Facf) to cancel its Los Angeles event the American French Film Festival.

The Facf, which brings together the DGA, MPA, WGA and France’s authors’ rights organisation Sacem, said its board members made the “difficult decision” this week to cancel, explaining that it was “not possible to continue with business as usual”.

The group said it was “keenly aware of the impact of this decision on the filmmakers, actors, producers, and distributors of the films and series that were due to be featured,...

Imax is ramping up its operations in France, as well as expanding its long-standing relationship with Kinepolis in Europe and North America. In France, Imax will aim to nearly triple the number of its systems from the 22 currently in operation to more than 60. One of those will be in partnership with Belgian exhibitor Kinepolis in Nimes.

Also with Kinepolis, a further seven Imax with Laser systems are due to roll out in Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Michigan and Ontario.

With regard to France, Imax has been driving strong momentum across box office, network growth and its content portfolio. The market has seen one of the strongest post-pandemic rebounds and is Imax’s No. 7 market globally so far in 2023. The company delivered its best first quarter ever at the French box office with $9.3M — on the heels of its highest-grossing quarter of all time in France with $9.5M in Q4 2022.

So far this year,...

Imax is gearing up to expand its presence in France, with plans to triple the number of screens in the country from 22 to more than 60.

The news, which was announced at Cannes Film Festival, comes as the box office in France continues to recover from the pandemic. Although the global box office hasn’t fully rebounded from Covid, Imax ticket sales have been surging. That’s because when audiences are finding the time to leave the house for a movie, they’re preferring to watch it in the best possible quality.

Thanks to “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Imax delivered its best first quarter ever at the French box office with $9.3 million in 2023. That’s on the heels of its highest-grossing quarter of all time in France with $9.5 million at the end of 2022. James Cameron’s blockbuster sequel currently stands as Imax’s highest-grossing film of all time in France...

French president Emmanuel Macron is set to kick off a three-day trip to Beijing this week, a high-stakes diplomatic mission that will be a delicate balancing act between urging Chinese leader Xi Jinping to alter his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and maintaining France’s trade priorities. The French delegation accompanying Macron will include dozens of people spread across two jetliners touching down in Beijing on Wednesday — and the French film industry will be among the constituencies represented in the group.

Veteran filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud will travel with Macron and attend various official functions, including the China-France state dinner hosted by Xi Jinping in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Thursday evening. During the trip, Annaud will also be promoting his most recent film, the 2022 disaster epic Notre-Dame on Fire, which is getting a nationwide China release on Friday. It will be the first French film...

Makoto Shinkai’s Japanese anime sensation Suzume held strong at the top of China’s box office over the weekend, earning $22.1 million while easily defeating Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Sony’s 65, which both flopped.

Suzume has earned $80.6 million in China, better than any other international film released in the country this year, including U.S. superhero tentpoles like Ant-Man 3 ($39 million), according to box office tracker Artisan Gateway. The film is forecast to bring in over $90 million, which will make it the most commercially successful Japanese anime in China of all time.

Suzume also has earned just shy of $30 million in South Korea and $105 million in Japan. It opens in North America and most of Europe on April 14, providing the latest bellwether for anime’s growing theatrical potential in the West.

Dungeons & Dragons and 65‘s disappointing results continue a streak of poor...

Event formerly known as Colcoa runs October 10-16.

The North American premiere of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Notre-Dame On Fire (Notre-Dame Brûle), a dramatised account of the April 2019 fire that damaged the Gothic Parisian landmark, will open American French Film Festival (formerly Colcoa) in Los Angeles on October 16.

The week-long event will close with the North American premiere of Dominik Moll’s thriller The Night Of The 12th (La Nuit du 12) and the annual filmmaker focus will be dedicated to Moll. The world theatrical premiere of Olivier Assayas’s series Irma Vep will also screen on closing day.

The line-up...

The American French Film Festival, formerly known as Colcoa, will kick off Oct. 10 with the North American premiere of docudrama “Notre-Dame on Fire,” from “Quest for Fire” director Jean-Jacques Annaud. The weeklong festival at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles closes with Dominik Moll’s thriller “The Night of the 12th,” about a cold case where the only certainty is the night it occurred. Moll will also be the focus of the festival’s annual “Focus on a Filmmaker.”

“Every year, The American French Film Festival presents the very best of French cinema and television, and this year is no exception. I am personally excited about the opening night selection of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s ‘Notre-Dame on Fire’ as I think it perfectly embodies the Franco-American Cultural Fund’s mission,” said Andrea Berloff, writer and board member of the Franco-American Cultural Fund.

The festival will screen 75 films and TV series and 20 shorts,...

"Save the cathedral… without losing a single life." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a mini-series titled Notre Dame, the second major production based around the Notre Dame fire in 2019. The moment this fire at the iconic cathedral made news around the world, I knew it would be turned into movies. Jean-Jacques Annaud made his own Notre-Dame On Fire film also releasing this year, and Netflix has made their mini-series based around the exact same concept - following the firefighters who went to work putting out the fire that night. Hervé Hadmar's Notre Dame series follows the story of the night of April 15th, 2019 in Notre-Dame Cathedral alongside the many firefighters and the impact the fire had on different characters across France. Starring Roschdy Zem, Caroline Proust, Megan Northam, Simon Abkarian, Alice Isaaz, Marie Zabukovec, Sandor Funtek. This looks like it has some gorgeous visuals, but it also...

Pathé, which operates France’s leading cinema circuit, is planning to enter the Paris stock exchange in 2024, Variety has confirmed. The company’s president, Jérôme Seydoux, revealed the group’s long-gestated listing project in an interview with the French publication Les Echos.

Seydoux said the company suffered a loss of approximately €100 million during the financial years 2020 and 2021, mainly due to the fact that theaters in France were shut down for a total of 300 days during the pandemic. While it ruffled feathers by selling “Coda” to Apple at Sundance in 2021 in a splashy 25 million deal, the company was one of the rare French studios which maintained its release plans for major local productions during the health crisis, for instance Martin Bourboulon’s “Eiffel” with Romain Duris and Emma Mackey, and Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Notre Dame on Fire.”

Entering the Paris stock exchange should allow Pathé to pursue its ambitious plans to...

A simple listing, duplicated from the dvd/blu/vod UK and Ireland page, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Weekly Digest emails (sign up here).

The most up-to-date version of this listing is always here.

new from Aug 22–26

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (premium VOD) Men

I’m planning to watch…

A Chiara (Mubi) Notre-Dame on Fire (premium VOD) Official Competition (Curzon Home Cinema) Potato Dreams of America Samaritan (Prime) Wayfinder Wolf

(films on regular VOD and/or DVD unless otherwise noted)

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recent releases

Ali & Ava (Netflix/VOD) The Audition The Bad Guys The Batman Belfast Benedetta...

For its 50th edition unspooling Aug. 20-26, Norway’s top film event, the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, will be treating its 400-plus international guests and local audiences with a beefed-up onsite program of 72 feature length films and 19 shorts.

“We’ve had more films to choose from than ever before, “says festival honcho Tonje Hardersen about her non-competitive program, put together in close collaboration with local distributors and exhibitors. “We can still see the post-covid effects on distribution as many titles were delayed. We have therefore slightly older films – from 2020 up to 2022 – which is unusual. But this makes for an exceptional program, hopefully for all tastes,” she adds.

World premieres take in the blockbuster Norwegian opener ‘War Sailor’ by Gunnar Vikene starring Kristoffer Joner (‘The Revenant’), Pål Sverre Hagen (‘Kon-Tiki’), and Ine Marie Wilmann (‘Homesick’), about Norwegian war sailors’ heroic efforts during WWII. Prolific outfit Mer Film (‘The Innocents’) is producing,...

Vincent Maël Cardona, whose 2021 pic “Magnetic Beats” won a prize at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and a Cesar Award for best first film, is set to direct “De Grâce,” a sprawling crime thriller unfolding in the northern French port city of Le Havre.

The series is being co-produced and commissioned by Arte France, and is produced by Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin at Ego Productions, a Mediawan company. Belgium’s Savage Films is co-producing. Mediawan Rights is representing the show in international markets.

Set to start shooting on location in Le Havre on Aug. 8, “De Grâce” features a strong ensemble cast including Olivier Gourmet (“The Minister”), Margot Bancilhon (“Five”), Panayotis Pascot (“Mon chien stupide”), Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”), Astrid Whettnall (“Baron noir”), Philippe Rebbot.(“L’amour flou”) and French rapper Gringe.

“De Grâce,” penned by Maxime Crupaux (“Cherif”) and Baptiste Fillon, tells the story of Pierre Leprieur (Gourmet), a native of Le Havre who...

To the degree that a global sales division can shape its own image, Pathé’s international arm has built and bolstered its current brand around strong IP, recognizable faces and unbelievable but true stories.

To see those elements in play, one need only look to last year, when projects including Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” and Martin Bourboulon’s “Eiffel” lifted from world and film history as they showcased stars such as Virginie Efira, Romain Duris and Emma Mackey, while collectively finding homes in more than a hundred international territories.

To witness those same imperatives, but supercharged, one need only glimpse Pathé’s 2022 slate, which goes long on hometown IP and star power.

“Being exhibitors ourselves, we make films for the big screen,” says Marie-Laure Montironi, exec VP of international sales. “Today, names and universal stories drive audiences to cinemas. To hook people, you need a big spectacle, a big story,...

Slowing emerging from a two-year pandemic, France’s second biggest multiplex chain behind Pathé, Cgr Cinemas, has been put on the market by its owners, Luc Raymond and Charles Raymond, Variety has confirmed.

The family-owned business has an estimated value of about 1.1 billion, according to Jocelyn Bouyssy, Cgr’s long-time managing director who has been tapped to find a buyer for the group.

Founded in 1966 in the Southwestern town of La Rochelle, Cgr Cinemas now boasts 74 venues, over 700 screens and more than 2,000 staffers on the payroll. The company began diversifying in recent years by investing in the French distribution company Apollo Films, as well as in hotels and restaurants.

Under Jouyssy’s leadership, Cgr Cinemas also launched a new premium format called Ice (Immersive Cinema Experience) that outperformed Imax, Dolby Cinema and 4Dx in 2019. In that pre-pandemic year, Cgr Cinemas had an annual revenue of roughly €280 million (303 million), which fell...

Less than two years after joining France Televisions, former Canal Plus executive Manuel Alduy has contributed to bolstering the French public broadcaster’s roster of international series with shows such as “Bardot,” a mini-series biopic of Brigitte Bardot, and “L’Insoumise” about Alice Guy, the first female filmmaker ever.

Ahead of France Televisions’ press conference at Series Mania, Alduy said the broadcaster’s first-look initiative with the European Broadcasting Union (Ebu) has yielded several prestige projects, including “Bardot.” The Ebu represents 113 organizations across the 56 countries, including the BBC in the U.K., Ard in Germany, Dr in Denmark, Svt in Sweden, Rai in Italy and the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

“Bardot” charts the life of the French actor and model from 1949, when she first appeared on the cover of a magazine, to the birth of her son in 1960. It’s being produced by Federation Entertainment with France Televisions in France, and...

Building on the critical success and renewed public interest drummed up by the Canal Plus series “The Bureau,” and inspired by the U.S. Defense Department’s various Hollywood liaison offices, France’s Ministry of Armed Forces launched its own outreach post, opening the Mission Cinéma in 2016.

Meant to be a one-stop-shop for all production needs, the Mission Cinéma presents itself as a single point of access to France’s defense department, offering filmmakers technical support, trainings sessions and immersive residencies free of charge.

In practical terms, that means coordinating requests for costumes, locations and highly guarded materials, while organizing creative scouting missions for screenwriters and producers, depositing film pros on aircraft carriers and letting them witness training drills in order to kindle the spark of imagination.

The Mission paired with director Jean-Jacques Annaud early in pre-production on his upcoming “Notre Dame on Fire,” putting the filmmaker in contact with...

Paris Images Online, an industry showcase promoting locations in the French capital, has lured some of France’s top dogs, including Federation Entertainment’s Pascal Breton, “Sing 2” producer Jacques Bled, and “Notre Dame on Fire” filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud. The conference is taking place on Jan. 24 as part of the Paris Images conference, which kicks off Thursday and runs through Jan. 29.

Co-organized by France’s National Film Board (Cnc), the event comprises several round tables and case studies bringing together professionals and talents who worked on high-profile films and TV shows, which recently shot or did their post-production in Paris, from Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” to Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater,” season 2 of “Emily in Paris” and the upcoming “Marie-Antoinette” series.

The event kicks off with a case study on “The Last Duel” with Béatrice Bauwens, VFX and post director at Mpc Film & Episodic, John Bernard, producer and CEO at Peninsula Film,...