488 films out in 2002
France's National Film Centre (CNC) published their end-of-year report for 2002 on 14 May although it is scheduled to be presented to the press in Cannes on 17 May by the CNC's DG, David Kessler, in the presence of the French minister for culture, Jean-Jacques Aillagon.
The document includes an overview of global film production, an analysis of French film attendance for domestic productions, public funding of films, their production and exhibition, the home video and audiovisual sectors.
One of the many issues covered by the report is distribution, at the centre of industry attention last year when the market was literally flooded (and damaged) by too many concurrent releases.
In 2002, a total of 488 feature films were distributed in France, 18 fewer than in 2001 and 56 fewer than in 2000. The reason for this fall was the tendency to mass-release huge number of prints of a relatively small number of films: 20 features came out in more than 600 theatres (just 4.1 per cent of all films released made up 22 per cent of all prints in circulation), 54 films were released in at least 400 theatres and 120 films in over 200. On average, a French film is released in 119 prints against the 242 for American titles.
200 French films were released in 2002, against 151 American, 21 UK, 15 Italian, 14 Spanish and 10 German titles.
21 per cent of the Gallic films released in 2002 were comedies and 22 per cent were dramas. Significantly, documentaries made a major return when 26 of them came out in 2002.
(Translated from French)
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