The Film Festival was established in the mid-1980s to stop a drop in attendance. The 37th Festival will be held in 2022 within the same context as the current cinema crisis. The French are forced to make difficult choices and watch the cost, as the price rises and life becomes more expensive. This causes them to lose more cultural experiences.
The Film Festival offers French citizens the chance to discover cinemas and have fun with a ticket for 4 euros for each screening, anywhere in France, from July 3 through 6. The event attracted over 3.5 million people in five days last year. Although the 2022 edition will be shorter, exhibitors are eagerly awaiting it to revive their cinemas.
The National Cinema Center says that attendance isn't increasing despite the abundance of films available. The programming options are still wide open to viewers: 60 films were first shown on screens in May 2022, compared with 67 films in May 2019, which was the benchmark year before Covid. On average, 15 new films are released per week (17 films per semaine in May 2019).
There were 11.17 million French admissions in May. This is a far cry from the 3.11 million recorded three years ago. However, cinema, the first form of leisure for the French, was performing well and reached new records. .
Cinemas in France still have a shortage of about a third of their audience: Since the start of 2019, cinemas have seen 62.09 millions admissions, 32.9% more than in the same period in 2019.
Particularly young people have not returned to the cinema in large numbers. According to CNC, the standard profile of a regular spectator in May 2022 is someone aged 50 or older, who lives in an agglomeration with 100,000 people or more. The CNC notes that the CNC has seen a 4.2 percent increase in seniors (compared to April 2022) to the disadvantage of the 3-14 year-olds who are now at 13.7% (-1.9%). While it is difficult to compare one month to the next, it is important to note that April is a month that allows younger children to attend cinemas due to school holidays. May, however, looks older.
Three of the top five songs were overwhelmingly popular with audiences over 50 in May: Top Gun Maverick was viewed by 49.2%, The Northman at 52.1%, and Qu' Did We All Do God Damn It?
The 37th Film Festival attendance will be a good indicator about the French's desire to travel and paint. Le Printemps du cinema disappointed last March with 2.15 million viewers in just three days. After a two year hiatus because of the pandemic, the operation was back: "a success". The operation had analysed the National Federation of French Cinemas but far from the three million tickets in 2019 or the 3.15million in 2018, which were the highest levels attained by the demonstration in a decade.
Who will be benefited by the Cinema Festival attendance booster The last Printemps du Cinema was similar. They focused on reduced-rate tickets for several days. While the gains were significant for films already in high demand, they received less from arthouse films. Despite his success, superheroes (29%), Uncharted (24%), Spider-Man 2: No Way Home (43%), Encanto (49%), and All in Scene 2 (15%) found it the right opportunity to make their mark.
2022 Film Festival falls just as French vacationers begin. This could help to accelerate the careers of established successes like Jurassic World (which is gaining towards 3 million admissions) or Top Gun: Maverick (5 million), which will get the latest Buzz Lightyear, Elvis, and Black Phone off their feet. These American films are currently in the top five of the national box-office, which is a position that French films are finding difficult to reach. Jerome Commandeur's comedy Irreductible, which was released June 29th, could have a piece of this Film Festival's cake and be in a good position.
