{"id":252422,"date":"2025-03-05T17:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/05\/french-cinema-celebrates-its-covid-recovery\/"},"modified":"2025-03-05T17:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:58:11","slug":"french-cinema-celebrates-its-covid-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/05\/french-cinema-celebrates-its-covid-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"French Cinema Celebrates Its Covid Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/18\/multimedia\/00france-cinema-attendance-01-jhkp\/00france-cinema-attendance-01-jhkp-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"French Cinema Celebrates Its Covid Recovery\" title=\"French Cinema Celebrates Its Covid Recovery\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ronald Chammah, who owns a pair of small cinemas on the Left Bank of Paris, remembers well the grim days in 2022, when he wondered whether the French passion for moviegoing \u2014 a pastime that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/history\/history-magazine\/article\/creation-of-the-motion-picture-lumiere-brothers#:~:text=The%20Lumi%C3%A8res%20held%20the%20world's,Workers%20Leaving%20the%20Lumi%C3%A8re%20Factory).\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">France invented<\/a> 130 years ago \u2014 had been irreparably diminished by pandemic lockdowns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But that was then. On a recent afternoon, Mr. Chammah was sitting in a packed Parisian cafe happily describing the Sunday in late November when he sold out screenings from a roster of Armenian art-house directors \u2014 Inna Mkhitaryan, Artavazd Pelechian, Sergue\u00ef Paradjanov \u2014 known mostly to hard-core film buffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThat day, we broke the record for our theaters,\u201d Mr. Chammah said with a note of astonishment. \u201cIt was full, all day long \u2014 sold out, sold out, sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The global movie business had <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/01\/global-box-office-2024-report-hollywood-studio-rankings-1236256565\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a<\/a> <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/01\/global-box-office-2024-report-hollywood-studio-rankings-1236256565\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">disappointing 2024<\/a>, thanks in part to Hollywood strikes. At the Oscars on Sunday, Sean Baker, winner of best director for \u201cAnora,\u201d used his acceptance speech to lament the pandemic-era loss of hundreds of American movie screens. \u201cAnd we continue to lose them regularly,\u201d Mr. Baker said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t reverse this trend, we\u2019ll be losing a vital part of our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But in France, there has been a more celebratory feeling of late, with fresh statistics suggesting that its audiences are leading the way in returning to what are lovingly known as \u201cles salles obscures\u201d<em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> \u2014 <\/em>the \u201cdark rooms\u201d of their movie theaters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That celebration was infused with a very French idea about citizens\u2019 moral obligation to support the arts and to do so somewhere other than at home. The Institut Lumi\u00e8re, a film society based in Lyon, declared that last year\u2019s French admissions numbers amounted to a triumph over both the pandemic era and the \u201cinvasive digital civilization\u201d of scrolling and swiping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe know this more than ever: going to the cinema remains unique, singular, precious,\u201d the institute wrote in an email to supporters. \u201cPersonal, physical, sentimental. It allows for a re-appropriation of a way of being in the world that nothing can ever prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to the data company Comscore, France was one of the few countries that saw an increase in movie theater attendance last year over 2023, with more than 181 million attendees, an uptick of nearly a million. Brazil, Britain and Turkey also saw an increase, said Eric Marti, a general manager of Comscore Movies France. But he said attendance numbers were down in every other European country, as well as in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the same time, however, worldwide box office revenues are up, according to a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwc.com\/gx\/en\/news-room\/press-releases\/2024\/pwc-global-entertainment-and-media-outlook-2024-28.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">recent report<\/a> on global media by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and are likely to surpass their prepandemic levels by next year. That is largely because people going to the movies in developed countries are paying more for a premium experience, even if they go less often, said David Hancock, an analyst at the research company Omdia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Mr. Hancock said the French public\u2019s relationship to movies and movie theaters was something different altogether. \u201cIt\u2019s almost mystical,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The idea of the French capital as a concentrated locus of obsessive cinephilia is one of those baguette-under-the-arm clich\u00e9s that also has a basis in fact. Movie theaters have long contributed to the city\u2019s urban landscape, and still do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The pandemic\u2019s lockdowns shuttered French cinemas for 300 total days in 2020 and 2021. In Paris, the only comparable period may have been in 1940, when the advancing German Army led people to flee the city, prompting widespread temporary movie theater closures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In today\u2019s Paris, it can feel as if the pandemic never happened. At Le Champo theater, fans turn out for retrospective series on Satyajit Ray and Frank Capra. At the art house theater chain mk2, they attend talks by sociologists, art historians and philosophers. In November, the Jeu de Paume, a museum dedicated to photography and contemporary art, inaugurated a cinema focused on art films and documentaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Two months earlier, the movie company Path\u00e9 opened its seven-screen Path\u00e9 Palace in a Grands Boulevards building steeped in cinema history. The celebrated architect Renzo Piano handled the renovation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMany people in the world have buried the movie theater and think that television has definitively eliminated it,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00f4me Seydoux, the Path\u00e9 chairman, said at the time of the renovation. Mr. Seydoux called the project \u201ca reasonable folly, a setting to welcome all the dreamers of this world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of this sustained passion might be because many Parisian apartments are too small to accommodate large home-theater setups. The French movie industry likes to serve up another explanation, with a spritz of immodesty and a dollop of swagger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement, the National Center for Film and Moving Images, or CNC, the French government film agency, chalked up the industry\u2019s recovery from the pandemic to \u201cthe artistic and industrial excellence of our model of cultural exception,\u201d a reference to national policies meant to promote and protect French culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Olivier Henrard, who was until recently the CNC\u2019s interim president, went deeper.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe haven\u2019t forgotten,\u201d he said in an interview, \u201cthat citizenship has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/aefestival.gr\/epidaurus-lyceum\/citizenship-and-ancient-drama\/?lang=en\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">been constructed<\/a> in the theater, from the time of the Greeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Henrard noted that France\u2019s \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/5e661a12-cf60-11e2-a050-00144feab7de\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">cultural exception<\/a>\u201d model supports the moviegoing habit, with an education curriculum that includes subsidized trips to the movies for millions of schoolchildren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The government supports tiny movie houses in smaller cities, while some of the most isolated villages regularly <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofrance.fr\/franceinter\/podcasts\/esprit-d-initiative\/esprit-d-initiative-du-lundi-28-mars-2022-4743047\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">receive visits<\/a> from associations that set up temporary screenings in schools and city halls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">France requires first-run movies to screen exclusively in French theaters for four months before going to video, and the<strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\"> <\/strong>CNC oversees a complex system of taxes on tickets and fees from TV channels and video streaming services that filters back into movie production.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That has created a sense that going to the movies fulfills a cherished sort of social contract.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Chammah, the cinema owner \u2014 who is also a film producer and distributor, and the husband of the French film star Isabelle Huppert \u2014 argued that after the pandemic, Paris still offered the most impressive range of choice for cinephiles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is the best, because there is this choice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, the CNC noted that French cinema attendance was nearly 13 percent below pre-pandemic levels. And in recent years, Paris has seen the closure of a few <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.leparisien.fr\/paris-75\/entre-fermetures-emblematiques-et-ouvertures-pharaoniques-les-cinemas-de-paris-se-reinventent-ou-meurent-09-12-2023-6BTNM5RTCVF35K72MD5PY5N6SI.php?ts=1736593709010\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">cherished movie houses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Axel Huyghe, an author and expert on French movie houses, sees hope, especially in the numerous restorations of iconic movie venues either recently completed or underway. \u201cThe cinema industry is in the process of renewal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">La Pagode, a faux-Japanese fantasia of enameled stoneware and stained glass in the Seventh Arrondissement, manifests that hope. Once one of the city\u2019s most storied cinemas, it closed in 2015 amid a bitter rent dispute. Now under renovation, it appears, on the narrow Rue de Babylone, like an audacious dream sequence spliced into an otherwise staid reel of buildings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Across the street, Yohann Lucian, who works in a local bistro, has been watching the renovation\u2019s progress. When the theater finally reopens, Mr. Lucian said, he is certain that the moviegoers will come back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cFor Parisians, it\u2019s a way of life,\u201d he said, with a hint of a shrug. \u201cThey like to go to the movies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/05\/world\/europe\/france-cinema-attendance-covid.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ronald Chammah, who owns a pair of small cinemas on the Left Bank of Paris, remembers well the grim days in 2022, when he wondered whether the French passion for moviegoing \u2014 a pastime that France invented 130 years ago \u2014 had been irreparably diminished by pandemic lockdowns. But that was then. On a recent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/18\/multimedia\/00france-cinema-attendance-01-jhkp\/00france-cinema-attendance-01-jhkp-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[192728,195430,3706,47951,195431,2120,9403,8456,168521,1212,148503,5880,179841,178867],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252424,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252422\/revisions\/252424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}