15/01/2013 - Régine Hatchondo presents the 3rd edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival, the original on-line festival organized by Unifrance, starting on January 17th

Encounter with the General Director of Unifrance who explains the growing prominence of MyFrenchFilmFestival, the original on-line festival launched in 2011 by this agency in charge of promoting French cinema abroad, whose third edition will run from January 17 to February 17, 2013, on 19 platforms and in 12 languages (German, English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish).

What are the objectives of this 3rd edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival ?
Régine Hatchondo: Some French movies enjoy real visibility and travel very well, in 30 to 40 different territories. But it isn't always easy to show the richness and diversity of our cinema abroad, especially in the case of movies by younger filmmakers. And among French films released abroad, one film out of two is distributed in only three or four countries, usually French-speaking. MyFrenchFilmFestival thus provides the chance to show films that have been well-received, but which are not being screened, or very little, on the international scene. Furthermore, our foreign audiences have aged, and 15 to 30 year-olds who mostly watch films in multiplexes have fewer opportunities to discover French movies in theatres: we had to find a way of reaching this audience. The festival also enables us to build a sort of community of French movie-fans around the world, to maintain a direct relationship with the public and then set up links to our live events. Finally, we are building privileged relationships with certain video-on-demand platforms, and getting to know their acquisition directors very well. Half of the platforms actually wanted to keep the films at the end of the 2012 edition.

Just how motivated are French producers and exporters to participate in the festival?
We are very happy with our 2013 selection of ten feature films chosen from 60 films proposed by the exporters, a number which is on the rise. We have done away with the principle of selecting only first or second feature films, though the 2013 edition still has six first feature films. Sellers are finding the test very interesting, even if their enthusiasm is still somewhat restrained as the festival has not yet generated substantially increased revenues. The 2013 selection includes social films (La Désintégration [+see also:
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film profile], Early One Morning [+see also:
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film profile]), widely-noticed first feature films (Louise Wimmer [+see also:
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film profile], Donoma [+see also:
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film profile]), but also three titles that have chalked up more than 200,000 admissions in French theatres: Leader-Sheep [+see also:
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film profile], Radiostars [+see also:
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film profile] and On Air [+see also:
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film profile]. This year, a prize awarded by a Filmmakers' Jury chaired by Michel Hazanavicius and composed of Emanuele Crialese, Lucrecia Martel and Wang Xiaoshuai will be added to those designated by the public, the Social Networks Jury and International Press Jury.

Why have you decided to extend the event's duration?

The first edition lasted two weeks. The second year, we extended it to three weeks and now it's one month, at the request of Internet users who want enough time to watch all the movies. The festival's first edition attracted 40,000 Internet users, the second a total of 1.35 million, with huge success particularly in China, Brazil, Russia and Argentina, but disappointing scores in the United States. This year, we have set up a partnership with ITunes which will broadcast films in about 30 countries. The festival will also be shown on Filmin and Yomvi operated by Canal+ in Spain, Eurocinema and Vudu in the United States, Flimmit in Austria, Goodmovies in Germany, Illico in Quebec, Le Kino in Switzerland, Curzon On Demand in the United Kingdom, Volta in Ireland, Numericable and Universciné in France, and Dailymotion all over the world. In some countries with a strong tradition of piracy, the selection will be available free of charge (though a fee will be paid to entitled beneficiaries) via our platform or through our partners in Latin America, China (Youku), Poland (Orange TV), Russia (Now) and Turkey (on Pay TV Digiturk).