02/06/2016 - Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle have all benefited from their presence on the Croisette

Slack Bay by Bruno Dumont

As the Cannes Film Festival has just announced the dates for its 70^th edition (from 17-28 May 2017), we are also able to, just now, take our first look at the positive impact that a 2016 appearance on the Croisette has had on admissions in French cinemas. Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Bruno Dumont
film profile], released on 13 May by Memento Films, has, since then, drawn in an audience of 426,000 across 380 cinemas, the best result of the filmmaker’s career. The movie has also shown remarkable stability, with attendance rates only dropping off by around 20% in the latest weekly box-office chart. The film will be released in Belgium on 8 June, and Memento Films has announced international sales across some 30-odd territories, including Italy (Movies Inspired), Spain (La Aventura Audiovisual), Germany (Neue Visionen Filmverleih), Poland (Gutek Films), Hungary and the Czech Republic (Mozinet & Aerofilms), the Benelux region (Cinéart), Portugal (Leopardo Films), Greece and Cyprus (Videorama), the former Yugoslav nations (MegaCom Film), Bulgaria (Film Vision), the Baltic states (Prior Entertainment), Romania (Macondo), Turkey, Russia and even the United States (Kino Lorber). 

Released on 18 May by Pathé, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile] has had some incredibly positive results in France, attracting an audience of 397,000 over two weeks (appearing on 337 screens). Paul Verhoeven’s Elle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], another of the films in competition at Cannes, has started off strongly with 213,000 admissions in its first week, with the film’s producer, SBS, distributing it across 290 cinemas. In terms of non-European films unveiled as part of Cannes’ line-up, Woody Allen’s Café Society (705,000 admissions in three weeks, with Mars Distribution releasing 450 copies) and Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (620,000 viewers over three weeks, with Sony Pictures Releasing distributing it across 438 cinemas) have also performed well.

As for some of the other competitors from Cannes, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Nicolas Winding Refn
film profile] will take aim at French audiences from Wednesday 8 June (distributed by Le Pacte and The Jokers). This will be followed by the releases of Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Cristi Puiu
film profile] on 3 August (Wild Bunch), Staying Vertical [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alain Guiraudie
film profile] by France’s Alain Guiraudie on 14 August (Les Films du Losange), German filmmaker Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Maren Ade
film profile] on 17 August (Haut et Court), It's Only the End of the World [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Canada’s Xavier Dolan on 21 September (Diaphana Distribution), Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] on 28 September (SBS Distribution), American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Le Pacte) and Mademoiselle by Korean director Park Chan-wook (The Jokers and Bac Films) on 5 October, Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Unknown Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile] (Diaphana) on 12 October, Nicole Garcia’s From the Land of the Moon [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (StudioCanal) on 19 October, Ken Loach’s Palme d'Or-winning I, Daniel Blake [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] on 26 October (Le Pacte), The Salesman [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Iranian Asghar Farhadi (Memento Films) on 9 November, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza’s Ma' Rosa (Pyramide Distribution) on November 30, Personal Shopper [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Artemio Benki
interview: Olivier Assayas
film profile] by France’s Olivier Assayas (Les Films du Losange) on December 14 and finally, Graduation [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Cristian Mungiu
film profile] by Romania’s Cristian Mungiu on 21 December (Le Pacte).

(Translated from French)