Roundtable : What synergies between institutions and cinemas to promote releases?

On this third day, the MIFC hosted a table on the question of synergies between institutions and cinemas to support re-releases, highlighting the preponderant role of distributors. 

Around the journalist at The Film Français magazine, Sylvain Devarieux, were gathered Maelle Arnaud, head of programming and film collection at the Institut Lumière, Pauline de Raymond, head of programming at the Cinémathèque française, György Ráduly, director of archives at the National Film Institute of Hungary, Jean-Fabrice Janaudy, manager of the cinema Le Vincennes and distributor at Les Acacias, François Aymé, director of the Jean-Eustache cinema in Pessac and president of the AFCAE, and Diane Gabrysiak, head of programming and exhibition at the Ciné Lumière in London. 

Through their testimonies, Maelle Arnaud and Pauline de Raymond reminded us of the role of institutions such as the French Institute and the Cinémathèque française, which are both exhaustive and driving forces. Creators, initiators and guardians of collections and retrospectives that are often precise, they know how to create events, notably with the Lumière Festival and other Cinémathèque cycles. These events are organized in consultation with distributors, but also based on the wishes of these institutions: "We obviously show a lot of restored prints during the event, but we also generate them," said Maelle Arnaud. But the problem with these events is that they are geographically defined and still have some difficulties to go beyond the regional limits. There is a real desire, however, as explained by the head of programming and collection at the Institut Lumière, to create programs that could be repeated in other cinemas in different regions: "We have a project to circulate the Lumière Festival, focusing on a program of ten or so emblematic films from each edition, and which would be brought in turnkey, with special agreements with distributors, so that the works circulate in cinemas, under the label of the festival. 

An opening made possible also thanks to important networks such as the ADRC one, whose work was praised many times during this round table. All of them also underlined the essential work of distributors in this synergy between theaters and institutions, by taking charge of the release of certain films, carefully curated, in order to make them accessible throughout France. Pauline de Raymond and Jean-Fabrice Janaudy took the example of the Dino Risi retrospective at the Cinémathèque française, with which Les Acacias has partnered to release some of his films nationally and create an event around the Italian filmmaker. But mobility and accessibility does not mean success, as François Aymé emphasized, "we must continue the festival atmosphere in theaters": more precisely, he explained that the event aspect of these moments created by institutions must find an echo in theaters, to emphasize these heritage films, in the face of fresh cinematographic novelties, decompartmentalizing them and attracting an ever wider audience. 

In addition to extending the initiatives of the institutions, Jean-Fabrice Janaudy explained that a great reactivity and interdisciplinary knowledge were necessary to create the interest of the general public around these works. The important thing? To seize the opportunities, wherever they are. He cited as an example the re-release of Jacques Becker's Falbalas. As the CinéMode exhibition, imagined by Jean-Paul Gauthier, has just started at the Cinémathèque française, he has been doing the rounds of radio and television to promote it, regularly using the word "Falbala" in reference to this 1940s feature film. To embody this quote, Jean-Fabrice Janaudy, through his company Les Acacias, has decided to re-release the film in theaters on October 20, with the idea of contextualizing the speech of the great fashion designer but also to diversify the audience. This way of staging heritage cinema is also what François Aymé encourages, and he insisted on the interest of calling on speakers to present the films, or to leave the systematic retrospectives by filmmaker to propose other angles, by proposing, for example, a retrospective linked to an actor or a corpus of films around specific political or social themes, which could once again federate new audiences. A staging that must also be accompanied by training for cinema exhibitors, or even the creation of a position of animator specialized in heritage cinema, which would be envisaged according to the type and location of each exhibitor. He also specified that a list of qualified speakers was already available with the ARDC but also that these ambitions should be followed by means and aids to be discussed with the CNC and the public authorities.

György Ráduly, director of archives at the National Film Institute of Hungary, confirmed the need of transversality and staging. After reviewing the history of the Hungarian archives, nationalized again since 2004, in his country, whose history has been rather fractured since the end of the 1940s, he explained their role in attracting new audiences, especially younger ones. He explained the creation of a database where each film is linked to informative and communicative elements to help Hungarian exhibitors and distributors to better promote them. In terms of local outreach, he also cited the example of a current exhibition in Budapest tracing 120 years of Hungarian film history, where local artists, particularly from the music world, were asked to organize guided tours for young people, a way of attracting them to this heritage that they do not know. Similarly, in addition to having restored and subtitled copies to disseminate this heritage in other countries, Hungary has also provided numerous communication and documentation elements to encourage their dissemination abroad. 

An experience shared by Diane Gabrysiak, within the framework of the Ciné Lumière in London. This place, both attached to the Institut français and considered more globally as an art house cinema, needs local partners to find its place, especially since the British public is not the most cinephile. The Institut français, festivals such as Kino Klassika or Cinema Rediscovered, but also organizations such as the Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center for a recent cycle on Delphine Seyrig, are thus privileged allies in attracting a variety of audiences that need to renew themselves, as is the BFI, an institution that has the particularity of being both a place of preservation and restoration of films but also of distribution. But as the director of programming and operations of this London cinema points out, it is not always easy to distribute certain films, as most copies of French films, outside of national releases, do not have English subtitles and it is difficult for them to finance them themselves. 

During the question and answer session, Vincent Paul-Boncour, founder and director of Carlotta Films, expressed his disappointment with the constant need to make events out of our heritage and wished we could talk about it in the present tense: « We must trust the film and give it a chance to exist in theaters ». A remark well received by the speakers who themselves insisted on the need to believe in these films and not to lose out in their distribution. As Maelle Arnaud pointed out: "It is said that the people of Lyon are cinephiles because the Lumière Festival theaters are full. But this did not happen overnight, it is also the result of a long term work between the Institute, the exhibitors in Lyon and the public", thus coming full circle to this round table on the synergies between theaters and institutions.