“Filles de joie” by Frédéric Fonteyne and Anne Paulicevich - KMBO

  • Many distributors are giving up on their films due to the epidemic.
  • Some however maintain their release dates.
  • They fear however the closing of cinemas, the government announced the ban on gatherings of more than 100 people

Since Miss de Ruben Alves was deprogrammed in mid-February last year, film releases have evaporated at an accelerated rate, driven by the development of the coronavirus epidemic. "The Americans have taken a long time to relax, but they are effective," said a distributor who does not want to be identified. Once they got started, the big studio outings fell like flies, that's US efficiency. "

# AQuietPlacePart2 ... Take2 pic.twitter.com/YrCXLLpxjh

- John Krasinski (@johnkrasinski) March 12, 2020

On the side of the big American firms where exits such as Mulan (Disney), Affamés (Fox-Disney) Bloodshot (Sony) or Fast and Furious 9 (Universal) have just been recently suspended, there are countless deprogramming. “It is not a Franco-French strategy; explains Richard Patry, president of the National Federation of French Cinemas but of a decision that is taken internationally. Even the French SND followed, canceling Michaël Youn's Divorce Club .

A "good wife" mistreated

Alone against everyone , Martin Provost's La bonneouse is a hit. “The film finds its audience with 110,000 admissions in two days, says Alexandre Mallet-Guy, general manager of Memento who distributes the film. But we are sailing by sight in front of this unprecedented situation. "

While Edouard Philippe has just announced the ban on the gathering of more than 100 people, he is worried. "If the exploitation of the film were to stop, it would be a financial disaster for us, but I do not regret our decision. We could not imagine that things would turn out this way and I hope that the room operators will help us when everything has returned to normal. "

A handful of diehards

Faced with chaos, some distributors decide to keep their films on the bill. "We have incurred so many promotion and distribution costs that we can no longer back down," explains Vladimir Kokh of KMBO, whose excellent Filles de joie is scheduled for theaters on Wednesday.

His film and a few others see a boulevard open before them, but Vladimir Kokh's reaction is not only commercial. "We also consider it as a gesture of solidarity with the operators with whom we are in constant contact," he says. They need films to show. ” However, all is not rosy, far from it for these irreducible of the 7th Art like Eurozoom which leaves Les Mondes parallèles this Wednesday.

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#LABONNEEPOUSE of #MartinProvost which brings together an impressive #casting #JulietteBinoche #YolandeMoreau # NoémieLvovsky #EdouardBaer # FrançoisBerléand has been selected for the @ 23eme #Festival du # cinema # Télérama (January 15-21). Congratulations to the whole team ! 👏👏 At # cinema on March 4! 🎬. . . . @telerama @ memento.films @filmsdukiosque @juliettebinoche @ yolandem.officiel @francoisberleand

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Fear of closure

Their fear to all is, of course, the total closure of cinemas. "There is no doubt that the multiplexes will close quickly," said a programmer, speaking on condition of anonymity. For now, we are juggling the films already released while waiting to see what will happen in the hours to come. "

According to this informant, cinema professionals are currently in a meeting to try to find solutions that will be announced in the coming hours. However, it is more than likely that the cinemas will be closed even if some small cinemas already promise to sell only 95 tickets per screening.

What about the future?

As John Krasinski, director of Without a Noise 2 said in a tweet published this Thursday announcing the postponement of this awaited sequel: "We will wait to be able to see the film ALL together". But it's not for the day after tomorrow.

"It is more complicated to reopen the rooms than to close them," insists our anonymous distributor. The day we do it, it will be a strong sign to say that there is no longer any danger and there, we will have to hope that people will want to catch up by going to the movies. All seem to agree that the situation may last several weeks that it will also impact other sectors such as filming, postproduction and dubbing.

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