A week after the curtain closed on the inaugural Paris Cinema, organisers have announced that roughly 70,000 Parisians attended the festival.

The two-week mini-festival which ran from July 2-15 was backed by the city and run by former Directors' Fortnight artistic director Marie-Pierre Macia. While good intentions, a healthy programme and some big-name talent were on hand, Paris Cinema couldn't have chosen a worse year to debut.

Thanks to an artists and technicians strike that has been dogging cultural events all over France for the past several weeks, Paris Cinema was also a victim of striking workers. At least four screenings were cancelled during the festival's two-week run while discussions organised to debate current issues facing the industry were plagued by banner-waving protesters leading to further cancellations.

In a press release, the organisers comforted themselves that Paris Cinema "responded to the expectations of all audiences and professionals," in a particularly morose period in terms of movie-going.

Ticket prices were reduced to Euros4 in about 30 cinemas in and around Paris during the two weeks with special retrospectives and premieres scattered throughout.