American French film festival opens as Hollywood counts the cost of Covid

The American French Film Festival opened on Monday in Los Angeles, against a background of industry concerns over the sharp drop in audience figures in France and the United States in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

The American French Film Festival runs from 10 to 16 October in West Hollywood, California. © AFP/Chris Delmas

The American French Film Festival - formerly known as COLCOA - intended to show Hollywood the best of French productions, offers 75 French films and television series, many being screened for the first time in north America.

The 26th edition opened on 10 October with the screening of "Notre-Dame on Fire" by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the French director of "The Name of the Rose" (1986) and "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997).

(3/3) Artists who will be in attendance are:
Marie-Castille Mention-Shaar - Divertimento
Lise Akoka - The Worst Ones
Romain Gavras & Dali Bensallah - Athena
Alexendru Belc - Metronom
Fabrice Garçon, Kevin Ossona - Blazing Neon
Wilfried Meance, Bertrand Dusclat - Two of a Kind pic.twitter.com/8Gj1weyIMC

— The American French Film Festival (@theUSFrenchFF) October 10, 2022

"There's no hiding the fact: cinema is experiencing a real upheaval," Annaud said before the screening of his film.

Between inflation eating away at leisure budgets and "people who have equipped themselves with large screens during confinement [...] cinemas are in great difficulty and the industry is in the process of switching to streaming platforms," he added.

French director Jean-Jacques Annaud and British actress Jacqueline Bisset at the opening night of The American French Film Festival in West Hollywood, California, on 10 October, 2022. © AFP/Chris Delmas

Falling audience

On both sides of the Atlantic, movie theaters are struggling to attract an audience.

In the United States, about 500 cinemas have closed since the pandemic according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.

And Cineworld, the British group that owns Regal Cinemas, the second-largest movie theater chain in the United States, seems set for major restructuring as it prepares to file for bankruptcy, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In France, cinema audiences had their worst September since 1980, according to the latest figures from the National Center for Cinema, with ticket sales down 34 percent compared to September 2019, before the Covid pandemic.

"It's always worrying to see that attendance has dropped and is struggling to pick up again," explained director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, who is presenting her film "Divertimento" at the festival.

"We have to go find our audience," she added. "The emotion we have in a movie theater will never be the same as in front of a TV or a telephone."

Digital platforms

In the United States, digital platforms allow French works to find a wider audience, according to festival director François Truffart.

"There is a whole new generation that loves French films and European and Asian series," he said.

This year's programming particularly includes streaming films such as "Hawa" by Maimouna Doucoure and "Athena" by Romain Gavras, produced for Netflix.

On the series side, comedienne Melha Bedia will present "Miskina, Poor Thing," broadcast on Amazon Prime Video, and director Olivier Assayas will screen "Irma Vep," a mini-series produced by HBO.

(With newswires)