09/07/2003

May was a very good month for Gallic film attendance, however, the trend did not continue in June when a 21 per cent drop off was reported, according to the latest data published by the National Film Centre (CNC). From 1 January to 30 June 2003, a total of 87.8 million tickets were sold in France.
However the first six months of this year saw a 9.3 per cent drop in attendance with respect to the same time last year. If the 12-month period, from July 2002 to 30 June 2003 is considered, this decrease is less dramatic (around 6.7 per cent) which corresponds to a total of 175.4m tickets sold.
Sadly, the 14.4 per cent hike reported in May may well have been a one-off event, and exhibitors are now seriously worried, especially after the Film Fair of 22-24 June failed in its intent to encourage cinema attendance.
There is one little ray of light: 2003 saw a slight increase in the domestic market share for local productions - 42.3 per cent compared to 42.9 per cent in 2002, while 47.1 per cent of all tickets were sold for American productions. The steady gain made by French productions is largely due to a number of hit comedies like Mais qui a tué Paméla Rose (produced by LGM ), which sold 882,000 tickets over a 10-day period; Married for 7 Years by and starring Didier Bourdon (produced by Telema , and (Production Téléma) e 529mila spettatori dal 4 giugno per Le bison (produced by Pathé Renn and Hirsch.

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(Translated from French)