31/03/2008

We met with Jean-Marie Dura, the director general of the UGC network (over 500 screens in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy), who are giving their audiences the chance to discover films from the 27 countries of the European Union, as part of Europe Day on May 9.

Cineuropa: Why does the UGC group organise a European Film Day on May 9?
Jean-Marie Dura: We started the initiative in 2004 in Brussels before gradually expanding the event to include all the screens in certain UGC theatres in six representative European cities throughout the day (to begin with, the normal programming resumed in the evening).

Theatres taking part in the event include two in Brussels, our new Italian multiplex Porta di Roma and our 20-screen Madrid complex in Manoteras. In France, we’re using the UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles in Paris (the first theatre in Europe to amass over 3 million admissions per year, including 800,000 for arthouse films); the 22 screens of the Etoile in Strasbourg; and for the first time the Ciné Cité in Lyon.

Company president Guy Verrecchia wanted to get involved in some way because UGC is a resolutely European group. Without falling into the euro pudding trap, the film industry would really benefit if European films attracted the audiences they deserve, alongside the US and domestic productions. For the wealth of film talent in Europe does not sell well to other territories and the public and private sectors need to make every effort necessary to help the emergence of a European cinema.

How did you organise the programming for the one-day event?
Revealingly, it is a very difficult task trying to put together a programme of 27 European films for a one-day event. Ideally, we would programme the same unreleased films in the six cities, in the original version with subtitles in each country’s language. But it’s very complicated finding the film and six prints, particularly for territories that don’t have a thriving film industry.

What are the trends in the European markets where UGC operates?
Italy is a market with the potential to take off: it shot up by 12% in 2007, while audience figures in Spain dropped to 115m. Despite the record-breaking success of The Orphanage [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the market share for domestic films in Spain declines year after year, whereas it rose to 35% in Italy with, for the first time, popular films being released in the summer. In terms of quality and quantity, Italy failed to capitalise on the revolution in European exhibition during the past 20 years, but now we can seek out audiences there, as we have done in other countries.

In Spain, the real estate boom after 1996 brought about an increase in the number of theatres amidst total chaos, but we’ve seen a decline in admissions since the peak of 2001 (147m viewers). The average admission price is also very low and the revealing analysis submitted last September by the second largest cinema network (Abaco) will shake things up.

In France, audience figures are high but there are of course peaks and slack periods; we forget to reason in continuous stock while the number of theatres is increasing. Are we heading towards a situation like the one in Spain or are we on an upward curve? This question raises other issues such as the number of young viewers, the Internet, and piracy. The year 2007 was a poor one in terms of box office results, in particular for French films, but 2008 has got off to a much better start.

In Belgium, there are two very different markets due to the language barrier, but the Belgian market as a whole is doubly cartellised: by Kinepolis (50% of theatres and screens are monopolised by the blockbuster of the moment) and by US majors (which account for 80% of admissions), which makes it difficult to vary the programming. But that’s the beauty of Europe – a variety of local markets with strong individual characteristics and very different perceptions of cinema.