At last count, Pyramide is selling the most films (6) which are showing in the Festival and its satellites. Four are in the Official Selections of the Cannes International Film Festival (Cannes FF Premiere, Cannes FF Special Screening, and Cannes FF Un Certain Regard); one is in Critics’ Week / La Semaine de la critique and one is in Directors’ Fortnight/ Quinzaine des realisateurs.
Throughout the festival, we will watch not only their films to report on, but will keep an eye on the sales to some 60 international territories.
Pyramide International is part of the Pyramide Group which is also a domestic distribution company in France (Pyramide Distribution) and a French production company (Pyramide Productions). The company was founded in 1989 by Claudie Cheval, Fabienne Vonier, Francis Boespflug, Louis Malle and Michel Seydoux. Claudie also founded ACE which is still going strong today. (see current blog on ACE in Cannes).
Claudie brought Eric Lagesse into Pyramide International as a young man and, typically for everyone who is involved with Pyramide, he continues to work with them today as their CEO. Claudie was one of the most wonderful, warm and creative women in the business and unfortunately for us all, she died much too soon, on July 30, 1999 at age 48. Claudie set a tone of willing cooperation and support among the French film business colleagues. One can see at a glance when entering the Unifrance umbrella offices how the French international sales agents at the markets cooperate with each other. When reading how films in the Cannes Film Festival and the sidebars seem to be apportioned out to them when the titles are announced and there is no international sales agent attached yet, one surmises that there is a special kind of sharing going on among them.
Pyramide is one of the oldest and most respected of some 450 interntional sales agents. Last year they represented one of my favorite films of the festival, the Critics’ Week film A Tale of Love and Desire. Please read my blog about it here. The French government support of film as a cultural heritage allows the French sales agents to serve as the best examples of agents for the 7th Art to all other countries. As a world sales agent, Pyramide International has deliberately focused on the “film d’auteur” and promotes international sales of young directors.
As distributors in France itself as well as international sales agents, they also can boast of one of the top acquisitions executive in the business, Christine Ravet buys the films the French public lines up to see at their theaters as well as those that are sold internationally.
This year’s Cannes titles are described here:
Cannes FF Premiere Dodo directed by Panos H. Koutras is a coproduction of Greece, France, and Belgium.
Cannes FF Special Screenings My Imaginary Country/ Mi país imaginario directed by Patricio Guzmán is a production of Chile. Sales have already been made for UK and Ireland to New Wave; Benelux to Cineart; Italy to I Wonder, Ex-Yugo to Discovery.
Cannes FF Un Certain Regard Metronom is eligible for the Camera d’Or as it is the third film, but the first fiction feature of director Alexandru Belc of Romania.
Cannes FF Un Certain Regard The Worst Ones/Les pires is also eligible for the Camera d’Or. It is directed by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret of France.
Directors’ Fortnight Harkis/ Les Harkis directed by Philippe Faucon of France tells the story set during the Algerian War 1954–1962, when impoverished young Algerian men known as “Harkis” volunteered to join the French Army.
Critics’ Week in Competition The Pack/ La jauría directed by Colombian Andrés Ramírez Pulido is a coproduction of Colombia and France. It tells of a country boy, Eliú, incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction center in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a crime with his friend El Mono. Ordered to perform manual labour and undergo intensive group therapy, Eliú discovers that El Mono has been transferred to the same center, bringing with him a past that Eliú is trying to escape.Pulido’s feature directorial debut follows a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after El Edén played in the Berlinale.
And in the Marche: I Love Greece. And who doesn’t?
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