Angoulême signs the good health of French cinema

The Angoulême Francophone Film Festival would it be a harbinger of the gradual return of the French to the theater? This is what the directors and actors present in the city of Charente felt at the end of the screening of their films.

Franco-Algerian filmmaker Mohamed Hamidi, director of The cow and a good movie honorary citizen (released September 14), with Kad Merad, about a Nobel Prize-winning writer back in his native village in Algeria, testifies: “The reception of my new film has been tremendous. In times of cinema scarcity, it’s great to see more than 1200 spectators seated and ready to enthusiastically share your film. Seeing eight full rooms like that was incredible.”

This 15^e edition, launched Tuesday evening by Line Renaud and Dany Boon who came to present the dramatic comedy A great race by Christian Carion, seemed to prefigure the return to the theater of the French after two years of estrangement due to the pandemic and the rise in power…