French cinema takes rare nosedive

French cinema’s hopes for 2017 pinned on Luc Besson’s Valerian Photo: EuropaCorp

Although the annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris every January (running until Monday) is designed to trumpet the achievements of le cinéma Français there was no good news in the figures unveiled last night (January 13), which saw a downturn in admissions for French films, dipping below 50 million for the first time in ten years.

The box office take overseas plunged 69 per cent last year compared to 2015 when such titles as Luc Besson’s Lucy and the latest in the Taken franchise bolstered numbers. Gilles Renouard, Unifrance’s deputy director, noted that such films were the exception rather than the norm. Titles which performed strongly were cited as English-language French 3D animated fantasy The Little Prince and the English-language thriller Shut In as well as The Sense of Wonder, The New Adventures Of Aladdin, Up for Love, Seasons, Mustang, and The Student And Mister Henri, Chocolat and Elle.

A bit of magic for French cinema last year: The Little Prince Photo: Unifrance

Although French films normally sell more tickets outside France than at home, the current figures indicate that for only the second time in five years that Gallic cinema sold fewer tickets overseas than on the domestic front. Only five French films exceeded more than one million admissions abroad, compared to ten in 2015.

Experts point out that it takes only a couple of hits to turn the fortunes around with hopes pinned for this year on Luc Besson’s big budget slice of sci-fi Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets as well as the Omar Sy comedy-drama Two Is A Family.