Is French cinema truly ready for the digital revolution? On May 2, during the Series Mania festival, UniFrance released the ObSoCo report about the digital revolution of French cinema.
The discussion during which this report was released took place on Wednesday, May 2 at the Series Mania festival in Lille, in the presence of Nicolas Brigaud-Robert (CEO Playtime), Isabelle Giordano (General Director Unifrance), Émilie Georges (CEO MFI/La Cinéfacture/Paradise City), Philippe Moati (economist and co-founder of ObSoCo), and David Kessler (CEO Orange Content). Moderator: Philippe Bailly (President NPA Conseil)
The report aims to comprehend in what way the digital shift taken by the cinema industry affects French cinema's potential abroad. It is a question that requires us to first address the way in which digital technology is currently disrupting the industry's economy.
The approach taken was to hold out a mirror to the profession, via an online questionnaire, sent, with support from UniFrance, to a sample group of almost 660 people composed of professionals from different fields within the film industry (producers, exhibitors, artists, unions, etc.), as well as external players (consultants, researchers). This study was combined with 16 interviews with major personalities who hold decision-making positions in the sector.
Among the vast amount of information gathered, a few stand-out points:
- 94% of the people questioned anticipate an acceleration to changes compared with those the industry has encountered in the last 10 years. Among this group, 64% expect that these changes will lead to a "profound redefinition of the sector's structures and economic models," being a "dramatic shift of the French film industry from one regime to another."
- 43% of the people questioned identify digital technology as the main factor responsible for the changes to come.
- Although the digital shock constitutes a complex and multidimensional revolution, whose effects impact every phase of the industry, the respondents identified 3 particularly disruptive dimensions: the arrival of new entrants, the evolution of modes of consumption, and the arrival of new economic models, respectively considered by 25%, 23%, and 19% of the people questioned as the main factor behind the transformations that the industry should experience during the next decade.
- In the repondents' opinion, in the first instance, SVoD platforms and the giants of digital distribution will be the main factors responsible for the upheavals to come (considered such by 36% and 23% of the repondents).
The synthesis of the report (in French) is free to download as a PDF below.
The full version is available on request: communication@unifrance.org
