How UniFrance Saved The French Film Industry

Film The Truth (Twitter @shinjitsu1011)

JAKARTA - Being one of the countries with the fastest film development, France has a number of events to support the industrial movement amid the pandemic. MyFrenchFilmFestival is Unifrance's answer to saving the film industry in France. Unifrance is an organization that deals with the promotion of French films outside the country.

MyFrenchFilmFestival is a platform provided by UniFrance where 70 short films are available for free via Facebook and YouTube. All of this content is available until April 27th.

This service is carried out to provide entertainment for French people who like to watch films in the form of films. According to a survey, as many as 70 percent of people watching movies at home after the pandemic began because they missed going to the cinema.

Reporting from IndieWire, the presence of this platform was welcomed by the public, as seen from the number of views of 420 thousand that were accumulated from the three platforms.

Not only providing viewing, Unifrance also brought several films from the theater schedule to streaming services such as Universal Pictures on the Trolls World Tour. This is done so that they can reduce marketing costs but films can still be enjoyed by the community. They chose The Truth, a French film by Hirokazu Koreeda, starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, and Ludivine Sagnier.

Previously, Binoche was scheduled to fly to New York to open the film The Truth through the Unifrance program, Rendez-vouz With French Cinema. But Unifrance canceled the flight and chose to provide an introductory video and a conversation with the director.

For France, film is a celebration of one culture. Therefore, all parties, including the government, stepped in so that no one would be harmed in this case. They don't want to fire employees the way film staff do in the United States. "There is solidarity between French politicians and culture," said Daniela Elstner, director of Unifrance.

The government is also working with a number of external parties, one of which is Netflix. This largest streaming service does not cancel 20 films and series that will be released, such as La terre et le sang and Damien Chazelle's The Eddy. Netflix also donated 1 million United States (US) dollars to pay French artists and staff affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The different systems in France make support possible in France. The government is always ready for it (support), ”said Elstner.

However, they did not deny that many distributors chose to wait for the cinemas to return to release films. Unifrance appreciates the decision. The rest, they continue to support people affected by the pandemic so that their living needs can be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, MyFrenchFilmFestival provides various free short films with 10 language translations that can be watched via YouTube until 27 April.