What are French distributors looking for from UK and Irish films?

Social realist, comedy and period drama are three genres of films for which French distributors are on the lookout  from UK and Irish filmmakers according to a discussion which took place at the Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film professionals’ rendezvous last week.

Mathieu Robinet, founder of Paris-based distributor Tandem Films, noted a “long tradition of British movies in France” pointing towards the social realist films of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, as well as “big appetite for comedies – in the past few years we have been seeing less and less movies like that. I think there is a market for it”.

Robinet, who said he had picked up a yet-to-be disclosed feelgood UK film at Toronto,  also pointed to Harris Dickinson’s BFI and BBC Film-backed Urchin and Molly Manning Walker’s BFI and Film4-backed How To Have Sex – both world premieres at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard – as examples of films to have worked well in France.

“We crave to see more movies like this,” he said. “Those movies find a space in France.”  

How To Have Sex grossed $367,769 for Condor in France for Box Office Mojo, while Urchin will be released in France by Ad Vitam next year.

The distributors agreed there is an enduring appetite for UK period drama with French audiences. “Mr Burton is something that could work in France,” said Hugues Peysson, director of L’Atelier de l’Image, in reference to this year’s Dinard audience award winner. A story about the the early life of Welsh-born Hollywood star Richard Burton, Mr Burton stars UK TV talent Toby Jones and Harry Lawtey. The film is not currently understood to have a French distributor.

“The risk is so high in an unpredictable market,” Peysson added. Distributors highlighted the difficulty of being dependent on French TV deals to make the distribution model work, particularly now Canal+ is buying fewer titles and is less clear for what it is looking. 

Expensive talent is one thing that is not appealing for France’s independent distributors. Dinard’s opening night film, Kristin Scott Thomas’ directorial debut My Mother’s Wedding, in which she also stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham and Freida Pinto, has struggled to find theatrical distribution outside of the US, despite the talent involved.

Vertical Entertainment released the Toronto 2023 premiere in the US in the summer, where it grossed $911,054.  

“It’s not a cheap movie to release,” said Robinet. “Even a free movie costs a lot to release, because you have to spend a lot in p&a  [print and advertising costs]… The economics of this film, despite the huge cast, is not an easy one.”

Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund, noted, “We’ve seen the gradual disappearance of those mid-budget films that are neither arthouse, nor fully mainstream. They are more expensive to release and thus value. Even the studios won’t take the risk to theatrically release everything on their slates because of the costs. It is making these kinds of indie films much harder to produce in the UK now, because of the challenges further up the value chain, including for European distributors, as we are hearing today.

“You have to pre-sell a lot of territories to make the mid-budget films work if you’re doing it in the indie sales and not multi-territory-studio way,” Bays continued  ”It’s harder to coordinate the releases too. Stars are expensive to travel, sales agents and distributors can get put off due to high costs/high risk. Unless you’ve got access to subsidies to support all of that, distributors really have to know for sure in this climate that it can be a theatrical success, and they have got to go big. It’s all or nothing.”

Bays did qualify, however, that the enhanced Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC) for films at the £15m level or under is “unlocking a greater number of films being made” with the hope it will benefit mid-budget level films. 

Robinet said Tandem would pay a lot of money for a film that is director-driven and arthouse, “more than a film with Scarlett Johansson… Pillion and Urchin were quirky films – there were plenty of distributors bidding.”

If producing a wholly UK film, the French distributors were also eager to give a message: make it Irish. “If you manage to structure your film as a UK-Irish co-production it changes a lot of us, it becomes a European film,” said Martin Jérôme of Condor, referencing the enhanced release support Irish films can get from Creative Europe, which the UK cannot access post-Brexit. (The UK Global Screen Fund, designed to help fill this gap, did receive a boost from £7m to £18m of support per year as part of the government’s Screen Growth Package). 

First-time filmmakers

Later in the day, a trio of debut filmmakers from the UK and Ireland with films playing at Dinard took part in a discussion on the challenges of scaling up from a debut to a second film.

Daisy-May Hudson’s narrative debut Lollipop won Dinard’s talent of tomorrow prize. She has also directed two documentary features – Halfway and Holloway (co-directed with Sophie Compton). For Hudson, key challenges have been fatigue and financial stress.

“I had every intention after Holloway that I was going to bounce straight into writing [a second narrative feature], but I was tired – sometimes the film industry has a pace that isn’t always in the rhythm of what our body needs. Even though it was hard, I took rest. I’m now going back into writing,” said Hudson.

Her second narrative feature is now in development with Lollipop partners BBC Film and Parkville Pictures.

“I had made Lollipop from my heart, and what I’m writing next is from my heart,” she said. “I think I got in my head about how to financially support myself now, which meant maybe I got distracted by overthinking what is next.”

Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, who produced Blue Story and Boxing Day, attended Dinard with her directorial debut, Dreamers.

“The industry has this illusion of your first feature being commercial. I don’t think first features can be commercial,” she said, with an adaptation of Diana Evans’ book Ordinary People, a queer romantic comedy, on track to be her next directorial outing.

“If it is your first time trying something, the idea they are going to make a lot of money on your first time is wild. It’s difficult and unfair to give people one chance only to be successful. Many of our older filmmakers have made terrible films, and they still get to make more terrible films.”

“Looking at a second feature, I’m feeling like it needs to be more commercial,” noted Irish Spilt Milk director Brian Durnin, “which is a little bit sad maybe – but that’s the reality. It’s the business. But commercial can be awesome.”

Durnin is now in development with his Spilt Milk producer partner Laura McNicholas of 925 Productions on a comedy titled The Mount, and hoping to shoot next year.

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