The selection of Titane to represent France in the race for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film attests to the film's excellent reception in theaters and at festivals in North America. It already stands out as one of the most successful French-language productions of recent years in the USA.
Titane, produced by Kazak Productions, with international sales handled by Goodfellas, was chosen on October 12 as France's official submission for the 2022 Oscar for Best International Feature Film by a committee composed of filmmakers Julie Delpy and Florian Zeller, producers Iris Knobloch and Alain Goldman, sales agents Émilie Georges and Gregory Chambet, as well as ex officio committee members Thierry Frémaux (Cannes Film Festival), Serge Toubiana (UniFrance), and Véronique Cayla (Académie des César).
Titane was presented in a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it won the Palme d'Or. Sold by Goodfellas, it was released in the USA on October 1 (distributed by Neon) where it has just crossed the $1 million threshold at the box office ($1.03 million). This feat has only been achieved by three other French productions shot in French in the past five years: Elle in 2016 ($2.34 million at the end of its run), Maria by Callas in 2018 ($1.27 million), and, more recently, Portrait of a Lady on Fire in March 2020 ($3.76 million). As a rule, successful films reach admissions scores of 1 million spectators in their third or fourth weekend, but Titane accomplished this just ten days after its release!
In addition, auteur films are generally released in only a handful of theaters in the USA, with the number of prints increasing over time. But Neon set up an ambitious release for the film by Julia Ducournau in 562 sites. Since 1995, only six other majority-French productions shot in French have been offered such a wide release in their opening week, of which two are dramas: over 1,300 screens for Switchblade Romance / High Tension in 2005 ($3.65 million in ticket sales) and over 1,700 for The Artist in March 2012 ($44.7 million).
Furthermore, thanks to Titane, French cinema has once again broken into the Top 10 titles at the North American box office: for the first time since 2017 (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, $40.5 million) and, for French-language productions, the first time since Oceans ($19.4 million) eleven years ago.
Titane has also been acclaimed at North American film festivals in recent months, notably at TIFF, the New York Film Festival (NYFF), and the Fantastic Fest in Austin, where it was presented as opening film.
French Palme d'Or winners in the USA
For the fifth time since 2000, A French Cannes Palme d’Or winner has generated more than $1 million in ticket sales in the United States, with the most successful of these titles being The Pianist (2002, $32.5 million), followed by Love (2012, $6.74 million), The Class (2009, $3.76 million), and Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, $2.2 million).
Titane has already been released in Germany, Belgium, Spain, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Quebec, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine, and will soon hit screens in many other markets before the end of the year, including Mexico, Oceania, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.
France also participated other coproductions submitted as candidates for the Oscar for Best International Film in 2022
To date (October 13, 2021), 33 other films have been submitted to the Academy by their country of production to compete for this prestigious award, including the following French coproductions:
- Should the Wind Drop by Nora Martirosyan, representing Armenia (coproduced by SISTER Productions)
- White Building by Kavich Neang, representing Cambodia (coproduced by Apsara Films)
- Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, representing Colombia (coproduced by Anna Sanders Films)
- Casablanca Beats by Nabil Ayouch, representing Morocco (produced by Les Films du Nouveau Monde and Unité)
- The Gravedigger's Wife by Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, representing Somalia (coproduced by Pyramide Productions)
- Olga by Elie Grappe, representing Switzerland (coproduced by Cinéma Defacto)
The 15 films short-listed for the award will be announced on December 21, after which we will discover the finalists on February 8, 2022, in the lead-up to the announcement of the winner at the Oscars awards ceremony to be held on March 27, 2022.
Finally, it is worth noting that The Stronghold by Cédric Jimenez and Happening by Audrey Diwan (winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival), were the other two titles short-listed to represent France at the Oscars.
