Right owner’s and distributors’ line up presentations

As every year at the International Classic Film Market (MIFC), the meeting place for film cataloguers and distributors is one of the event's must-attend events in the field of heritage cinema.

On the occasion of this 8th edition of the MIFC, a plethora of cataloguers and distributors came to present their film news for the end of 2020 as well as their current projects for early 2021. A rather special edition, impacted by the health crisis related to Covid-19 as well as the declaration of a curfew instituted by the government for a period of six weeks. A situation of unprecedented crisis that is hurting cinemas.

Before starting the traditional meeting, Juliette Rajon, Director of the MIFC, wanted to bring a few words of support to the entire profession: "We really want to express our solidarity to distributors, exhibitors, as well as to the entire chain, in these hard, uncertain and hectic times. We will, of course, relay all the initiatives that are being formulated by all of you. Groups, individuals, companies, all of you who are asking the government for a waiver to keep movie theaters open in the evening. We're here by your side. We're at your disposal."

All the cataloguers and distributors present at the two panels, which took place on Thursday, October 15 and Friday, October 16, also showed their solidarity with each other and an unwavering union that had already been felt on the first day of the MIFC at the video editors platform, by the members of the collective L'Appel des 85. During these two presentations, we were able to catch a glimpse of the catalogs and events related to Patrimoine cinema from Midas Filmes (from Portugal, guest of honor at the MIFC 2020), Gaumont, Pathé, Studiocanal, TF1 Studio, SND, AFCA, CCRA, Carlotta Films, Tamasa, Les Acacias, Malavida, Lost Films, Solaris, Ciné-Sorbonne, Capricci, Splendor, as well as the Patrimoine distributor collective.

We will always note the passion of each of them for the cinema of Patrimoine and the mission of handing it over. A desire to transmit more than ever the appetite for old classic films and the most recent, classics in the making, while the health crisis is still raging. The speakers came to talk in particular about the importance of restoring works, the need for links with restoration laboratories, the essential agreement with distributors and the solidarity that must be maintained both among themselves and within the cinema public in these difficult times.

Thus, in spite of the health crisis and the coming curfew, we have been able to see that the Heritage cinema exists more than ever. And still has a bright future ahead of it. Witness the retrospectives of filmmakers and authors emblematic of this cinema such as Yves Robert, Michel Audiard and Claude Chabrol. Integrals by Jean Vigo or Maurice Pialat. Without forgetting the restoration of masterpieces such as India Song, Breathless, Le Cercle rouge, Serpico or The Brood, as well as small forgotten nuggets such as Hammer, La femme et le pantin with a very young Brigitte Bardot, the never released final cut of The Wicker Man, the leader of English horror cinema. The "Forbidden Hollywood" cycle, which returns to feature films released between the advent of talking pictures and the Haze code that redefined morality in Hollywood at the time. And more recent films, but also Heritage films if we refer to the CNC definition: Basic Instinct, Thelma & Louise, Terminator 2 or Brotherhood of the wolf. French Heritage films, but also Italian, Czechoslovakian, Chinese... A diversity that reinforces even more today the importance of the Seventh Art in the lives of film lovers. And even more so in our contemporary society.