24/11/2006

Change is on the cards for the French film industry with yesterday’s announcement of the break-up of the partnership between distribution outfits Gaumont and Columbia TriStar in July 2007.

Established in July 2004 after the Gaumont-Buena Vista split, Gaumont/Columbia TriStar Films is 2006’s most popular distributor in France with 18.5m admissions for 30 films (11.8% market share).

The outfit’s most popular release of the year has been The Da Vinci Code, followed by four French features You Are So Beautiful [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (3.5m admissions) , The Valet [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (3m), Royal Palace (2.7m) and OSS 117 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2.3m).

Yesterday, the two companies released a press release explaining the reasons for their break-up: "Given the growing volume of films distributed by Gaumont and Columbia in an increasingly competitive environment, the two partners have decided to sign a mutual agreement to become independent again, with the long-term objective of optimising the releases of each film."

In the Video on Demand (VoD) arena, French-US relations are also hotting up. Yesterday, producer Jean-François Lepetit (Flach Film) took Google France and Google Inc. to court "for plagiarism and parasitism". The case in question was William Karel’s The World According to Bush.

While the documentary can be viewed legally on VoD on the Editions Montparnasse platform, it is also available illegally, free and in full on Google France Video, where it has already been viewed 43,000 times.

(Translated from French)