The 8th edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival has just ended. With more than 10 million views registered, the festival has set a new record this year. And Paris Prestige by Hamé and Ékoué was awarded the Directors' Jury Prize.
The festival broke viewing records for the third year running
With over 10 million views registered around the world this year, compared to 6.7 million in 2017, the festival has once again reached record highs!
The following 5 countries registered the largest number of views on the MyFrenchFilmFestival.com platform (in descending order):
- Mexico
- Brazil
- Argentina
- Poland
- Russia
As our readers will recall, MyFrenchFilmFestival was also available for viewing on over 50 high-profile partner platforms, including the global platforms iTunes (in 91 territories), Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, Dailymotion, YouTube, Facebook, Windows, Sony, MUBI, Pantaflix, and FilmDoo, as well as CableTV VOD (South Korea), Jia Screen (China), Filmin (Spain, Portugal, Mexico), Curzon Home Cinema (UK), MyMovies and IndieFilmChannel (Italy), Movistar+ (Spain), TriArt (Sweden), Proximus and UniversCiné (Belgium), VOD.lu and Post Telecom (Luxembourg), TV5 Monde Cinema on Demand, inDEMAND, Vubiquity, Vudu, FestPicks, Filmatique, FilmFestivalFlix and Le CiNéMa Club (USA), Orange (Romania and Côte d'Ivoire), ivi and Megogo (Russia, CIS), Qubit.tv (Latin America), Cinepolis Klic and Morelia (Mexico), ONET.pl and TVP VoD (Poland), and Aoyama, Videx, Digital Screen, Uplink Cloud, VideoMarket, Precine, and Gyao (Japan), among others.
The award winners were announced on Monday, February 19, 2018, at a ceremony held in Paris at the State Secretariat for Digital Affairs in the presence of the Secretary of State under the Prime Minister in charge of Digital Affairs, Mounir Mahjoubi.
The following prizes were presented by Isabelle Giordano, executive director of UniFrance:
Directors' Jury Prize
The winner selected by the Directors' Jury, helmed by Paolo Sorrentino and including Nabil Ayouch, Kim Chapiron, Julia Ducournau, and Brillante Mendoza was:
- Paris Prestige by Hamé and Ékoué
This film wins a prize of €15,000 (€5,000 awarded to the directors, €5,000 to the producer, and €5,000 to the sales company).
For the second time since the creation of the festival, the Directors' Jury chose to honor a second film in the selection, with a Special Mention awarded in acknowledgement of the directors' artistic vision to:
International Press Prizes
The International Press Jury, composed of Fabio Ferzetti, Sabine Mann, Fernando Ganzo, Finn Halligan, and Yana Labushkina chose to reward the following films:
- A Wedding by Stephan Streker, a feature film presented in partnership with Wallonie-Bruxelles Images (WBI)
- The Death, Dad & Son, a short film by Vincent Paronnaud (Winshluss) and Denis Walgenwitz
Lacoste Audience Prize
This year, MyFrenchFilmFestival audiences voted in droves for their favorite films, with over 50,000 votes received. The following films were designated as winners:
- A Wedding by Stephan Streker, a feature film presented in partnership with Wallonie-Bruxelles Images (WBI)
- The Death, Dad & Son, a short film by Vincent Paronnaud (Winshluss) and Denis Walgenwitz
The award-winning films will be screened on Air France flights for a period of 6 months starting in the summer of 2018.
Once again this year, unifying social events were organized around the world as part of the festival
In addition to the MyFrenchFilmFestival.com platform and our partner platforms, the festival provided many occasions for viewers to come together in person at various locations around the world to take advantage of the chance to watch new-generation French and French-language cinema!
Among these events were screenings of short films from the festival selection held in Paris at the Atelier Renault, located on "the world's most beautiful avenue"—the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. These screenings also gave the French directors of the films the opportunity to engage directly with their audiences in a convivial atmosphere at this iconic Parisian location. One of these directors was Morgane Polanski, who came along to present a preview screening of her second short film, The Stroke.
Thanks to a partnership established with the Agence pour l’Enseignement Français à l’Etranger (AEFE)—Agency for French Education Abroad—screenings were also held in around twenty schools across the globe, in cities including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Warsaw, and Dubai. Furthermore, thanks to support from the international network of the Institut Français, films from the selection were shown on a wide screen to audiences in Russia, Colombia, Brazil, Egypt, and Italy.
Several thousand people also took part in the MyFrenchFilmFestival game contest held on Facebook. The prize was a trip for two to Paris, with five nights at the Hôtel Scribe, made possible thanks to support from Air France and the Hôtel Scribe.
Other new innovations this year were the festival playlist and the Jury's playlist put together in collaboration with the Bureau Export (French Music Export Office), which are still available on many broadcast channels.
MyFrenchFilmFestival is organized by UniFrance, with support from:
CNC - French Ministry of Culture - French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs - Institut Français - Telefilm Canada & Talent Fund - Wallonie-Bruxelles Images - Swiss Films - Alliance Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi - Lacoste - TitraFilm - Air France - iTunes - AEFE - Le Monde - Variety - Télérama - TV5 Monde - France Médias Monde - Dailymotion - CIAK - Quadro por Quadro - Critic.de - Corre Camara - Orange - Los Inrockuptibles - AlloCiné - AdoroCinema - SensaCine - SensaCine México - FILMSTARTS
Media Gallery
