Unifrance presents the 1st French Cinema Today Festival in Kazakhstan.
With a population of 16 million, Kazakhstan stands out as one of the world's most attractive emerging markets due to its dynamism and economic growth, and especially due to current expansion in its movie industry in the production, distribution, and exhibition sectors. Furthermore, French cinema historically held an important place on Kazakh screens during the Soviet era. This festival therefore aims to appeal to the more experienced aficionados of French cinema.
With close to 200 brand-new fully operational theaters, an active distribution sector, and a regular demand for French films, the Kazakh market clearly offers great potential for French cinema.
It was with this in mind that Unifrance came up with the concept of this event, held as part of the Eurasia Festival. The event will showcase 8 recent French feature films accompanied by a delegation of artists involved in the films, backed up by a promotional campaign, with a key objective of ensuring the subsequent commercial release of the films presented.
In order to achieve this, it was essential to find a dependable collaborator in Kazakhstan. Unifrance has thus joined forces with Baourjan Choukenov, the highly active director of the Arman Cinema in Almaty, the only theater bearing the Europa Cinemas label in Central Asia. Baourjan Choukenov supervised the selection of films to be screened, and will handle the commercial release of the majority of titles, offering moviegoers unable to attend the festival the chance to see the films after the event.
The festival program would be incomplete without a collection of French short films from recent years, which will be presented at a special evening brimming with new discoveries and innovation.
Festival line-up
- Oceans, festival opener on September 23 in the presence of René Heuzey
- The Merry Widow in the presence of Valérie Mairesse
- Paris 36
- Gainsbourg: Je t'aime...Moi non plus
- Wild Grass
- I'm Glad that My Mother Is Alive in the presence of Nathan Miller
- Treasure in the presence of François Dupeyron
- Un homme et son chien in the presence of Francis Huster
+ a Short Film Evening presenting 24 films divided into four programs
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